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As I near the end of my three-year journey over the English Hewitts my more recent outings have orientated towards single hills, often remote, which have required an out-and-back route. I was therefore pleased to return to a round of four tops from Wasdale in the western lakes. Perhaps surprisingly, this was the first time I had driven into the Wasdale valley. The last stage of the early morning three hour drive up from Rossendale, over the minor road from Ulpha, was exceptionally scenic in the early morning October sunshine.
I had already decided to take the easier if longer route up to the top of Yewbarrow. I am not familiar with the mountain and didn’t fancy tackling the Great Door route on what was to be a demanding round. So, I set off up the path heading north from the car park at Overbeck Bridge keeping to the higher flanks of the western ridge of Yewbarrow, heading towards the col at Dore Head. The mountain was casting a shadow across the valley so I could clearly see the outline of the south summit, and the shadow of the long ridge heading across to Yewbarrow’s northern top. This gave me the confidence to stay with my route above Over Beck until Dore Head became visible in the distance. At this point I started to scan the ridge above me and reckoned I could spot the likely route of the minor path coming up from Dore Head towards the centre of the Yewbarrow ridge. So, I cut right directly up the hill on grassy slopes focusing on an area to the left of some larger rocks.
It's a steep ascent at this point, but it took just fifteen minutes of steady climbing to meet the track coming across from the col and to reach the small cairn of rocks marking the midpoint on the ridge. I turned right at the cairn heading towards the first summit of the day at the southern edge of the Yewbarrow ridge. I reached the top at the same time as a chap who had ascended via Great Door, who immediately made me feel better about taking the western approach by telling me of his difficulty in picking the right line up the craggy southern approach. Indeed, he was relieved to hear that there was a gentle route via Dore Head back into the valley, rather than having to pitch over the edge of the rocks on the northern end of the mountain. Having read up about Yewbarrow before the ascent I know that both Great Door and Stirrup Crag are perfectly manageable but as this was my first experience of the hill and this was a reasonably challenging round, I was happy to put off the rather more rocky scramble as an interesting route for the future.
I jogged across to the northern end of Yewbarrow, noting that Wainwright counts Yewbarrow as one summit, and wondering whether Kirk Fell, which was clearly visible to the right, would similarly offer two Hewitt tops for the price of one Wainwright. Lingmell to the southeast looked a good ascent for the near future, rising steeply across grassy slopes from Wasdale Head.
I chose to return to the saddle of the mountain to facilitate the easier descent to Dore Head, following the narrow path just below the crags, which winds its way downward to meet the col marking the lowest point between Yewbarrow and Red Pike. The route now turned northeast climbing on a clear narrow path offering some false hopes of the summit before the gradient becomes easier and the top of Red Pike comes into glorious view.
From this point my chosen route lay across to Seatallan. As I had previously completed the ridge across the top of Great Scoat Fell to Haycock, I decided to attempt to keep my feet dry and contour around the slopes using the 750m line before aiming for a large standing rock lower down to the northwest of Scoat Tarn. Just before I descended, I could see a slight tread rising on the other side of the beck approximately on the 550m contour over to High Pikehow. This is the mid-point between Haycock and Seatallan. In good conditions it is easy to pick out the route and it was an interesting challenge to stay above the wetter fell around Scoat Tarn whilst ensuring I didn’t lose more height than I needed to.
The total ascent on this walk is over 4000 feet, so I was not surprised to find that, after the challenge of contouring around the valley, the final climb up Seatallan was a slow effort. This is a great hill, very distinct and on a quiet Thursday morning, I completed it in splendid isolation. As I ascended, I noted the steep slopes to the east which dropped down to the path along Nether Beck and decided to use this route as my way back to the lake.
After I had enjoyed the coastal views from the top, I descended the grass slopes to the east of the mountain, aiming for the northern end of the rocks of Winscale Hows. From this point I picked a line which was relatively free of scree and dropped down through some light fern, always picking out the easier route, heading southeast to join the path along Nether Beck. This then became a mostly slow descent on a path interspersed with many irregular small rocks which simply required attention as to where I was placing each foot. So it’s not as fast a section as it may appear on the map.
The path kicks out to the right as it approaches the road but there is an alternative route, aided by a step-over stile in the fence, which accompanies the beck directly down to the road. Just be prepared for it to be a bit marshy. Its no more than about 500 metres back to the car park from this point.
I was surprised at how long this walk took me but there are three decent ascents and the paths rarely offer any chance of fast progress. Including Seatallan in the round makes for a good additional challenge rather than simply following the beck down from Red Pike past Scoat Tarn. The really big challenge would have been to go up onto the ridge to include Haycock but given that I had already completed that ridge from Ennerdale, my route from Wasdale proved to be a fine alternative with four Hewitt tops.
