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Had a few great days of walking this week in Cumbria, but today I was heading back north of the border - though still time to do a small detour to make the most of the weather and grab one last walk when I set off at lunchtime. Have to make the most of being somewhere I can pronounce hill names properly!
It was just meant to be a quick leg stretch to Dash Falls and up Great Calva before going back to the car and continuing my drive ...but then Knott was so close it seemed daft not to add it on. I hadn't planned any return route but on my way to Knott passed a path heading off to the left downhill which looked a good option, so I returned to that point after Knott's summit. It was a scenic descent following a beck downhill, and when I checked the map, saw I'd then be heading along the base of Great Cockup ... no point in being so close and not nipping up that one too! Once at Great Cockup's summit cairn, I was sorely tempted to continue to Meall Fell, but saw sense and decided to leave the remaining Uldale Fells for my next time here.
- Parked in the parking area by Peter House Farm and took the signed lane towards Dash Falls and Skiddaw House which is a tarmac road initially. Lovely and sunny when I started, though clouded over through the walk - stayed dry though :)
- Views of Dash Falls as I continued on up the track. Climbs here to the top of the falls and crosses over to the other side of the beck to continue onwards to Skiddaw House
- View back west to Binsey from where the track crosses the beck at the top of the falls
- Thick, deep heather on the south western slopes of Great Calva - fortunately there's a well trodden path straight up from the track to the summit
- Great Calva summit looking south to Skiddaw
- ...and east to Bowscale Fell, Bannerdale Crags, Mungrisdale Common and Blencathra, all ones I'd done on a walk a few days earlier. Nice to look over to them again from a different viewpoint.
- Visibility was good and Knott looked very close, so another well trodden path took me there
- As I started to head up Knott from the col, 2 jets sped down the valley between Mungrsidale Common and Great Calva. I didn't get them in picture unfortunately, but it did make me realise Mungrisdale Common has some height, despite it feeling like an unspectacularly flat bit of moorland when on it! (Great Calva the pointy top on the right, Mungrsidale Common the rounded dome in the middle of picture)
- Knott summit, view back south to Great Calva and Skiddaw
- Cloudier and showers to the north
- Retracing my steps from Knott summit back down to the col, north end of Bassenthwaite visible
- Took a path down this nice ghyll, the path crossing the beck several times early on before staying on the north side down to the crossing of Burntod ghyll. From there it climbed again. cutting across the southern slopes of Great Cockup.I didn't see a path up to the summit area from this stretch, so I just cut up through the heather which was low enough and spaced out enough to give reasonably easy going. Once I got to the top area where the hill flattened out, I met a clear path coming from the direction of Little Cockup and heading towards the summit.
- Great Cockup summit, looking south to Skiddaw again
- Another worn path through the grass led off to Meal Fell and Great Sca Fell .... on another day I'd have continued on, but today I started to head back to the car
- From the western cairn of Great Cockup, views to Binsey and Over Water
- Another view of Dash Falls from this side of the valley as I headed down the slopes of Little Cockup to meet a bridleway
- Peter House Farm is the white building top centre of this picture. In Scotland with the right to roam I might have taken a direct route to it through fields, but in the Lake District, I decided to stick to the bridleway which then joined the tarmac track seen at the bottom of this photo, which in turn led on to the road which I followed back to Peter House Farm. No point risking upsetting the local farmers unnecesarily!