Birker Moor Outlying Wainwrights & a Deadly Disease!

Mon 9 May 2016
One of Richard and my favourite new places to stay in the Lake District is the Brook House at Boot in Eskdale. Eskdale is full of gorgeous walking of all types. On our first day we decided to bag some more of my outlying Wainwrights – I saw that my remaining ones in that area could all be done without taking the car out of the carpark at the hotel – always a good thing in my book…

(click on photos for full size/resolution – Richard’s digi photos as marked)

We headed briefly down the road past Dalegarth Station (Ravenglass and Eskdale miniature steam railway) and took the next left towards the Stanley Ghyll car parking. Ignoring the paths branching off to Stanley Ghyll, our landrover track headed up the fellside onto Birker Fell.

We followed the track as far as Birkerthwaite Farm where we met the sheep farmer who was looking quite harrassed that day. We offered to shut his gates for him along the rest of the track to his farm and he was grateful and asked if we wanted to work for him for the day – as I love farm work I was quite tempted but my fell-bagging comes first I’m afraid.

Our first objective was Great Crag, an amazing-looking peak surrounded on the two nearer sides by large crags of around 30 feet – I knew there were easier sides though if we couldn’t find a way up through them.

There was a plain but very squelchy fellside heading straight up for the western wall of crags and we found a stile over the fence crossing our path.

We then promenaded along the crags looking for ways up. I could see a few – broken grassy rakes or a couple of easy scrambling routes. I found a lovely scramble ridge which was exceedingly easy and could be left for a steep grassy rake on the right anywhere up it – such possible escape routes give me a lot of confidence and I romped happily up the rock ridge.

Richard’s zoom of the crag – my rock ridge is directly to the left of the grassy rake up the middle

When I looked round at the top of the main crags I saw Richard was coming up the steep grass intead – strange as he likes a scramble – I put it down to the fact that he’s feeling much less supple nowadays. There were then very easy crags to play around on leading to the summit but no difficulties anywhere and I was soon up there.

R Wood

It was ferociously windy at the summit and we both had to come back down from the summit and hide behind rocks to steady our cameras for photos of Green Crag which looks superb from there (we did that back in our Wainwrighting days).

From the summit there are indeed very easy ways off – it’s almost flat grass heading off to the south-east, the direction of our next fells. We were heading for Great Worm Crag (which I always thought was Great Crag until I studied the map) – a grassy fell of no apparent interest but the highest thing immediately east of the Birker Fell road. To make the route more interesting we headed first for the minor rocky lump of White Crag on the way. It was pretty much pathless going all the way although there were some sheep tracks and there wasn’t really any interest all the way to Great Worm Crag which has no noticeable area of crag on it – a very grassy fell indeed!

Great Worm Crag with the minor eminence of White Crag in front

The descent from here was straightforward but, at some point, had to cross the huge Sike Moss (bog) before we could reach the road. I looked for the least boggy area and we got across without flooding our boots and then we just had the tufty rise to the road. We were quite glad to reach the road which we then headed north along for half a mile to the Devoke Water track.

The Devoke Water track is a landrover track and very scenic and beautiful in both directions. I soon branched right off it for my next Outlying Wainwrights of Rough and Water Crags. Richard had decided not to bother with the fells and just walked off to Devoke Water to wait in the sun for me. There is a track turns off just after a gate for Rough Crag and it is easy going all the way to it.

Views across Devoke Water

I met a couple with a dog on Rough Crag where it was even windier than it had been on Great Crag so I didn’t linger.

Looking to Water Crag from Rough Crag

The path continues along an easy ridge with great views to the lake and I was soon on Water Crag. I again hid down the side out of the wind briefly for a rest and an admire of the view back to Eskdale.

Looking back to Rough Crag

And past Devoke Water to my next summit

From there the path continued on south-west to return to the western end of the lake. There was a short boggy area to cross and the outlet of the lake where I found a poor dead fish lying on the grass by the stream. I felt awful that someone had pulled it out of the water and then left it on the bank so I put it back in the water – I know it doesn’t help but it seemed right somehow. At least the other fish could eat it there…

Seat How, my next peak, across Devoke Water

My path joined the main bridleway which runs south of Devoke Water and passes below the other Outlying Wainwrights of the Stainton Fell group which I’d already done years ago. The track was extremely wet and boggy and I had to leave it several times for diversions around the worst bits. As the track heads north-east by the eastern end of the lake, things became drier.

I admired the boathouse on its rocky promontory and assumed Richard would be sitting around there somewhere – I soon saw him sat amongst the rocks by the shore in a lovely spot. I joined him and had a break for coffee and shortcake before heading off for my final hill of the day – Seat How.

Richard’s photos below…

Seat How is a steep peak defended almost all the way around by steep rocks and looked fairly inaccessible – as with all Lakeland Fells though, I knew there would be a way. I found an easy grass rake up the eastern side and was very soon on the summit. As there are large crags on the north-western side I had to initially head north-east down the end of the fell to leave it but soon cut back under the crags as I wanted to do as much of the Devoke Water track as I could.

Looking back at Seat How and Devoke Water

I soon caught Richard up again and we headed back along the track together.

We crossed straight over the Birker Fell road on a track for the farm of ‘High Ground’. Another vehicle track goes through the farmyard still heading north-east to take us back to our original track near Ellerbeck Bridge.

On reaching our original track we decided we didn’t want to re-descend the same way to Eskdale so headed off right for Whincop Bridge and farm. The path continued downhill to the west side of Hartley Crag where it apparently headed off under the wall of crag of the valleyside.

(changed to an Agfa film here – what a difference from the washed out Kodak ones!)

This wasn’t the path we wanted as we wanted to head back down to the east side of Stanley Ghyll – Richard eventually found a sketchy path either side of a wall heading down that way. It was initially very wet but soon dried out into quite good paths and we were soon down at valley level.

R Wood

From near the Stanley Ghyll carpark we decided to head alongside the river to the stepping stones where a bridleway heads past the church straight back to Brooke House. When we were last here one of the huge stepping stones had washed away a few feet down the river – it has now been dragged back into place.

R Wood

On reaching the hotel and getting showered, I noticed I’d picked up a couple of ticks – one on my thigh – I removed them both. Over the next three days the thigh bite ominously started to swell and redden until I had the dreaded ‘bullseye’ – the sign of Lymes Disease – a serious disease which can sometimes prove fatal. Of course, this spoiled my whole trip and I had to get an emergency appointment back home and spent the next two weeks on Doxycycline anti-biotic. This had the unfortunate side-effect (as it says it will on the packet) of making me extremely sun-sensitive – I’ve never been sensitive to the sun in my life! 😦

At first I didn’t believe I’d have problems as I’m normally so immune to sun, never even wearing sun cream in Britain at all, but after a week the prophecy came true and I got extremely badly burnt hands on Skye. I’d say it wasn’t really sunburn but actual burns and it blistered badly and took about three weeks to get better. My burning and painful hands kept me awake for the next few weeks but the worst thing was having to cover up completely on the hill – I hill-walk with as little clothing as possible usually as I’m a very hot walker. Not fun! 😦

Stats: 10 miles, 6 hours