I spy High Spy

On a beautiful June day a few years ago, we decided to do a classic Lakeland walk; Catbells, Maiden Moor and High Spy. Bro had already somewhat hapazardly climbed Catbells before with Dad when they ended up off piste attempting a full blown scramble which rather defeats Wainwright's description of Catbells as 'a family fell - grandmothers and infants can climb the heights together'....

Despite staying in Keswick, we were a little late setting off and on reaching Lake Road car park, realised we hadn't got any change. With hindsight it would have been quicker to have gone back to the house and got some, but we decided to "pay by phone", a quick and easy way to pay it said on the sign. Twenty minutes and much cursing later with deed done, we realised we'd missed the launch from Derwent over to Hawse End and had half an hour to kill. By now we needed a cup of coffee and the nearest place was the now demolished Lakeside Tea Gardens. It was a slightly surreal experience listening to a tinny Liberace number on a self playing piano at 9.30am and Bro visiting the 'Ladies Powder Room', but at least the views were pretty. So far, so disorganised.

The launch ride was lovely across and around half of Derwentwater, then off we jumped and started up the well worn path with about a hundred others. It was nice to chat every so often as people stopped for a breather. We got to the summit without incident but we did have a bit of an audience at the last slightly scrambly bit before the summit as we pondered the best route up for the dog, listening with amusement to mutterings of 'there’s no way that dog'll get up there', but he found his way quickly and easily, with two people following his lead!!

the view from CATbells summit

Once at the top. we paused for a drink of water, then sat admiring the views and taking photos. The weather was warm and sunny and it was glorious up there. Descending slightly, it was an easy walk down to Hause Gate and up the other side to Maiden Moor, chatting with people en route. Once on the plateau, we wandered over to a low cairn and sat down to admire the beautiful views over to Skiddaw and Blencathra and beyond to Scotland, marvelling at how small Catbells now looked, just below us.

maiden moor back to catbells

Bro was checking his GPS to make sure we'd hit the summit, when we realised we were on Bull Crag, not Maiden Moor..... Maiden's summit is fairly indistinct and involved a little wandering around before we found it as it wasn’t marked with even a single stone. The views down into the Newlands Valley were just breathtaking so we had an energy bar sitting in the sun, soaking it all in.

the summit is definitely here….

beautiful NEWLands valley

‘Oh no!’ yelled Bro suddenly, causing me to slop water all down my front. 'We didn't check the times of the last launch back!'… It was late afternoon at that point as we dallied somewhat enjoying the views and we still had High Spy planned. 'Don't worry,' he said, ' it's only over there' pointing to a cairn that looked quite a way away and was about the size of a thimble. We wasted a good 5 minutes standing staring stupidly at the cairn then each other chanting 'can we get there and back in time?' 'Yes, we can.' 'But are you sure we can get there and back in time?' Over and over.

Deciding we could, we jogged most of the way and actually it didn't really take that long to get there. There were a number of others on the summit and the views forward and back along Borrowdale were staggering. Pleased with ourselves, we took the obligatory summit photos and congratulated ourselves on making it this far.

'OK, on to High Spy' said the couple next to us. We looked at each other in horror. Sure enough, there was the thimble sized cairn of High Spy about half a mile away. Cue the stupid looks again, but this time we really didn't think we'd have time, especially as we had an idea the launch back was around 5pm. It turned out we were on Blea Crag and although beautiful, we now had to get all the way back to the High Brandlehow landing stage. Again, we pretty much ran all the way back to Hause Gate and picked our way more carefully back down the steep, pitched path across the flank of Catbells towards Manesty Woods and ran along the shore to the landing stage where the launch was just approaching. Early.

Despite all that, it was a great walk which would have been perfect if we'd planned the day a little better with some simple research. Suffice to say lessons have been learnt…

PS: we took a whole day a couple of years later just doing High Spy in torrential rain on the lethally slippery path up to Rigghead Quarries in the mist with no views. That’ll teach us…