Rambling Pete on Walking Places

Lank Rigg and a couple of others

Date: 19-Nov-2011

Map: Landranger 89

Weather: Clear, bright, and hazy with low cloud over the big hills

From the roadside at Scaley Moss ascend up to Blakeley Raise, down to Kinney How, along to Red Moss and up to Grike. Continue on to Crag Fell and descend to Black Pots before walking up to Iron Crag. Retrace steps and walk over to Whoap, continue on to Lank Rigg. Back down to the col and descend into Whoap Beck for the walk back to the start: 11.7 miles as measured on Satmap GPS.

I took the opportunity of nipping up to the Western Lake District to walk up to LankRigg – a lone summit that I hadn’t ticked off in my pursuit of the Wainwrights. Luckily for me the weather was good as well, and for the second time in a week the weather forecast from the MWIS service was 100% spot on – http://www.mwis.org.uk/ld.php . Sometimes they’re not so good, but then again is any forecast company. I generally use this site in combination with the BBC weather site, and more often than not they are fairly reliable.

On with the walk – after a 2hr 15min drive around to Ennerdale I stepped out of the car and quickly realised that it wasn’t very warm. That’s good for walking uphill and stops me overheating too much. I walked in HH base layer and Paramo Velez smock all day and that was more than adequate to keep toasty warm. I did need hat and gloves of course, but both of these were thin and did the job fine.

The forecast weather was for cloud breaking up over the northern fells, and these western fells were far enough north to benefit from that. Sitting just north west of the Scafells, Pillar and Great Gable, the hills I walked were cloud and mist free, unlike they’re bigger brothers who were cloaked in a big fat roll of nimbus. It’s almost as if there was a line drawn across the fells as north of Pillar and Great Gable the valley of Ennerdale and beyond were free, with Grasmoor basking in the sunlight.

My route today took me up from Near the Kinniside Stone Circle to Blakely Rise, down and up to Grike through the harvested forestry land. Down past the comms tower and around to Crag Fell, from where there are fine views along the Ennerdale valley to the High Stile ridge. From Crag Fell I walked down soggy paths, passing through a small section of plantation before a long steady ascent took me up to Boathow Crag, and along to Iron Crag. The views here should have been good but all I could see was a portion of Caw Fell and Haycock now and again. The rest of the fells were hidden from view unfortunately. After a brief pause for refreshments I about turned to walk steadily downhill to Boathow Crag once more to join a path which took me around to Whoap. All the best views were behind me, and Lank Rigg was now in my sights. It looked steep from the summit of Whoap, but this approach doesn’t lose too much ascent to the col between hills and the last push up to the summit was relatively short. The skies above the Irish Sea were very misty and the afternoon sun was fading, so the pictures to end the day weren’t very good. It was a good bit of exercise, 11.7 miles with nearly 3000ft of ascent – lonely though as I didn’t see anyone or any wildlife in the 5 hours it took to walk. Sometimes that’s nice though – no distractions and an empty head.