Volume One: The Eastern Fells
Essentially the Helvellyn and Fairfield ranges plus a handful of outliers. Easy, when young, to have big days out striding across the fells. The Fairfield Horseshoe is also one of the classic Lakeland fell races plus with it being handy for South Lakes based walkers and runners it is a suitable evening run for after work.
I can’t remember when I first did the main tops but do remember a school trip in the 1970s where we climbed Stone Arthur opposite Grasmere. Very much an up and down affair
I probably did the Fairfield Horseshoe on one of the school fell walks during the 1970s but certainly I’d done it by 1981 when I did the fell race which starts and finishes in the grounds of Rydal Hall. The fell race doesn’t actually do the full horseshoe but cuts back to Rydal Hall via a gap in the wall after Low Pike that is created for the race and rebuilt afterwards.
A lesser known horseshoe from Ambleside is the one around Scandale which is the valley to the east of Rydal. The horseshoe’s western leg is shared with the Fairfield Horseshoe but the rest is likely to be quiet so a good option for a busy weekend. The high point is Red Screes with a dramatic view down to Kirkstone Pass. Pretty sure that I did this in the early 1980s.
As hinted at above, the main feature of this volume is the Helvellyn range extending from Clough Head in the north to Dollywaggon Pike in the south. Apart from Striding and Swirral Edges that enclose Red Tarn the only rocky ground is the ascent of Helvellyn Lower Man from the north. Everything else is more or less grassy.
Helvellyn being one of the 3000ft peaks is by far the most popular summit here. I can’t remember when I first summited it but the most memorable was when doing a nighttime ascent of one of the gullies on the face overlooking Red Tarn in 2005 and a rescue of an injured walker/climber took place complete with evacuation by Sea King helicopter which made communication with my climbing partner rather awkward! They are very loud.
A bit of a weird walk was Catstycam: starting at Thirlspot I climbed White Side then from the col between there and Helvellyn Lower Man dropped down the steep slope to the east into Brown Cove, crossed the broken dam and then climbed the NW ridge of Catstycam before descending the NE ridge and then down to Glenridding. A lot of up and down on that one.
There’s quite a few outlying fells and subsiduary tops in this volume basically none of which I’d done prior to my mopping up campaign. Some, like Great Mell Fell are lovely viewpoints. Others, like Hartsop above How just feel like book fillers - it’s a pimple on a ridge leading to Hart Crag with maybe 15m of prominence above the rest of the ridge. Hart Side is another - Wainwright rather curiously gives it much more height gain above its connecting ridge than is actually the case: 80m or so vs. the real life figure.