Lake District: Carrock Fell, High Pike, Knott and Little & Great Calva

14 October 2011

After parking at the head of the road up Mosedale, a look up the valley of the River Caldew down which I plan to return later.

But my first objective is to scale the side of Carrock Fell, not something recommended by Wainwright but other writers have suggested routes and alongside Poddy Gill seemed practicable.

Crossing the beck several times in order to gain the better bank, and taking to the stream bed at times, without too much difficulty I got above the bracken line, and then it was a trudge across country, on grass with bits of heather.

Remains of an ancient hut, I think.

The weather forecast had been for lifting and breaking cloud, and a glimpse of sunshine in the valley had supported that forecast, but onto the top of Carrock Fell and the cloud is down.

On my way from Carrock Fell towards High Pike, and I am briefly below the bottom of the clouds. A short way past this I was hailed by two walkers who wanted guidance on where they were. It turned out that their planned route was almost the same as mine (but for my addition of Little Calva), so we joined forces.

An usual sight - a bench on top of a Lakeland fell, this being High Pike.

A windswept, damp and slightly muddy Stephen on top of Knott.

And this is Little Calva - Johnny and Polly (I think - I may have misremembered their names) had left me when the route to Little Calva diverged from that to Great Calva. With experience, they were very wise as the route to here was largely pathless and soggy, and the attempted contouring bee-line to Great Calva proved very hard work in deep and damp vegetation.

Descending from Great Calva

The view of the Caldew valley appears from out of the mist. There was a reasonable path on this side of the fence to start with but it disappeared and I crossed the fence to the left side where the going was a little easier.

In the valley, a sheep fold, unusually circular.

Making my way along the Caldew valley with Carrock Fell in the far distance.

A shame the cloud never lifted as promised, and as a result a rather damp trudge at times - no doubt a beautiful walk with excellent views in better weather.

Total distance 17.9 km and 886 metres of ascent in 6 hours 13 mins