Date: 20-Oct-2010
Map: Landranger 90
Weather: Clear and cold
From the road near Brownrigg Farm, up a
track to a gate then up to the top and back down again :
2.1 miles as measured on Satmap GPS
After a
nice walk up Walla Crag yesterday afternoon, and clear skies
to end the day, I decided to get up early to catch the
sunrise from Great Mell Fell. This fell is another one of
those lone Wainwrights that I'm left with. An unremarkable
hill so I hoped for some 'warm' pictures to liven it up.
It's only 2 miles up and down, a real 'Grand Old Duke of
York' hill. I was awake at 06:30 and it's only a 10 minute
drive from where I was staying at Stainton - or it would
have been had I turned off down the right road. I got there
eventually, pulled into the side of the road just before
Brownrigg Farm and in the cold light of dawn I laced up my
boots in the dark - god knows how they stayed on, as they
were all wrong. It was still dark down in the valley with
the temperature about minus one as I set out. I walked a
little way up a metalled track and came to a five bar gate
with a National Trust sign next to it. A vague recollection
of the route came to me as being to the left of the woods on
the hillside.
the
real route up Great Mell Fell
the
sun rising over the distant Pennines
the sun appears over the top of Little Mell Fell
a
golden glow over Blencathra, with the shadow of Great Mell
Fell
warming
up on my way down
the
view over to the Helvellyn Dodds
quite
a few of the were trees leaning away from the prevailing
winds
hiding
the sun
So I walked left from the gate seeking a path
through the woods, but all I ended up with was a rough
scramble up a steep bracken covered slope - what a plonker.
Eventually after much undignified scrabbling around I came
into another wooded section, before flogging through more bracken above the treeline and converging on a very well defined path. I should have taken this from further up the metalled track where there is a stile - what a muppet, but then again it was dark and nobody saw me. I tried to get a move on to open ground
so I wouldn't miss out on the sunrise, and it appeared
softly in the distance above Cross Fell on the Pennines, and
Little Mell Fell closer to me. I arrived at the top just in
time to catch Blencathra and Skiddaw glowing in the first
light of the day, with clear skies above, good for my walk
later in the day to High Rigg. Further around to the west
the Helvellyn range (the Dodds) had a nice orange / green
hue and all around me the tussocky sedge grass was a strong
red brown. The walk back down was much better and I could
appreciate the weather beaten trees, and the joy of walking
on the right path. The hillside warmed up nicely behind me,
with the path having a heavy frost on it out in the open -
it disappeared under the trees. It was a short walk back
down on a grassy path, with a short steeper section down
through the bracken before emerging once more onto the lane.
Back down to the car I looked up at the slope I had
struggled up earlier, shook my head and drove back to
Stainton for breakfast - it's always brilliant stretching
the legs before the day has started and another loose one
ticked off.
frosty
ground ahead
Sale
Fell hiding behind a tree
the
gentle ascent / descent from the woods
the
steeper bit down - Place Fell in the distance
almost
back to the lane
the
gate back into the farm track
don't
go up a slope like this!
Where now:
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