Wed 24 Aug 2016
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Yoke and Ill Bell from Harter Fell west ridge
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I had previously done this walk twice anti-clockwise sometime in
the nineteen seventies. It works out to be a good 13 miles. Unfortunately
I never made any notes so cannot give the dates. Now, forty-odd years later in repeating
the walk I was expecting it to be very tiring and that I would have to shorten it
by descending at Nan Bield and returning by the valley, while Andrew continued
along to Harter Fell.
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Looking to the start on Garburn Road
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We
set off from Kentmere about 8:15 a.m. and began the hard pull up the Garburn
Road to the top of the pass, the sun beating down on
us and hardly a breeze to cool us. We then took the new broad path to Yoke embedded with light gravel and misses out the marshy ground.
We
reached he top with its new fence (the remains of the iron one have now
disappeared) and then continued to Ill Bell.
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Yoke
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Ill Bell from Yoke
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On Ill Bell
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The pile of stones shown by AW has been replaced by a better cairn. We paused for a rest and took a number of photos.
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Windermere from Ill Bell
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Andrew surveys westward
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The Helvellyn range
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Froswick and Thornthwaite Crag ahead
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On
Froswick we were joined by two girls who were dressed for casual country
walking as the weather looked set clear and fair for the day. They caught us up again later and kindly took our photos with Froswick in the background.
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Near Thornthwaite Crag
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There
was the usual crowd at Thornthwaite Crag, the highest point of the round, where
we stopped for a snack. The path from there on to Mardale Ill Bell is thin, but
direction was easy to maintain in such clear weather. There were lovely views
of the first three fells we had climbed earlier and once we crossed over to the
north side the magnificent crags above Blea Water revealed themselves.
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Blea Water Crag
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We stopped
again to refuel, and then made our way to the summit and then on down the stony
path to Nan Bield.
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Harter Fell from Mardale Ill Bell
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I
was feeling quite comfortable and surprisingly not at all tired and so I
decided not to break my walk but to carry on up to Harter Fell with Andrew. On
reaching the path that goes off right to The Knowe I decided to omit Harter
Fell and set off along that path while Andrew went on. A quarter of the way along I suddenly realised that having done the complete horseshoe in the seventies, I
ought to do it again in my seventies as it's unlikely I shall be doing the round again.
So
I turned and hot-footed it back to the ridge route and then up, at a faster speed than I have ever used on a climb, raced up to the cairn on Harter. I was truly
astonished that I was able to do it without even feeling much out of breath!
Andrew, not sure which was the summit, had continued to the other cairn
overlooking Haweswater, and when he returned he was surprised to find me
waiting for him. We then
continued along to the summit of Kentmere Pike. After that
it was the easy link to Shipman Knotts.
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Kentmere Pike summit
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However,
the descent from Shipman Knotts is steep and the path in places uncertain, and we moved too far
over from the wall. This resulted in our dropping down steep slopes, on a path heading for the cart track half way between the pass summit and
Stile End. However, it had the advantage of avoiding much marshy ground.
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Shipman Knotts from the south
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I
still didn't feel weary, but the toe of my right foot was complaining. Andrew
was finding things very trying, and after we got down to the track he appeared
really unhappy, really whacked. We just had to stop and rest for a while.
After
a few minutes he was ready to continue, and we decided to go by road back to
Kentmere rather than through the fields. At the car we refreshed ourselves with
hot tea and Jaffa Cakes.
Naturally
quite tired after 13 miles and over 5000 feet of ascent, I couldn't believe I
had had no real problems except from the toenail. Recently I have felt almost
completely exhausted on some walks (e.g. Sca Fell Pike and Lingmell), but today
just happy that one of my favourite walking areas since 1971 had provided such
a wonderful experience forty-five years later!
We
finished the day with a meal at the Eagle and Childe in
Staveley, which not only celebrated our joint completion of the Kentmere Horseshoe, but
also solved my problem of what to get Andrew for his imminent birthday!
