Some Light But Bijoux Bagging in Dunnerdale

Since nobody has ever heard of Wallowbarrow Heald, it seemed like a good idea to daunder off to Dunnerdale for a decko..   and, whilst we were about it, also bag Wallowbarrow Crag and thus utterly complete my bagging of “Fellrangers” – a hill category I’d not heard of until I’d done 99.5% of them – in fact, Wallowbarrow Crag being the other 0.5% (there’s 227 of them, apparently)

 

So, Lucky did the M6 bit down to Kendal where we collected the Bro and joined the traffic queue for Dunnerdale, parking nicely between two rocks, probably sited on the roadside to prevent people parking there. And we climbed Harter Fell which is quite steep from Dunnerdale. Harter Fell, though, does have a fine collection of bouldery bits and, indeed the actual summit is on top of one such. This provides a relatively easy scramble up one side and an even easier scramble up the other. I chose the slightly harder side to check out Lucky’s willingness to “WAIT!” after being plonked on a ledge whilst I selected another stance to put him on a bit higher up. This is a key command, I find, when scrambling with a dog and stops them trying to get up things which are too hard and then falling off. And he did it very well and the Ruffwear harness is Just The Thing.

Other crags provided an opportunity for a bit of a play too… but too steep for a dog.

After playtime, we descended to the huge boggy bit between Harter fell and Crook Crag and the gently tilted but horribly tussocked Uplha fell before finally bagging the obscure but lovely Iron Crag.

Our next target was the wonderfully obscure and fairly pointless Wallowbarrow Heald – a hill with all of five metres of re-ascent , but defended by lank grass, senile heather and sloppy stuff – a Synge, although Mr Synge seems to have overlooked the slightly more significant Wormshell How sticking out of Ulpha Fell a bit higher up the hill… Just goes to illustrate the often pointless anal-retentiveness of bagging these obscure little pimples.

Finally, the less-than-obscure Wallowbarrow Crag – the last Fellranger (whatever they are…!) eventually fell to the Knipe bootsandpaws after some resistance in the form of yet more tough vegetation and some rocks. Its a fine summit. But I’d had enough and it was time to close the bagging curtains for the day, give up any ideas about going to the top of Pen, which was on the wrong side of the river, and take the bridleway and footpaths back to the start.

Nice day, but knackering….  and just 8 miles of fun and tussocks.

There’s a map.

Thanks to the Bro for topping up the virgin money giving page to a nice, round figure….  One day soon, we’ll manage to arrange something where people actually get something concrete out of this and not just the warm and fuzzy feeling of karma plus.

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