King's How and the Bowder Stone

Date & start time: Wednesday 11th August 2010, 1.40 pm start.

Location of Start :The Bowder Stone NT car park, Cumbria, Uk ( NY 254 168 )

Places visited : Great End Crag, King's How, The Bowder Stone and the tearooms afterwards.

Walk details : 2.5 mls, 1100 ft, 3 hrs, excluding refreshments at the end.

Highest point : King's How Fell, 1275 ft - 392 m.

Walked with : Jo, John, Ann and the dogs, Jodie, Polly, Harry and Bethan.

Weather : Overcast and breezy but not too cold. Two small showers on the descent.

For our first walk back in the Lakes after our few days away, we chose classic Borrowdale.

Unfortunately we can't chose the weather, but the walk is always a good one.

A refreshing cuppa at the end is always welcome

and the Grange Tearooms comes up trumps again.

The start of the walk and car parking is free if you have NT membership.

A short walk along the Grange Road and next to this plaque . . .	. . . is a path onto the fell side under Great End Crag.

The detail of the 1878 roadside memorial to a Mr W Hodgson.

The plaque incorporates two water troughs, for passing horses presumably.

With Castle Crag in the background we leave the road and walk around the base of Great End Crag.

A gentleman sits and contemplates his Wainwright guidebook on the large boulder near the path.

This is much smaller than the Bowder Stone but may be of the same origin.

Across the way is the Black Crag rock face, home to the Troutdale Pinnacle, a famous local rock climb.

We climb up through the woods on a steep path . . .	. . . that has been well pitched in recent years.

Saying that, I wouldn't like to descend by this route in wet weather as the stones were quite slippery.

Our first view of Derwent Water starts to emerge above the tree line.

King's How has a large and slightly unusual flat area at the top of the woodland climb

and we skirt around it to the right before starting our final ascent to the summit.

We can see a full view of Derwent Water now.

On a small slab below the summit, another plaque.

When King Edward VII died in 1910 his sister, Princess Louise, purchased Grange Fell (including King's How)

and through the National Trust, donated it to the nation as a memorial to the late King.

Presumably this is where the name of the Fell originates.

The heather is really starting to come into bloom

though today's weather does not allow us to appreciate it to the full.

Tele-tubby Harry.

Looking down on Grange Village from our lofty stance.

Looking down too, on Hollows Farm in the Jaws of Borrowdale.

The two large white objects are not caravans but large Mongolian style Yurts.

Derwent Water and distant cloud covered Skiddaw from the top of King's How.

Click here or on the photo above for a big value, Loweswatercam 360 degree annotated panorama.

Jopplety How (the small rock pinnacle in the centre) Brund Fell (the highest point of Grange Fell) to the right

and distant, cloud covered Helvellyn in the background.

We start our descent towards Rosthwaite and upper Borrowdale.

The path leads down to a gate in the wall

but we will turn right and follow the Bowder Stone path, staying above the wall for now.

As the wall descends steeply to the valley below we follow suite,

least we would do if we can only find the path.

The top half of John leads the way.

The red top is not in order to be conspicuous . . . but it has just started to rain a little.

Two interesting plants amongst the bracken . . . this Rhubarb looking plant . . .

. . . . and this purple flowered, thistle-like plant.

( Hopefully I'll have the time to find the names shortly )

	After a second bout of heavier rain had passed we paused under the spreading Yew Tree to put our coats away.   - - - o o o - - -   The bracken continued as we descend. Unfortunately it is rather damp after the rain so we continued to get wet even though the rain had stopped.   - - - - o o o - - -   Anyone know a cure for bracken apart from a herd of pigs or chemical sprays ?

The path leads us on down till we reach the road once again.

After a brief look at the river

we took the roadside track signposted to the Bowder Stone.

The large rock remains balanced on its lower corner

and has been a major tourist attraction since Victorian times.

A ladder allows easy access to the top

though the white chalk marks are testimony to those "bouldering" enthusiasts that try to find a harder way up.

One of the two buildings used to be lived in permanently

but is now a Climbing Club hut.

	Bethan manages, somehow, to find herself on the wrong side of a closed gate.   - - - o o o - - -   Her excuse was that there wasn't a private sign on the other side of the gate.   - - - o o o - - -   Beats claiming that she can't read !

The smaller hut and a rock pinnacle

(see my reference to a previous walk at the end of this page)

A final look back at the Stone as we walk down to the car in the adjacent car park.

- - - o o o - - -

Technical note: Pictures taken with either Ann's Canon 75 or my Canon G10 digital camera.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . Tea and cakes at the Grange Tearooms again.

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Previous walk - 7th August 2010 Clipsham's Yew Tree Avenue

A previous time up here - 28th February 2009 Kings How and Grange Fell

Next walk - 12th August 2010 Place fell and the Knight