Volume Five: The Northern Fells
The last volume that I started to visit but also the one I finished quickest taking just eleven years from start to finish. The main reason for not visiting them earlier is that other than the scramble up Sharp Edge and the rarely in-condition Whitewater Dash, there’s no climbing there. That, plus the fact that they were at the opposite end of the district.
So what kicked off my visits to these fells? The Bob Graham Round. While this only visits three summits (plus, depending on the route taken, the book filler that is Mungrisdale Common) it is at least a start.
The route of the Bob Graham Round takes in Skiddaw, Great Calva and Blencathra with some fairly pathless (at the time) terrain in between. Of those, Blencathra is the stand-out peak, towering as it does over Threlkeld and with its prominent ridges and gullies on its southern flank. Slightly frustrating that I have only ever climbed it from its northern side.
In fact those three (or four) were the only tops in the volume that I’d visited until deciding to complete the Wainwrights - though I might have done Skiddaw Little Man along the way.
Something that might not be immediately obvious is that the layout of the Northern Fells is such that there’s really only three outliers, all the rest can be done in relatively self-contained horseshoe type walks. Uldale, Southerndale and the tops behind Mungrisdale village are all shortish walks that account for over half the summits in the book.
An exception to this was doing Lonscale Fell, Latrigg and the tops around Carrock Beck such as Carrock Fell by mountain bike. A bit (OK, a lot) of pushing to get up the Skiddaw bridleway but generally quite easy. Those were all in the same day but not the same ride. The Carrock Beck fells all have some form of vehicle track, whether current usage or historical like mining either to their summit or passing close by so not really a problem (unless you hate biking).
That’s them then!