Bowfell & Esk Pike
Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 12:29 am
A hot summer’s walk along the trade routes around the high mountains at the head of Langdale.
I’m not sure what time the crowds must set off, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to see no-one around the Old Dungeon Ghyll at 9.30 on a blazing bank holiday… and still not a soul all the way up the Band to the summit of Bowfell. This is steep, incredibly hot going in its early stages before it levels off on the approach to Three Tarns (all three intact at the moment) – great views all round, but very hard work.
The final stages, on a decent route over rocky ground past the dramatic northern crags and then clambering up boulders to the summit, seem easier in the cooler air, but it’s still a peak that you reach with a feeling of some achievement.
A clear way, cairned and obviously well-trodden, heads over Esk Pike and its striking western terraces and looping down to Angle Tarn, nestled in a hollow below Bowfell’s northern crags. Terrific views over to the Scafells and way into the distance to the north, and a real feeling throughout of being among the highest of mountains.
After a quick jaunt up to the quiet little spear of Rossett Pike, I had planned a circuitous route home via Stake Pass to avoid what I’d imagined to be a horrible descent of Rossett Gill. But the sight of dozens of people of all shapes, sizes and ages coming up that way with limbs and spirits apparently fully intact, and a distant view of the path changed my mind. And – whatever this route was once like – the path-repairers have done a great job on it now, the zigzags ‘paved’ throughout with indigenous-looking rocks into an easy gradient. None of the guides would have you believe that this was a better path than that up the Band – to Wainwright they were poles apart – but it definitely seems it now, and that and the flat miles through Mickleden make a pretty easy end to a day.
I’m not sure what time the crowds must set off, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to see no-one around the Old Dungeon Ghyll at 9.30 on a blazing bank holiday… and still not a soul all the way up the Band to the summit of Bowfell. This is steep, incredibly hot going in its early stages before it levels off on the approach to Three Tarns (all three intact at the moment) – great views all round, but very hard work.
The final stages, on a decent route over rocky ground past the dramatic northern crags and then clambering up boulders to the summit, seem easier in the cooler air, but it’s still a peak that you reach with a feeling of some achievement.
A clear way, cairned and obviously well-trodden, heads over Esk Pike and its striking western terraces and looping down to Angle Tarn, nestled in a hollow below Bowfell’s northern crags. Terrific views over to the Scafells and way into the distance to the north, and a real feeling throughout of being among the highest of mountains.
After a quick jaunt up to the quiet little spear of Rossett Pike, I had planned a circuitous route home via Stake Pass to avoid what I’d imagined to be a horrible descent of Rossett Gill. But the sight of dozens of people of all shapes, sizes and ages coming up that way with limbs and spirits apparently fully intact, and a distant view of the path changed my mind. And – whatever this route was once like – the path-repairers have done a great job on it now, the zigzags ‘paved’ throughout with indigenous-looking rocks into an easy gradient. None of the guides would have you believe that this was a better path than that up the Band – to Wainwright they were poles apart – but it definitely seems it now, and that and the flat miles through Mickleden make a pretty easy end to a day.