Enjoying Ennerdale

Our first visit to the Lakes of the year was towards the end of March. We decided to re-climb Steeple, but this time from the Ennerdale Valley as we’d really only looked down on it and Ennerdale Water from the surrounding fells and had never walked in the valley. On the way to Cleater Moor, we stopped at Tebay Services having watched the television programmes, and were very impressed with the range and quality of everything on offer and, of course, the lovely setting. We had a cup of coffee and then made another stop at Rheged to stock up on some of their amazing salads and pastries.

We booked to stay a couple of nights at a country house hotel in Cleater Moor which made it very handy for the drive the next day to the head of the lake, which we did fairly early. Parking at Bowness Knott, the walk by the lake’s northern shore was lovely, although it started to rain quite hard. Togged up in full wet weather gear, we entered Ennerdale Forest, a cool, shady and quiet place made up of lovely Scots pines and home to a herd of wary looking black cattle. Luckily the rain stopped as we came out of the forest and it actually began to warm up a little. We followed the path to a bridge crossing Low Beck, then took a steep path up through the forest next to a substantial waterfall crashing down a very deep gully for some way, carrying on climbing steeply for perhaps half an hour until we came out of the tree line and into the sun and heather. After a quick breather and drink, we followed the path up towards Long Crag, seeing Steeple looming ahead.

The views of Ennerdale Water were gorgeous, as they were down Windgap Cove and across to Pillar, but as we climbed higher, the wind became much stronger and colder and the mist descended. It did clear momentarily on the summit, so we had views across to Haycock and Caw and the down the whole of the Ennerdale Valley. We didn’t linger very long on the top as the wind was really very cold, but as we began the long descent, the weather gradually improved and back down in the valley it was a lovely warm and sunny late afternoon.

The following day we headed back to Grasmere where we visited Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum which we’d never been to before and found really very interesting. We were incredibly lucky to see the only known written version of ‘Daffodils’ which was on loan from the British Library until the end of May. The next day we re-climbed Helm Crag which was the first fell we climbed 14 years ago and it was certainly the right thing to do that day as all the surrounding higher hills were shrouded in mist while we had fantastic views. We walked out and back to Gibson Knott to get views back to Helm Crag and, on the descent, tried to shelter from an unexpected hail shower before stopping for a delicious lunch at Lancrigg, just as the heavens really opened! The lovely staff put everyone’s wet gear in their drying room which was so kind of them as we dried out in front of the fire. We couldn’t believe how much about the summit we’d forgotten, apart from the Howitzer, and we certainly found it much easier climbing this time than before!

We then moved on to Windermere for a some relaxing time for a change, and visited Beatrix Potter’s Hill Top at Near Sawrey, also somewhere we’d never been, although we had been to the village before. It was very interesting and you could see where she had used places like her staircase in the books. We stopped at Esthwaite Water on the way back and had a little walk along the shore which was lovely and peaceful, making a mental note to perhaps return and walk from there along the Beatrix Potter trail to Near Sawrey. We climbed our 50th Outlying Fell, Raven’s Barrow, from the Gummer’s How car park, a new area for us and lovely in a gentle, undulating way, with views over to Cartmel. The weather wasn’t at its best, but the hotel was very comfortable with a beautiful lounge and wonderful views of Windermere; perfect with a glass of wine in the evening. We wandered around the town, down to the lake and I walked round to Cockshot Point one afternoon as my brother had aggravated his sciatica and was relaxing at the hotel.

All in all, it was an interesting week and we satisfyingly achieved everything we’d set out to do. It was so good to be back and we really enjoyed it.