Category: Mountain walking

The Miners’ Track up Snowdon for real

Snowdon – I have written about climbing Snowdon’s various paths, some from other’s accounts. This week I finally walked the Miners’ Track myself.  Snowdon is the highest mountain in the British Isles outside the Highlands (and one of only 34 ‘Furth Munros‘, which is to say mountains of the British Isles which would be counted as Munros as exceeding 3,000 feet had they not had the misfortune to lie outside Scotland).

I first looked down from the summit over thirty years ago (having come up the Llanberis Path) and saw an intriguing path snaking over Llyn Llydaw. It took me until this week actually to walk it, as I was in Snowdonia for a few days.

From the bleak, bustling bus-hub of Pen-y-Pass, I headed off on a broad, well-made path to Llyn Llydaw, where the path crosses a causeway. (I seem to remember seeing stepping stones all those years ago – I may be mistaken.) The lake water was very low – the dry, dry summer has shrunk it back. Around the shore of the lake, there comes the first real climb, up to Glaslyn, a smaller lake (but the source of the River Glaslyn that flows down through Llyn Llydaw to a string of pretty lakes on the south side of Snowdon, and to the sea at Porthmadog).

The cloud had descended, and visibility was very poor. The far side of the little lake was invisible. The path followed around the shore of Glaslyn and stopped. I knew there was a heavy climb ahead, up to the high ridge, where it meets the Pyg Track. I think I missed the track I was meant to follow up, and went further along the shore, but in no place could I find a beaten track. (I have since read walkers’ reports which tell me it is there – but in the cloud I possibly missed it.)

I climbed, on the track that appeared. I hate scree slopes and this was a bad one. Another pair of climbers were ahead of me and must have found their footing. I climbed on such solid ground as I could, partly in a trickling stream bed, which had cleared the stones. I could do it only because I had excellent boots and long experience. The jaunty families I had seen bouncing along the track before were stuck at the bottom.

I climbed, hands and knees, up. Others had come that way – on occasion I saw discarded a crisp packet or beer can or similar. (How do walkers do that? We do not have the death penalty for littering in a national park, but I would have some sympathy if it were proposed.) Did I mention that I hate scree slopes?

Eventually I reached the upper path, meeting the Pyg Track, which is well defined, by the many walkers on it as well as by the path itself. It is still a climb though, if not as vertical as the Miners’ Track section I had just done, and on until the summit ridge, where all paths converge.

The summit was packed, and cold and wet and with cutting winds. After patting the summit, I sheltered in the café, Hafod Eyri, standing incongruously at the top of the mountain, wondering why had carried my lunch up when they had soup and rolls.

I had done the Miners’ Track at last.

The weather being as it was, with little visibility in the cloud, I abandoned the plan of trying to find the Pyg Track, and I came down the Llanberis Path – one you can practically run. In Llanberis the sun was out and the lake glistening and blue and filled with happy family voices. What a difference three and as half thousand feet make.

See also

For now, I have provided a map below showing the main routes.

Maps

The best maps for Snowdon are of course the Ordnance Survey maps; the ‘Explorer’ at 1:25 000 and the ‘Landranger’ at 1:50 000:

Route map

Wandering from Keswick

There is no need to drive out of Keswick to enjoy a beautiful walk: the town is in the midst of prettiness. It was my quiet day, and so I looked about me at the town where I have been staying.

Derwentwater glimmered in the sunshine. I found the path up through the woods to a viewpoint on a tiny hill, Castle Head. From here, the lake is laid out before you, in its verdant basin, and the fells beyond.

I then followed paths to the north and east, through woods, by farms and over the road to a long, muddy way out to the Castlerigg Stone Circle.

There are always visitors at the circle, admiring it, breathing in the ancientness, or performing invented pagan rituals within it. All three were there to be seen.

Then down the road to Keswick. I spotted a path down to a rail trail – a footpath laid down on the old Penrith-Cockermouth Railway line, so I followed that in to the town centre.

A good morning’s walk.

Helvellyn over Striding Edge

I was told this was a fearsome climb. It was in part a gentle walk, and in parts gritted teeth, four-limb scrambling and prayer – which was answered.

From the car park in Glenridding, I followed the path another walker was going, befor finding there are several routes – you have to stick by the Mires Beck for the first stretch – but I looped over back to the beck, with cheery assistance from local folk who enjoy the views or the bowl of Lanty’s Tarn from the lower slopes. Back on track, I took the long, upward climb, along a path which is in parts steep or shallow – on average easier than those I have met earlier in the week. Past the forbidding crags, I followed up over Birkhouse Moor (the usual walk) from which the path levels out to follow a ridge beside a long, drystone wall. This leads to a prominent style known as Hole-in-the-Wall. Here the challenge begins.

On the walk I fell into brief conversation with a few other walkers – two young lads who powered ahead, occasionally caught up with, and three cheery young ladies who dropped further behind as I pressed on to the climb, and two experiences cragsmen (“Been doing this for 50 years!”) enjoying the familiar, breathtaking view.

At Hole-in-the-Wall, lying below you is a gorgeous tarn, Red Tarn, at the bottom of a huge corrie formed by Helvellyn; the back wall formed by the mountain’s long, cliff-edged summit ridge, fringed with snow; on one side Bleabury Crag and Striding Edge, and opposite the triangular shape of Catstye Cam. Up over rougher climbing (Bleabury Crag), to a jagged eyrie which is the beginning of Striding Edge. This forbidding eyrie is (I learn) called Low Spying How. Low it is not.

There is no path over Low Spying How: I packed my map away and with hands and feet I picked my way over the rocks between seemingly impossible gaps, with vertical drops to the valley awaiting any mistake. Then the Edge itself came into view. It appears like a set of dragon’s teeth, in a long ridge with nowhere for the feet. Had a wind blown up, there would be nowhere to protect you from being ripped from you feet and hurled into the void. It was though dry and largely still. I climbed down to the edge and round some way along it – occasionally stretches of path appear, and in others it has crumbled away and the tops are the only way along. It is thrilling, and deadly. Good boots that allow me to step on points of rock were vital.

I slid undignified on my bottom and reached hand over hand, creeping along in this unfamiliar landscape. Then I spotted the trio of young ladies from earlier – slower on the path, they were bounding along here, with all the confidence and suppleness of youth. And here was I creeping along: what years of responsibility can do to a man. Then halfway along, as I was poised not knowing how to move further, the cragsmen appeared. The guided me and the ladies (who had caught up by now) along the impossible tops and the final climb to the summit. I will be eternally grateful.

The summit is gentle, and in the sun shone as I ate my lunch there, unfurled the county flag (this is Westmorland’s county top) and wondered at the views.

The usual way down is another scramble, down Swirral Edge, to a gentle path. I could see hesitation amongst those going that way, and in any case I was enjoying the hills too much to go straight back.

So I headed north over Glenridding Common (a route with no scrambles and no edges). There is a gentle saddle from Helvellyn down and up to Lower man, and on to White Side, and on to Raise to the north. Over this and the path tracks along the slope of Raise before zigzagging down towards the Glenridding Beck, which I followed down to the village.

Route map

Maps

Scafell Pike from Wasdale

Three peaks stand in line above Wasdale, and in the middle stands Scafell Pike – Cumberland’s county top and the highest in the Lake District and in England.

It is a long haul up, but yesterday was the ideal day for it – dry, clear and still. It was a contrast to the first day I appeared in Wasdale, when I was told bluntly by the National Trust staff not to attempt it – and they were right. Yesterday I passed by the glass-like, beautiful lake beneath the Screes, where canoes were being carried to the water – the previous time (Sunday) a lone paddleboarder was looking uncertain, while wild winds washed Wastwater with white-water waves.

The path from the National Trust car park is a clearly laid track, frequented by many feet, so on a clear day even out of season you will never be alone, and the nervous, inexperienced walkers may appreciate cheery encouragement. It is an unrelenting, steeply climbing path all the way and you can think that the pain and exhaustion will not let you go any further – but it will. Once you achieve the top, all that exhaustion goes away.

I watched a few pairs and couples pausing in panic where you wade through the Gill at one point, but they soon find it is nothing – if you have the right boots or at least the right attitude. And so it climbs, apparently endlessly.

Actually, you cannot see the top until you approach the looming crag – then it is a haul up (hands and knees if you must for that bit, though you should just be able to walk, as if up randomly placed steep stairs.. Then round the crag, the top is in sight.

I did not want to leave. I was bathed in sunshine, and surrounded by good company (I was climbing alone but, as I said, you are never alone) and the views were awe-inspiring. From there the mountains of the massif and others of the Lake District rise in an endless parade. Below is Wastwater, glimmering. Further off the Duddon Estuary appears.

I showed the Cumberland flag – this is the county top, after all – then descended, far faster than the climb, and meeting many groups then coming up, giving encouragement and occasionally showing then were they were on the map.

Another fell done, and happily done.

Route map

Maps

The Old Man of Coniston

Bright sunshine, clear sky and barely a breath of wind – yesterday. Today the storm broke over the fells. Scafell was out of the question (and I did drop in at Wasdale – the National Trust staff were insistent). So could a gentler peak be found? Gentler….? Not really.

I headed for Coniston, in the heart of the Furness Fells – where Lancashire takes its part of the Lake District. The village is small, close to the beautiful ribbon of Coniston Water, and climbing the slope behind.

The fell itself, the Old Man of Coniston, is the highest of the Furness Fells, and Lancashire’s county top. I set off with a Lancashire flag in my backpack to place at the summit (briefly, before packing it away – no littering from me).

A road climbs from the village, leading it its top to a clear path; as long as you do not turn off in the wrong place. I did, and I wandered over the slopes of The Bell, a prodigious knoll above the village, before climbing to a well-used track (which I should have been on all along) heading up the hill. Here I met three young friends heading uphill, led by a local man who knew the way up. I tagged along, and they did not mind, which was very good of them.

The path winds around the slope of the fell, until it comes to abandoned slate workings: this is an extensive, unexpected industrial landscape merging back into the landscape – just take care to step over or duck the broad pipes and massive cables, and what the man-wrought leats carrying water off the mountain.

The views down to Coniston Water are glorious – in the sunshine – and forbidding without it.

After the long climb, you come to Low Water (an odd name for one as high as it lies), a large tarn reminiscent of the secret places the children discover in the Swallows and Amazons books which the lake and the landscape inspired. Burn cascade down high cliffs to the water – cliffs whose high are yet to be climbed.

At Low Water, the path disappears; or seems to. it turns and blends into the hillside, and climbs hard. The path zigzags higher, up rocks and steps, steeper as it goes – until suddenly. the top appears, where a massive cairn-monument stands (and a trig point to one side rather overshadowed).

The wind was scouring the top; I ducked for relief behind the cairn. I did not feel sheltered enough to open my pack lunch. Neither did any of my sudden jolly companions.

The views from the top must be spectacular. As we descended, it opened up, with the lake ahead.

The geology is fascinating up here. The slate at the top, and lower the rocks change colour, with blue copper-bearing stones appearing in places – lower down are copper mines – also the inspiration for an episode in Pigeon Post, one of the S&A books. There’s quartz in some. That is the extent of my geological knowledge.

Back to the village, I said farewell to my erstwhile companions, and reflected on a county top bagged well despite the weather.

Maps

Criffel

Standing high and stark above the flat lands in the south-east corner of Kirkcudbrightshire, Criffel seems out of place. It is as if the people hereabouts had called over the Solway to the folk of the Lake District and asked “Fine fells ye have there that we can see – d’ye mind if we have one, if ’tis going spare?”

Burns mentions Criffel in a song he wrote for the Dumfries Volunteers, so it has fame indeed (“The Nith shall run to Corsincon, And Criffel sink in Solway, Ere we permit a foreign foe. On British ground to rally!“).

The hill is a popular climb, the path leading up from New Abbey. There main path is signposted from the village, although there is another known route, that leads also over neighbouring Knockendoch, its subsidiary top.

We began, on a dry and bright day from Sweeheart Abbey in New Abbey. A short way down the main road is a signpost pointing south-south-west, between fields and then into woods. This leads to a pleasant village walk in itself – some of the year. Following finger-posts and up steps we came to the path behind houses – and came to a stop. We had found the right route (we later learnt), but the way shown appeared completely clogged up with brambles. A local dog-walker directed us to an easier way round, back onto the main road, past the kirk and up a residential road to the farm where we would have emerged. Apparently they have volunteers to clear the path every so often but, as wil th most volunteers schemes, they are getting on in years and not so able to battle the vegetation.

The path southwards is well signposted, along and round and to the shore of the local loch, Loch Kindar (which looks as if it has some history behind it). A large and determined herd of bullocks eyed us and started trotting not at us but for a gate in the field despite our being in the way. (On the way back they came at us to get into the loch. Each time it seems they reacted to our standing between them and the more adventurous of the herd who had gone to the next field or into the water.) After the loch, the path begins the climb and enters woodland.

There is a clear, well-marked path through the woods, plodding on until the wee Craigrockall Burn, running down the fell. There we turned uphill, up a proper fellside, woodland path, steeply climbing beside the burn. The woods are pretty here.

At the top, the path goes through a gate and emerges on the bare top part of Criffel. Still a long way to got. In contrast with the lush woodland, this part of the climb is windswept heather. We could not see the top from here: a cloud had descended on the summit and stayed stuck there.

The path is still clearly defined, and up we went. There is little to say until we entered the cloud. Inside the cloud, distances are hard to just: just walk on following the path as it appears beneath you. Eventually the huge summit cairn appeared. We stopped for lunch.

There is a beautiful view from the summit of Criffel, over the Solway to Skiddaw and Blencathra and out to sea – or so the books say, for a clear day.

It is a popular climb, and we met other walkers on the way up and down. (We had to reassure two teenage girls, afeared that the path would never end, that they were in fact within a few yards of the summit – they would see the cairn when they came to it.)

The plan had been to follow the alternative path down: from the cairn to the trig point beside it, and on to another cairn, then turn north on top of the ridge to Knockendoch, and then essentially due north on the ridge until it descends to the level again. We were told by another walker that it is a very pleasant walk. However the cloud was very heavy: the trig point might be next to the summit cairn, but we could barely see it. The path it not so well defined, and we could not see far enough ahead to judge which was the path and which way was just deeper into the marsh.

In the event, we retraced our steps the clear path and descended the way we came, which is a good walk in itself. It just means that another expedition is need in a future year.

See also

The route: map

Forgotten Galloway

Galloway should not be a ‘forgotten land’, but these parts are often overlooked. I will admit that although I have been through several times, I have not stopped long. I might have been powering south from Oban and the isles, or heading to or from Belfast, and I have stopped in Galloway and enjoyed it, but was always heading elsewhere.

The lonely coast, the forbidding hills, the colourful houses of Kirkcudbright, should all have said there is more to be explored. I must have taken it in – I even use a picture of the Range of the Awful Hand (in Kirkcudbrightshire) as the site’s frontpage picture. One version of my family tree has me descended from King Fergus of Galloway (like millions of others, I expect).

Therefore I will explore it; and will take in a county top or two as I go if I can.

There are two counties in Galloway – Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. Beside them is Dumfriesshire, also worth a foray.

I might never walk the whole of the Southern Upland Way from Portpatrick to Cockburnspath, but I can sample what are reputedly its finest places. I have read Bede, but not seen the wild places of Whithorn he described bringing light to the Dark Ages. Living as we all do in places with yellow-tinted electric skies, the renowned dark skies of the Galloway Forest must be seen for the wonder of stars (if the skies clear) or the silent, enfolding darkness.

There may be little fame in these places, off the tourist trail, but that does not mean they do not deserve fame.

Maps

Ordnance Survey:

Others:

Books

Mountainside burning

There is a gorgeous wood that runs up the slope between Slieve Donard and Slieve Commedagh, watered by a wee river, the Glen River, that drops down to Newcastle and the sea. It gives a series of scenes often in my mind, not least as I use those pictures as lock-screen.

Or at least there used to be such glorious woods. The sight on the news of the fires burning across the slopes of the Mourne Mountains are a hard blow. The pictures were beyond a normal brush fire: from Newcastle a whole mountain is alight with deathly white lines of flame spread miles in length, the whole hill in an orange glow, and Slieve Donard itself behind.

Heather and gorse burn easily and fiercely when dry, and the Mournes are covered in heather and gorse. This is a gorse fire. It can be cruel.

Last Saturday they said that around the Glen River the fires were out, but they were bursting out elsewhere. The toughness of the fire crews hauling equipment onto the hills calls for the greatest admiration. There is a picture of one man, utterly exhausted, surrounded by black ash, and others of firemen with just mats and spades treating amongst burning ground, where there is nowhere where you could even start except by starting somewhere.

I gather there are woods still standing. What else remains I do not know – the icehouse I hope is there unbroken. It burns itself out eventually, as the crews douse what they can.

I remember though a great fire that swept through the woods near where I was brought up, and the community volunteers who headed out, my family among them, to held keep it down when the fireman had battled all night. Now, you would not know it had happened. The fire was a living part of a living environment as I suppose it always will be. The gorse grew back and the trees around them. By the time I next step on those slopes, nature may have reclaimed them and restored the soft cover of those beautiful hills. It will do before too long.

See also

Maps and books

What would Wainwright do?

There are more stories about Alfred Wainwright than about any other fellwalker. A list of his favourite places would fill volumes. He once though tried to sum up the best places of the lakes in a walk. No one but Wainwright would have thought of inviting his friends for a weekend walking 107 miles across the highest tops of Lakeland, but he did.

The Wainwright Memorial Walk is Wainwright’s own account of the epic walk. It loops over many tops, the best in Westmorland and Cumberland, and with the best views of the shining waters which lie between the fells. It is not a walk I would recommend trying in even a long weekend, but when challenged, the sights seen are spectacular.

There are more stories about Alfred Wainwright than about any other fellwalker.  A list of his favourite places would fill volumes.  He once though tried to sum up the best places of the lakes in a walk.  No one but Wainwright would have thought of inviting his friends for a weekend walking 107 miles across the highest tops of Lakeland, but he did.

The Wainwright Memorial Walk is Wainwright’s own account of the epic walk, named “Memorial” after his death).  It loops over many tops, the best in Westmorland and Cumberland, and with the best views of the shining waters which lie between the fells.  It is not a walk I would recommend trying in even a long weekend, but when challenged, the sights seen are spectacular.

I have so far only walked short stretches of the Memorial Walk, but my eyes are always turned towards the hills with a map and compass ready.

See main article:

Books and maps

Ordnance Survey Explorer 1:25 000 maps:

Slieve Donard 2: Mourne with joy

Slieve Donard, the county top of County Down, Prince of the Mourne Mountains, stands looming above Newcastle; the silly seaside boutiques and rides, gaudy ice-cream stalls and beachwear shops looking tiny beneath its silent, majestic presence.
Previously I described the initial climb from the beach, though the woods by the Glen River up to the Ice House. It is here, having emerged from the woods, that the walk opens up, and the way to the top of the mountain appears.

Slieve Donard, the county top of County Down, Prince of the Mourne Mountains, stands looming above Newcastle; the silly seaside boutiques and rides, gaudy ice-cream stalls and beachwear shops looking tiny beneath its silent, majestic presence.

Previously I described the initial climb from the beach, though the woods by the Glen River up to the Ice House. It is here, having emerged from the woods, that the walk opens up, and the way to the top of the mountain appears.

The ice house is at the side of a deep, broad, steep valley climbing the mountainside.  It begins to divide the two neighbouring mountains, Slieve Donard to the south-east (on the left as you climb) from Slieve Commedagh to the north-west (right).  The route upwards is initially beside the wood, on a well-worn path, with the river, now a narrow stream threading between rocks, below to the left.

After the wood is left behind, the valley opens more and looking back there is a fine view down to the sea and the far Lecale peninsula, flat and fertile missy in the heat-haze.  The path is paved in parts from the rocks from beside it, and the river, now a bare mountain burn, is crossed again just on the stones within its course, and all in the great U of the valley which even over aeons this tiny water could not have carved.

The Glen Valley

The top of the path stops at a wall.  It climbs to the crest of the saddle between Slieve Donard and Slieve Commedagh halfway between the two summits and far below them both, and stops.  Here is the Mourne Wall.  The wall stands neck-high, between 1904 and 1922 by the Belfast Water Commissioners in order to enclose the water catchment in the Mournes, and to keep sheep out of it apparently.  It is a most remarkable construction, stretching for summit to summit miles across the mountains; Ulster’s version of the Great Wall of China. It also shows the way to the summit (although the fact that the ground goes up in one direction is generally enough of a clue).

The saddle (I keep wanting to call it a ‘bealach’) is a high ridge between the two mountains, and beyond it the Mournes stretch away inland, gorgeous to behold, and the wall looping over the tops to the horizon.  While I stood contemplating the scene a new group of walkers appeared over the lip, who had climbed the mountain from Bloody Bridge – a spot where the cliffs come down to the sea south of Newcastle with barely room for the road to squeeze by though there is a spot here to pull boots on and go.  The must be a more rugged path – and a goal for next time I come this way.

There are many routes up and around Slieve Donard:  I have listed some of the books below.  There is so much to explore in the Mourne Mountains, even just in this little corner of it, that one path, and the popular one at that, barely does it justice.  There is here at least a glimpse over those wilder slopes stretching of beyond.

I turned east.  It is a steeper, rockier climb beside the wall to the Slieve Donard summit.  You cannot stop as it is too tempting not to start again, and up, and further up it goes.

The summit levels, and here is the biggest cairn I have ever seen.  I clambered to the top of course. There: County Down duly topped. From the summit the view looks out over the sea and shore, to Newcastle, Lecale and the Ards peninsula beyond, into the Irish Sea, with the Isle of man appearing in the haze.  It is said that Snowdon is visible on a good day, but I could not see it, and the weather was descending.

Crowds on Slieve Commedagh

Back down to the Saddle, and I noticed that while there were many people up on Slieve Donard, no one was on its neighbour, Slieve Commedagh, so up I went.  It is an easier climb than the big one, and its summit cairn a far more modest affair.  Its resident inhabitants were better climbers than I – its sheep, and no more.

I looked across at Slieve Donard.  Its summit was now within a cloud.  It was time to descend.

Back down to the broad valley, and the vista once more opened up before me, back to the wee mountain burn hiding itself among the rocks and which grew as I followed it down, back to the ice house, which I took time to explore this time.

Then into the woods, the river a real river by now, with pools and cascades, and down, back to the car park and the sleepy seaside town.

Next time there are wilder routes.  My eyes at that point though were t a mountain further west, but that is for another time.

Maps and books