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Date & Time: 29th April 2007. 3 pm start. Location of Start : The Cold fell Road near Blakeley Rise, Cumbria, Uk. ( NY 067 130 ) Places visited : The upper Calder Valley, Whoap Beck, Lank Rigg, Whoap Fell, and back. Walk details : 5 mls, 1400 ft of ascent , 2 hrs 25 mins. Walked with : John, Jo, Ann and the dogs (Megan, Jodie, Polly, Harry and Bethan) Weather : A hot, sunny day but with some high cloud and a warm gentle breeze on the tops. A walk with John, Jo, Ann and the dogs . . . |
Jo is getting reasonably close to completing her first round of all the Wainwright Fells of Cumbria, so today the choice of Lank Rigg was hers. We parked at the head of the Cold Fell Road, just a quarter of a mile from when parked a week or so ago, when we climbed Grike and Crag Fell. We climbed the slight rise and could then see our route ahead. Lank Rigg is the fell straight ahead, and Whoap the lower green fell to the left, but first we need to drop down into the Calder valley ahead.
As can be seen from the right hand photo, Harry has had his stitches out, and his face injury seems to be healing nicely. Jo and Ann start the climb of Lank Rigg I call this the WI photo, not because of the 'Women' in the picture, but because of the green writing in the trees behind them. It's moorland grass in a big way here on the western fells of Cumbria. Lank Rigg, though, holds a surprise at it's summit - a delightful tarn. Here we paused for breath after a steady climb on this rather warm day. A slight diversion to the right takes us to Lank Rigg's second summit where we find a rather sleepy looking Bethan. Behind her the high fell is Scafell, England's second highest peak, with the rounded but craggy side of Seatallan to the right. This lower cairn overlooks the west coast of Cumbria where Sellafield and the Nuclear Reprocessing Plant catch the eye all too easily. From this slightly elevated viewpoint we turned to walk across to the tarn and then on to the true summit of Lank Rigg. On this warm day the dogs took full advantage of the cool water.
" Five go to Lank Rigg " Today we managed to catch a photo of the five dogs sitting quietly together, rather more successfully than we did on our walk to Catstycam where photographing eight proved impossible. The walk from Lank Rigg to Whoap passes across the top of the Calder Valley which has a fine symmetrical but broad 'U' shape at it's upper end. The fell above the forestry is Grike and the far distant one, where the line of trees end, is Blakeley Rise. A gentle if indestinct path led us up onto the summit of Whoap, but here the summit has no cairn. It had, however, a fine view back towards to the steep sides of the extended Caw Fell ridge. To the north, we looked across to Crag Fell, Blake, Gavel, Herdus and Great Borne, with Grasmoor behind, and the pointed Starling Dodd to the right. The trees in the centre are growing on the summit of Bowness Knott, just the other side of Ennerdale Water. The visibility was good today. Plain sailing now, as we walk down from Whoap, completing our small horseshoe of the Upper Calder valley. A relatively dry and warm April has meant the fells are drier and the streams shallower than normal for this time of year. This was the ford that Ann and Jill had to wade through last year.
This is the ford just above the sheepfold in the early photo and marked the end of our circular walk. From here we retraced our steps back towards the car. It was unusual and somewhat strange to actually walk up to the car at the end of the walk as we had spent the last half hour or so down in the valley on the opposite side of the rise.
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- - - o o o - - - Technical note: Pictures taken with a Canon G7 Digital camera. Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder. This site best viewed with . . . tea and bigger scones at Oak Cottage. © RmH.2007 # Email me here # Guest book (on the front page) Previous walk - 28th April 2007 Two Tales on One Day in April A previous time in the area - 13th April 2007 Crag Fell and Grike with Jo Previous walk - 30th April 2007 A circuit of Devoke Water
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