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I hatched a plan to do this walk the last time we were in Bowderdale, as we walked along Bowderdale Beck Yarlside looked an interesting climb from this side, a bit of a different approach than the usual way up from the south so we decided to come back to have a go
Looking at the map a route from Bowderdale taking in Yarlside, Kensgriff, Randygill Top and down the ridge over Hooksey back to Bowderdale looked like a good day out,
The Howgills offer un-crowded days out in the hills, our little route offered a bit of steep ascent where, in parts, there are no paths at all.
The initial walk above Bowderdale Beck is always enjoyable, there's a real feel of remoteness
the view into Bowderdale, Yarlside in the distance
We crossed the beck at around SD680996
and started the steep ascent up the north facing ridge, it looked a bit daunting to begin with
but once we'd established a steady pace zig zagging as we went we soon gained height
most of this was over rough hillside but we managed to use this to our advantage. Soon the angle eased and we found a path, this led us easily to the summit
Yarlside is a good viewpoint looking over to the higher tops in the Howgill Fells
Cautley Crag
Distant Ingleborough
Kensgriff, our next objective, looked tiny compared to the hills around it.
The descent from Yarlside down to the saddle connecting it with Kensgriff is really steep, almost impossible to go down, there's no path so we had to descend taking care with each step down, we got into a rhythm and found it fairly straight forward.
Looking up from the saddle, it's a lot steeper than it looks in the photo
On the saddle the climb up Kensgriff looked straight forward enough, nothing like the way up Yarlside
we soon arrived at the summit and looked back to Yarlside, I don't think we'll do it from this side it looks very hard work.
Randygill Top our next objective
We went NE from the top down to the little tarn at around SD691998 looking at Randygill Top as we went, my planned way up appears fairly steep with only traces of a path, when we got to the tarn we could see the start of a narrow path, we followed it. It went straight up to start with then turned slight left, this eased the ascent quite a bit and took us directly to the summit cairn.
We had a rest and something to eat, looking over to Yarlside and down to Kensgriff we'd travelled quite some distance, looking at the timing it had only taken us 50 minutes
this is what makes the Howgills such a joy to walk in, the tops are easily accessible without too much effort, you can walk for as long as you want, as far as you want and never be too far from your starting point
From Randygill Top we descended to Leathgill Bridge then up to the summit of Hooksey (the 586m spot height on the map). This is a nice viewpoint looking south and west to the main bulk of the fells and east to Green Bell.
From here we followed the quad bike track and started our walk back to Bowderdale. This was a delightful way to end the day, a nice easy walk down a wide ridge in the sunshine, We wanted to stop for some lunch and found the ideal spot at NY677029 a sheepfold or a shelter of some sort, basically a run down wall to sit by.
We had a long break looking at the views it was nice just being out
From the wall it's an easy half an hours walk back to Bowderdale, on the way we saw this big fella with his girlfriends and children, wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him
parking spot view
We were out for five hours in lovely surroundings, in the sunshine and a very light breeze, we'll have to do it again sometime
