Pikes of Scafell 9^th February 2008

It was dry and cold when I left home and the sun was starting to rise in a clear, brightening sky; it was still sunny when I got to Keswick and starting to look like a good day. I parked near Seathwaite Farm, it's still early enough in the year to get within a mile of it. I walked through the farm yard and along the substantial track to Stockley Bridge; after crossing the bridge, I turned left by the side of the wall and followed the path up the valley of Grains Gill. It is quite a reasonable path, not too eroded, and most of the slightly eroded sections have been repaired.

Grains Gill is increasingly rugged as you gain height, especially where a footbridge crosses the gill as it passes through a rocky gorge; and there is a deep canyon at the top of the gill near its junction with Ruddy Gill, just before you reach the Esk Hause to Styhead Pass highway. As you reach the top of Grains Gill, Great End rises directly ahead, looking darkly impressive and just asking to be climbed. You have to cross Ruddy Gill, it's not a problem usually but it can be a bit precarious in wet weather. Once across the gill I turned right, in the direction of Sprinkling Tarn, not that I was really wanting to go that far; I was just looking for a way to climb Great End. I saw a likely looking steep green rake between rock outcrops; I had to cross wet grass before starting to climb up the plain green slope heading towards the rake.

I thought it would be a quiet route, although there were some signs of it having previously been used, when another walker came up behind me almost immediately; he was the last person I saw for some time. The rake becomes a small gill, a trickle of water makes the steep ground soft and squelchy, and the frequent boulders are slippery with being wet and covered in moss. At the top of the gill, I arrived at a small col that I recognised as being near the summit of The Band, close to my usual ascent of Great End. A small scree fan is the only only clue to the start of the ascent; it's an unlikely looking route starting with a clamber up steep, wet rock and after the initial scramble there are a couple of small rock chimneys to climb. The rock was wet and greasy so I decided to bypass the second tier because it was so slippery; in doing so I found the small path that I have used in the past to descend.

Once you get above the rocky sections, it is still a steep climb but you can keep to the flattened grass between rocks; as the gradient eases there is wet ground to walk over towards an area of path-like erosion. It is a more obvious route, steep again and much more eroded; although it is only the presence of a small cairn that really identifies it as the right way up. The rough eroded path leads to another cairn near the top of Branch Gully; from there onwards you have boulders upon boulders to clamber over. The way directly upwards takes you up the boulder-covered slope to the summit, but I prefer to bear left over rougher and steeper ground to the top of Cust's Gully; the viewpoint cairn perched at the edge of the drop was bathed in sunlight as I came out of the shade.

The good reason for making the diversion to the top of Cust's Gully is to see the large boulder, perfectly but precariously wedged between the tops of the gully walls. It's a straightforward walk over to the summit of Great End from there, you can even avoid some of the boulders until you get closer the big cairns at the top. It's not often that I have been able to see the layout of the broad summit plateau, in the normally misty conditions the line of cairns is not very obvious. From the summit you can follow the line of cairns for a while, and after that keep just left of one outcrop and then another; there is a cairned path waiting to be found as you start to descend towards Calf Cove.

The path disappears in the greenness of the cove; if you head for the higher ground directly ahead, you will reach the big path coming up from Esk Hause on its way to Scafell Pike. The path becomes very rugged almost immediately, its easy to wander off it in the confusion of boulders but you should keep heading upwards, half-left towards a rock outcrop on the horizon. At the outcrop the path bears right and there is some proper boulder-hopping to be done as you head towards Ill Crag; I usually leave the path to clamber up to the top of a small rocky summit giving a good view of the summit plateau.

The big path goes across the plateau marked by some unnecessarily large cairns, most people follow the all-too-obvious path and miss the rugged, interesting summit of Ill Crag. To reach the summit you need to make a beeline for it on the far side of the plateau; if you are feeling really energetic and in a clambering mood there is a rocky subsidiary summit that gives you a good view of the main summit. There is an interesting clamber down rocks and boulders before another clamber up to the summit of Ill Crag; from the top cairn is the absolute best view of Scafell Pike from any direction, showing off its impressive size and structure.

You are able to clamber down off the summit before walking over boulders, covered in a uniquely coloured greenish-yellow lichen; don't start to descend until you reach the big path again. When you reach it, turn left and follow the untidily eroded rocks and gravel down to a stony col, before starting to climb Broad Crag immediately. You will miss its summit too if you keep to the path; I left it immediately, bearing right whilst I was still in the mood for clambering, to the lower end of the rocky summit ridge. The boulders on Broad Crag are distinctly different to those a short distance away on Ill Crag, and they become increasingly larger as you walk along the ridge to the summit.

The large boulders you stand on as you make the final climb to the summit aren't as stable as you would hope, so a bit of care is needed as you step on to each one, just to make sure it doesn't wobble. There was a cairn at the summit, the first time for several years that I have seen one there; even more unusual was the fact that other walkers were there, the first time I have ever met anybody at the summit. There is another scramble down from the summit, over more large boulders and between rock walls, that goes back down to the main path; although the path isn't very visible amongst the boulders, there are plenty of useful cairns as well as some confusing ones. More boulder-hopping is required to get down to Broad Crag col before you can start climbing all over again; this time its the interesting, rugged and popular final climb to the summit of Scafell Pike.

I wasn't going to have the summit to myself, there were people everywhere; as well as being all over the big summit platform there were people on the subsidiary summit and there seemed to somebody in every shelter. The conditions at the summit were brilliant, sunshine with cold air and the views were exceptional.

You might think that it would be easy to get off Scafell Pike with lots of people and lots of paths; there are lots of cairns in every direction, all wanting to take you somewhere you might not want to be. In such good conditions you can head directly towards Lingmell, either on a compass bearing or by sight if you are familiar with it; there is another very big path and some very big cairns leading downwards. After walking across a flat, sloping slab you turn left down a very eroded section of the path; after passing a large cairn, the main path bears left on its way to Wasdale, and it is easy to miss a less obvious right turn. Walking across wet ground, you soon pass a couple of smaller cairns and signs of a path before walking over saturated ground to reach an obvious rock outcrop.

The outcrop is effectively the start of the Corridor Route but I turned left just before it, there was something else I wanted to do before descending. there are signs of a path but even if you don't find it, you can find your way on grass, between boulders, down to the stone wall that runs across Lingmell col. You can see a path leading uphill on the other side of the wall, it is the ascent to the summit of Lingmell, well worth visiting with being so close to it. It isn't that much extra effort to walk up to the summit, where you can alarm yourself by standing close to the edge, and look down the steep shattered crags; it's a long, short-cut down to Piers Gill from there. From the summit, I retraced my steps back down to the wall and turned left to follow it until I was able to cross it at a convenient gap; I found the small path, although in the past I have just made my way across the grassy hollow, leading back to the Corridor Route.

I turned left onto the Corridor Route and followed it downhill, steeply at first, and then precariously across the still-eroding head of Piers Gill. As long as you don't turn left down by the side of Piers Gill the Corridor Route is a fairly straightforward walk down an obvious path. There is one awkward place however, where newcomers almost always go the wrong way; after making a rugged scramble around the top of Greta Gill you reach what looks like an impassible wall of rock. There is an obvious-looking small path going downhill from the base of the rock wall but it is the wrong way; the Corridor Route carries on up the rock, it isn't as difficult as it looks.

The small path is a trap, an eroded, uncomfortable descent to Lingmell Beck; it's still a viable route if you are going to Wasdale, but it means you have an unnecessary climb back up to Styhead if that is where you want to be. As I was approaching the head of Greta Gill I saw a couple of walkers go down the path but they were too far away to do anything about it; another couple just in front of me were close enough for me to call them back and show them the proper path. As I reached the end of the Corridor Route, just past Skew Gill, I met the two walkers who had taken the wrong path; they were tired and disoriented and glad to be shown the way to the stretcher box at Styhead and the obvious path back down to Stockley Bridge.

When I got back to the farm at Seathwaite there were cars parked a long way down the road.

Andy Wallace 9^th February 2008

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