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BB0622:
Round the Dunny!
Wednesday,
2nd August 2006
The
forecast was for buffeting winds and nasty rain so we
decided that Pen-y-Ghent could once again wait for us.
Bryan came up with one of his wet weather specials-
The Dunnerdale Horseshoe. This had the great merit
of not being too high (max 1231 feet) and being well
to the west where the weather was expected to be better.
Unfortunately
I was taken by surprise by Bryan and Tony arriving early,
before I had finished packing, so I threw together my
things and in doing so omitted several important items,
the most important being money, camera, leggings and
my special banana holder. Fortunately Tony was better
prepared and took the photos.
We
parked at Broughton Mills and first ascended Great Stickle,
disturbing a Green Woodpecker on the way. Bryan
had printed off the Wainwright instructions and map
and gave them to Tony, appointing him as team leader
for the day as he had his glasses with him.
Daydreaming,
leading from the back, Tony allowed Bryan and me to
take a false trail off Great Stickle but after being
chastised for his lack of attention he successfully
led us up Stickle Pike and, indeed, had he followed
his own judgement he would have taken us up the correct
route up Stickle Pike rather than the direct ascent
that Bryan advocated.
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The
trouble was that Wainwright referred to a faint path
and that is what Bryan spotted. Unfortunately a faint
path 20 years ago is now a motorway and was just out
of sight round the corner whereas the faint path today
is a route that Mr W strongly advised against.
I
should point out here that although not high, Stickle
Pike is a proper mountain in miniature; indeed it's
an itsy bitsy teeny weeny eine kleine Matterhorny.
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Stickle
Pike summit
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Lunch
was taken at Stickle Tarn but the wind was up and the
weather was starting to close in. We crossed the
Dunnerdale road and climbed up past the old quarries
where it looked like two men were filling their trailer
with stones from the quarry waste. Tony wanted
to make a citizen's arrest for pilfering. Bryan
thought they should be commended for tidying up the
countryside. Discuss.
At
this point it started raining and those with leggings
put them on. To be fair Bryan did offer his to
me and I did suggest that perhaps I might put one leg
in each of his and Tony's but that was not taken up.
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We headed for a peak unnamed on the map and referred
to by Mr W simply as "1183" by which time
it had stopped raining and those encumbered by leggings
had to stop to remove them.
We followed the ridge,
described by Mr W correctly but with surprising grammatical
inaccuracy as the "least" impressive of the
two ridges. Skirted round Raven's Crag and across
the Knott, which Bryan explained was also a Knoll.
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Bryan
on the Knott or Knoll
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From
here there was a splendid view of the terrain we had
covered (see below) and at which we had our LotSW stop until the
weather threatened once again.
View
back to the itsy bitsy teeny weeny eine kleine Matterhorny
Sitckle Pike
Back
at Broughton Mills we found a lovely little church that
we examined and then headed for the Blacksmith's Arms
where Tony had fond memories of a lock-in at a Shepherd's
Meet 30 years ago. It had not greatly changed.
No money so I had to blag a second round off Tony!
When we came out it was raining!
This
is a splendid little walk with delightful mini mountains.
Cheeky old Mr W (who only made it 1,700 feet of ascent)
said we should be pleased with ourselves- a very good
performance- considering our age!!!
Don,
2nd August 2006
STATISTICS
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Distance:
5.6
miles
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Height
climbed:
2,030 feet
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Wainwrights:
Dunnerdale
Fells
Stickle Pike
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For
map reference see Map
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