Plan today was to give the dogs a rest, and climb The Nab via Rest Dodd - we figured that it would be a less stressful walk without them since you are encouraged to keep dogs on leads when in the Red Deer reserve...

We made an earlyish start from Dale Head Farm, climbing up the valley route to Angle Tarn.



Lorraine was convinced that the shadow in Heck Cove looked like a face. I couldn't see it myself.


The path followed a wall along the valley floor for a while, then set off steeply up the hillside. At times the path was a little vertiginous as it crossed a fairly steep hillside below Heck Crag.


We had our eyes peeled for deer - looks like they had their eyes peeled for us too.



The ravens were having great fun above us - it looked as if they turned upside down every so often just for fun.

Interesting to see a kestrel hovering from above - not the viewpoint I am used to!

Near the top of the path and Thomas was complaining of a headache. I persuaded him to hold out until just over the next rise as there was a good view promised.

The view didn't disappoint. Wainwright recommends this path for ascent (to Angletarn Pikes) because of the delightful surprise when Angle Tarn appears, and I can certainly agree.

From Angle Tarn the path to Rest Dodd was well defined, though still quite a bit of climbing to be done.

Nice views back down the valley.

Views across to High Street and its satellites too.

And great views of the Helvellyn area. Catstycam always looks impressive from this angle.

After a short climb we reached the summit of Rest Dodd. Views of The Nab, and of a few scattered deer in the distance.


The path down to The Nab's ridge was quite steep, but eventually we reached the wall that marks the boundary of the Red Deer reserve - a collapsed signpost announced it.

From the wall we could see deer in the valley below.



And as we descended we caught glimpses of deer rather closer to us on the slopes of The Nab.

The ridge to The Nab was rather boggy in places.

Trying to detour around the bogs proved to be a mistake - much easier to just follow the path and brave the black bits (which were a lot more solid than they looked)

Nice views of Helvellyn area throughout.

At the top of The Nab, Lorraine and Thomas were disappointed to learn that there was no other way down from The Nab than to retrace our steps - but with no path listed in Wainwright or visible on the OS maps I was not confident trying to find any alternative way down, even if I had wanted to ignore the notices requesting that all access to the Nab was via Rest Dodd (which I did not). Probably the first occasion when they actually WANTED me to find a "Daddy shortcut" and I refused...
Time was getting on though - we had 4.5 miles to get home and only about 2.5 hours of daylight left.

We headed back the way we had come, cutting off the corner near the wall rather than going back to the top of Rest Dodd.


Lovely light on the fells, though that also served to remind me that we were running out of light, so we had to push on.






Nearly missed the turning at Angle Tarn - GPS saved the day.

The narrow bits of the path down were just as unpleasant as they had been on the way up - if we had had more time I would have taken the alternative path down via the Beda Fell ridge. But at least we got past it before losing the light.





By the time we got back to the car it was officially 15 minutes past sunset and was starting to get dark.

The walk was rather longer and harder than I had expected - I think I underestimated the amount of ascent/descent required. But the weather was great, and the scenery most enjoyable, and we did get to see a few deer.