England - Lake District

Bowfell and Crinkle Crags

Character: a walk of surprising effort, and navigation problems in poor visibility

Ascent: 2500 feet

Time: 6 hours

Map: Ordnance Survey Outdoor Leisure Map 6 (1:25,000) (English Lakes SW)

Like most peaks around this part of the Lake District, there are numerous ways up and down. As my sister Cath and I had the advantage of our parents playing taxi driver for us, we decided to start and finish the walk at different spots. Additionally, as I am pathologically lazy, I was keen to start at the highest possible point! So we chose to start from the Three Shire Stone on the Wrynose pass, at nearly 100 metres! The end point we chose was the Old Dungeon Gill Hotel (now I can't think why I thought that was a good idea....?).

The first part of the walk went well, and according to plan, apart from the weather which was shocking - freezing cold drizzle in mid June. I suppose you get that.. We walked up a reasonably clear track North from the pass to the small high tarn at the level spot some 1 km north - Red Tarn. Just a few hundred metres beyond this we took the first path shown on the map, meandering up and to the West. The going was never difficult, but with being in the cloud we had no views to spur us on. Eventually, after turning more to the North West, the first craggy peak is encountered. This is where our problems began. With no visibility, and with small tracks meandering here there and everywhere through the rocks and hard ground, I was never completely clear as to which of the five bloody Crinkles we were on! Visibility was literally 50 metres or less, and a 20 metre drop and re-ascent was always a question of "Is this the next Crinkle?", or should there be more of a drop? To this day, I cannot be sure we actually made it to the top of the highest Crinkle. We certainly encountered a big cairns, roughly where I thought the top would be. I am sure that at best we missed a few of the Crinkle tops.

The next problem was that to carry on to Bowfell from the top of the Crinkles I noticed that the map showed a slight deviation to the North North West. So when we ended up on this rough course I was reasonably happy, and we appeared to be on a track, although at times very bouldery and steep descending. Fortunately, just as we seemed to be truly lost, we had descended far enough to get a brief view, and I could see Bowfell ahead (its silhouette, even though I had never seen it before, is unmistakable from the South. It looks like a huge hot-rod engine, some beast cast out of iron or steel, with huge cylinders and shafts etched out of its solid South face). We had descended much too far to the West and were about 100 metres vertically and 500 metres horizontally from Three Tarns, where I had hoped to come off the Crinkles (this is the point roughly where I took the photo abpve). For those of you who have done this walk in good visibility, you will think I am the most incompetent navigator ever (there could be some truth in that), but if you did this walk on a day with visibility, I tell you the Crinkles are a completely different prospect within the clouds! The picture below (stolen, I'm afraid, from Antony Tower - see Virtual Walker Directory, a fantastic hill walking resource) shows what the view from near Shelter Crags down into Langdale is like. What a photo and what a view!

Looking down into Langdale from near Shelter Crags (courtesy Antony Tower, Virtual Walker Directory)

From Three Tarns the walk up Bowfell was clear (I mean obvious - the cloud had descended again, so we had no views). A terrible jumble of rock and boulder, and steep and wet underfoot, there is no grass on the main climb, which adds to the industrial and brooding feel to Bowfell. Although the first picture above shows some of this character it does not do the hill justice. As the path levels it heads West along Bowfell's summit ridge, and the actual summit is a bobble on this, a small castellated bobble, if bobbles can be castellated. Some kindly souls have arranged the rocks to provide a shelter, and we needed it.

On top of Bowfell (note the drug assisted ascent)

You re-trace your steps now to Three Tarns, where you have the choice of the steep drop into or towards Hell Gill and Oxendale, or the path we took North East then East down The Band. The choice we took was good, with the band having a couple of steeper sections, but generally providing a gradual descent into Langdale (and views of The Pikes on the left and Pike O'Blisco on the right) and then through a farm and on to The Old Dungeon Gill Hotel for a pint of Cumberland!