Mellbreak and Hen Comb

[andy63]

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I parked at Maggie's Bridge car park, and began by walking back along the road to Loweswater village before heading up the path towards Mellbreak.

Mellbreak

Ascent path

The ascent is quite steep but there's a zig-zag path avoiding the worst bits of scree.

There are two cairns on Mellbreak's North Top, but the main summit is some distance away along a wide boggy ridge.

Mellbreak N top summit

South top

South top summit

View from south top

After visiting both summits of Mellbreak I returned to the saddle and began the descent.The first path I followed turned out to be a steep gully.Further down it started to get too steep, so I turned right along a sheep track, which fortunately connected to a better path leading down to the valley.

Descent

At the bottom I followed the path along Mosedale Beck upstream as far as the bridge..

Bridge over Mosedale Beck

There wasn't an obvious path up Hen Comb so I headed straight up the steep grassy slope.This meant I got to the summit quite quickly. It also meant that I was exhausted by the time I got there.

Hen Comb ascent

Hen Comb summit

Mellbreak from Hen Comb

I had considered extending the walk to include the other three Loweswater fells, but after two steep climbs the prospect of going back dwn to the valley and then starting another ascent didn't appeal. So Blake, Burnbank and Gavel Fells have been saved for another day.
I then followed the ridge down over Little Dodd, and then turned left to follow a wall down towards Whiteoak Beck.
As the weather had been fairly dry recently it was possible to step across the beck, and return past High Nook Farm to the car park.

Loweswater from Hen Comb descent

Crossing Whiteoak Beck

[ChrisW]

Thats a nice round Andy, in good weather too, there doesn't seem to be too much of that about of late. Hate that damn scree the only good thing about it is descending on it via a bit of 'boot skiing'