Dunnerdale – Eventually

We all agreed that it must be Tractor Tuesday. And then there were the roadworks…. and the navigational challenges of the Broughton-In-Furness City Centre traffic system that squirted the knipemobile out on to the wrong road. And the meeting of wing-mirrors up the narrow lane to Kiln Bank. Such were the delays that we started a bit late. We parked at Kiln Bank and quickly bagged Fox Haw – a big and rocky nobble on Brown Haw – a playground, frankly, teetering above Dunnerdale. “We” were me, the bro, the Dawg and Ria and the plan was to bag the three tops on the Brown Haw ridge going South, work a  way around to do White Pike and White Maiden and collect Pikes, Caw and Brock Barrow on the way back to the car. Some of this went quite well.

We took our time to bag various nobbles and lumps which might be the summit of Raven Crag and descended a bit for the better defined but less enjoyable “The Knott”. This does have a cairn and a fine view of the tide coming into the Duddon estuary. We’d spent two hours doing two and a bit miles.  So we lunched.

The next part was probably fairly easy – a series of bridleways , some with a rocky surface with deeply indented and ancient ruts made by narrow carts by Jackson Ground and up by the River Lickle towards White Pike, which dominates the skyline and looks really really big. No, I mean, really big….   I was having some trouble getting my legs to work* and time was a-wasting, so a short committee meeting was held during which it was agreed that maybe we could go straight to Pikes and Caw and boycott White Pike and White Maiden altogether. So we did. or, rather, we didn’t.

Pikes and Caw, though, provided more rocky fun and specially good views of , well, everywhere… and the mist descended onto the Coniston fells and a cold wind started up and summer hiccupped and stuttered for a moment or two. Pikes and Caw’s lack of popularity probably only lies in their lack of altitude. It’s probably best for everybody if it stays this way. I probably shouldn’t mention them at all, really.

The descent from Caw is quite steep and involves a short rockstep which is breeched by little gullies. Nothing too technical, but the gully I picked was quite narrow – too narrow for both me and the dawg, in fact, Bruno being enthusiastic about getting down ended up on my head as I slithered down through the juniper. This is probably not the safest way to descend a steep and scree-girt bouldery gully, I would have to say.

Finally , we scrambled steeply up to Brock Barrow. Brock Barrow has a choice of two rocky tors which compete with each other for the priviledge of being the top.

And so, the final bag was bagged. We’d covered two new Wainwright Outliers, two more that I’d done before (Pikes and Caw) and a couple of Birketts. I now have just three Wainwright Outlying Fells to collect (I keep them in a locked shed in the Lower bailey at Knipetowers – just behind the kennels near the North Lodge….  )

We did about 8 miles and 2400 feet.

* I’m blaming the statins for the failure of the main leg and bum muscles to work properly. I’m giving them an unauthorised rest to see what happens…