Hard Knott & Border End

Oct 2014
At the moment, Lakes trips are very interesting for us both as I’ve decided Richard is bagging all the Wainwrights and he has all the lower, less-frequented ones left to do. This means that on each walk I’m going back to places I rarely get to and where I haven’t been for years and it’s all new to him – result for both of us 🙂

Border End from Hard Knott Pass

All photos by Richard Wood – click on for full size/resolution
This particular day was horrendous weather – rain, gloom and clag but, for once, we were really lucky and our hill was in an island of good weather. All around was gloom and very low, black cloud but we had patches of sunshine and dry weather 🙂 Due to the ominous look to the weather when we set off from Broughton-in-Furness, however, I didn’t bother taking my camera out of the room. It’s a heavy beast and I can’t just delete my photos if they’re rubbish – we just took Richard’s digital once again.

Richard was less than enthused when I first told him he was Wainwright-bagging to finish off all his undone hills but even he has to admit he’s had some really great days since we started. He certainly enjoyed this one – as I did.

I drove sloshily up the Duddon valley and, just after the junction where you turn onto the road between Hard Knott and Wrynose Passes, we took a left for Hard Knott. Before the first bend in the road, there is a tiny quarry hole which was a perfect fit for my car – we parked up and booted up and set off for the interesting walk up the road pass.

Now, the Hardknott Pass is probably the most difficult road in the British Isles – Scotland think they have some difficult and scary roads but they’re nothing like Hard Knott – I know, I’ve done them all. I’ve only ever driven the Hard Knott pass once and don’t intend to do it again. It has hills steeper than 1-in-4 in places, is one car’s width with passing places and hairpin bends… and lots of traffic! All this would be okay if you were coming up it and people coming down gave way and waited in the passing places but often they don’t. If you miss on some of the bends, your car crashes down into a steep declivity! All this, however, makes it a very interesting road to walk up and ‘vehicle-watch’ 😉

No-one made a hash of driving up the pass (you often see folks who do) and one motorcyclist and pillion went up and back just for the fun of it. We were also surprised to see the Mountain Goat minibus go over the pass – wouldn’t fancy that journey myself – I’d probably get out and walk if someone else was going to drive.

Anyway, enough of my wittering and onto the photos. Hard Knott and Border End are both very scenic hills full of interesting humps, bumps, craggy knolls and tarns. Here’s the proof…

First up, looking back down the start of the pass which I reckon is 1-in-3 although it doesn’t look like it in photos – did a car go straight on at the bottom? (see the tyre tracks up the knoll!)

Looking back down from further up the pass – over the wall is one of the aforementioned huge declivities!

View from near the top of the pass looking to Wrynose Pass (the distant col)

Me waiting patiently under Border End for the photographer to catch up – and grinning hugely to be back in my beloved Lake District 😉

Stonesty Pike having worse weather – we were hoping to go up Cold Pike next to it after these two but it didn’t clear so we didn’t bother…

We soon reached the rocky crest of Border End where there were nice views back down to the road pass – note the murk across the valley…

Peeing it down back where we came from!

Gloom over Hardknott Fort and Eskdale…

But quite nice where we’re going (Hard Knott from Border End)…

There are loads of interesting tarns on Border End so missing it out and going straight for Hard Knott would be a bad decision!

Even Harter Fell is in the clag and it’s only around the same height as our hill

We then reluctantly left Border End to move onto Hard Knott – we determined to clamber up every lump and bump between the two – made for very interesting walking and clambering… First of all, two final looks back to Border End as we left – I loved what I called the 3-eared hill (first photo)…

Looking back towards Wrynose Pass showed the weather was getting worse over there!

Onward to Hard Knott under the good weather…

With interesting side peaks with bad weather beyond them…

Before going for the rocky side peaks, we diverted down the north-west side to look for the Eskdale Needle which I’d only seen before from below in Upper Eskdale…

The sun hit Scar Lathing in Upper Eskdale for a minute…

And the magnificent Pen (Scafell Range) tried to clear…

We then headed for a spot of light scrambling on the side peaks – very dramatic weather behind them…

Hardknott Summit – getting ignored for now…

The best of the peaks for scrambling – steep and lot of route choice, easy or hard. I’m afraid I was sticking with easy…

Richard took photos of a scrambling mountain coward (unbeknownst to me as I was concentrating)…

Hard Knott from the scrambling peak before we went to hunt for a way down off it!

There were some interesting cleft crags on the approach to Hard Knott itself and I was a bit tempted to try a crack climb – however, I decided against it. I think the abrasiveness of the rock put me off as I didn’t wish to wreck either my best hiking boots or my hands!

So we just continued on to the summit…

As this is only really a short walk we didn’t linger on the summit for a break but continued on along the gentle ridge which descends to the far end of Mosedale. There are four Mosedale valleys in the Lakes – and they’re all exceedingly wet! The descent ridge is pretty wet too but had an interesting little rocky ‘island’ peak and tarn…

The sheep were pretty upset as we sloshed by them down Mosedale – I don’t think many people visit the valley really. It was a wet, but pleasant, walk back out of the valley to the car. A great half-day walk and definitely one we’ll do again when the high tops are in the clag 🙂