Hartsop Round

[Phooooey]

Hartsop - Brock Crags - Rest Dodd - The Knott - Kidsty Pike - High Raise - Rampsgill Head - High Street - Thornthwaite Crag - Gray Crag - Cauldale Moor - Hartsop Dodd - Hartsop

our_route.gpx Open full screen  NB: Walkhighlands is not responsible for the accuracy of gpx files in users posts

I wasn't going to let the weather beat me today ! The forecast was for light showers and myself and Damson got away with it for most of the day with just some low lying rain cloud (maybe not too low) hanging over High Street, Thortnthwaite Crag and Gray Crag on our route round.
I took inspiration from a web report (done in the midst of winter) covering the mountains bagged here and followed the same route. The web report warned of the straight ascent onto Brock Crags as being extremely tough and with the grass being slippery I decided on the zig zag path (which was still hard going) arriving about half a km to the right of the summit which was very boggy. From here onto Satura Crag and headed left for Rest Dodd (looked like I was the only one mad enough to attempt this as most carried on right towards The Knott without tackling this lump).
A descent down the wall got very boggy so on reaching the dell between Rest Dodd and The Knott I crossed over to the right and picked up the main path (probably the right decision after seeing track from the top).
After the quick hop right onto The Knott summit I headed out over the straights of Riggindale and left onto Kidsty Pike. Realising how close High raise was I ventured back on myself to cover this top and Rampsgill Head. It was only 12:40 at this point so I decided that although the rain clouds were descending, I would continue out over High Street and onto Thornthwaite which had very low visibility and played hell with my camera which decided it was too wet to bother coming out of its shell for more than 2 seconds when switched on. Managed a very bleak piccy on Thornthwaite before heading out on the grass ridge to Gray Crag (which I thought was going to be far scarier than it turned out in the fog).
Returning to the mouth we went down out of the cloud and back up to Stony Cove Pike which was where my legs decided they'd had enough and the climb seemed to last forever (lord knows how the guys from the web report did this in mid winter with all that snow). A well deserved rest on Stony Cove (Cauldale Moor) and then down the wall onto Hartsop Dodd before the steep grassy descent back to Hartsop Village.
Would rather have had 5 bottles of Coke (on return to the car) than a pint so headed back home to Dalton to raid the fridge.

Start at Hartsop village looking up at our descent route

View to Hayeswater from Brock Crags

Brock Crags summit

Rest Dodd

The Knott looking towards High Street and descending cloud

Kidsty Pike summit

High Raise from Kidsty Pike

Thornthwaite Crag in rain cloud and very low visibility

Back from Gray Crag to mouth leading down and up to Stony Cove Pike

Got down - Now UP !!

Stony Cove Pike summit

Finally on Hartsop Dodd

View to Brock Crags & Rest Dodd from Hartsop Dodd

View down on Brothers Water from Hartsop Dodd

Steep descent back to Hartsop Village

[Phooooey]

Finally got round to adding a few pics