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Gragareth has always been "that hill next to Whenside" to me, I had wondered what it would be like to walk the length of the ridge but never really fancied it from Kingsdale so it was put to the back of my mind in the "maybe" file and took no more interest in it.
Looking for something different to do in the Dales away from the Bank Holiday crowds Gragareth burst out of the file and screamed "what about me and my neighbours"?, ahh now there's an idea I thought, so I started to do a bit of research and found, thanks to members of the walkhighlands family, that a good approach was from Leck Fell House and two other fells, Great Coum and Crag Hill, could be included as well, looking on the map the route looked good so we decided to give it a go.
There seemed to be one thing noted in the reports I looked at, it was a rather boggy walk, well, we'd been on many a boggy walk this year so a bit of damp wasn't going to put us off, surely it can't be that bad, could it? here's how we got on.
We parked up near the end of the public road just short of the gate by the farm, there's a fairly big area to park here, room for six cars parked thoughtfully, we were the only ones there but we were fairly early.
The fells were clag bound but we could see the Three men of Gragareth quite clearly so were hopeful it would lift as it got warmer.
We set off towards the farm and went through a gate leading on to a track, instead of heading directly uphill we walked the track for 500m or so then doubled back on a rising traverse towards the Three men, we found this easy going and without much effort we arrived at the cairns in good time.
There are two sets of three cairns looking very similar to each other, I think the original set are the larger ones but decided to visit both sets to be sure, I'm not sure the reason why the cairns were built, I've read they're Victorian but for what purpose I've no idea.
Original?
Or original?
Summits covered.
From the cairns we set off for the summit of Gragareth, there's a path but it becomes a little vague travelling over the wet hillside, we soon spotted the trig point through the clag and once there the route ahead is clearly seen heading N.E ish towards a well built wall which, once arrived at, is followed all the way to Great Coum.
Looking back.
From Gragareth to Great Coum its a real bogfest, very wet and soggy all the way, we've had a damp summer so I guess this type of terrain holds moisture like a sponge, that's just what it was like, walking on a wet sponge, leather boots are a godsend on this type of stuff, we were walking in water over our bootlaces for most of the way and thankfully our feet stayed dry. The cloud was lifting now so we were getting some nice views of Ingleborough and Whernside.
What the heck..........?
County stone?
With markings
It becomes less soggy on the climb up Green Hill, then wet again in the next dip, it gets dryer up on to Great Coum, the summit of which is just over the wall.
We set off for Crag Hill, the journey was, you've guessed it, wet, but there was more opportunity to avoid the bad bits by performing the rather ungainly route finding method of boghopping.
We had our lunch by the wall on Crag Hill, by now most of the fells were clear of cloud so we had a sedate lunch looking at the views, it's nice to think all of this open space and seclusion is only an hour away from home.
Setting off S.W. alongside the fence we headed for Richard Man (pile of stones on the map) once there we went across the hillside slightly west of south to the next fence and followed that down to Ease Gill where there's a bridge just above the waterfall marked on the map.
From the bridge.
Waterfall.
Here we made our way down to the now dry riverbed and followed this to about SD664803 where there's a gate in the wall, went through the gate and turned immediate left, there's a path, initially steep that follows the wall all the way back to Leck Fell House over more soggy ground.
Our wall.
Heather in full "show off" mode.
This is a lovely walk, probably better saved for a cold clear winters day when the ground is frozen or after a prolonged dry spell during the summer months.
It's quiet, we saw our first humans when back at the car, most of the day was spent in the company of birds, voles, frogs, dragonflies and, of course, sheep.
We might do Gragareth and Great Coum from Kingsdale next time starting from Yordas Cave and head over to Whernside via High Pike, that'll be different.
