Wild Boar Fell and Swarth Fell

This is pretty much the classic Wild Boar Fell round and, at seven and a bit miles, it’s a relatively easy walk for the bagging of these two Yorkshire Dales 2000-er tops (OK, yes, I know they’re in Cumbria, but they’re in the Yorkshire part of Cumbria, see..?) the first bit’s a bit rough, though.

I met the nephew and his wife again for this one, and Bruno came too – actually, it’s quite difficult getting out of knipetowers with a rucksack and walking boots without superdawg’s powers of persuasion, mainly consisting of sitting by the drawer which has his lead and in it whilst looking pathetic and/or blocking the front door by dancing around in circles in front of it yipping…

But I’m wandering , here… 

We met at the parking area by the railway bridge near Aisgill Moor Cottages, the one with all the spotted orchids in the grass – a remarkable display this year…

We wandered over the moor to Angerholme Pots and the bridleway (now part of the Pennine Bridleway) which mounts the Northern end of WBF’s ridge, and then, steeply up to the flat summit. So far so sunny. Then it started raining and the hillfog closed in, so there aren’t so many pics. We found the top (there’s a path) and back to the Eastern edge with all the cairns, where the conditions lifted followed by a soggy traverse to Swarth Fell in driving drizzle and hillfog when the rain moved in again.

 

As a piece of petulance and by way of celebrating the poor visibility, it was at this point that I collided with a large gritstone boulder (it wouldn’t get out of the way). This hurt my left knee quite a bit and I seem to remember exclaiming something vaguely relevant to sex, genitalia and travel but, really hardly appropriate for a family walk and about which I ought to be ashamed. My knee now has a hole in it as far as in-tact skin is concerned. I probably wont do this again. I’ll probably try not to anyway.

We finished with a bit of a flourish on the end of Swarth Fell Pike and a soggy descent to Aisgill Moor Cottages which has even more orchids just now. The weather cleared up at this point as if nothing had happened.

There’s a map below…  this one has a height profile. Posh, eh? I still haven’t mastered putting the walk direction on, but, as Bruno points out , you could do this walk in either direction, depending on the prevailing wind or even the toss of a coin or, indeed, sheer whim.

Nice to see the rellies again. We’ll probably do this type of thing again in a few weeks.