23 September 2015

On a drizzly afternoon in Keswick I took the opportunity to grab another Wainwright, Bleaberry Fell.

Leaving the town by St John’s Street, Ambleside Road and Springs Road I passed by Springs Farm where my friend Steve used to stay. It now boasts its own tea shop, called Annie’s. I took the Old Skool more direct Wainwright route: if there’s a better path (as some report) I didn’t see it in the mist.

Continue up the well-known path to Rakefoot and out onto the open fell on the Walla Crag path. For Bleaberry Fell leave the Walla Crag track on a left fork and later take another left fork, this time on a narrow path just before a solitary small boulder. The track follows the general line of the Brockle Beck to the remains of a large sheepfold (Wainwright shows it as a ruined gamekeeper’s cottage). Keep on the path through heather and some boggy sections, following the beck and crossing it several times to pass another sheepfold before the gradient starts to steepen. Approaching the final shallow corrie drained by the beck the path swings to the right away from the beck before turning up a short steep heathery slope (no obvious path) to reach the ridge.

I arrived on top in the thickest mist and heaviest rain, so in counting two cairns and a stone shelter I may have missed one or more. The highest point is marked by a cairn at the north end of the ridge – the larger and lower cairn is to the south (I think!)

Stats: 11.4km; 510m ascent/descent; 3h10′ (N=1.0); drizzly, some rain and mist, no views at summit. Wainwright tally: 131