NORTH WEST
■Distance: 5½ miles/8.9km ■Time: 4 hours ■Grade: Challenging
SEE FEATURE ON PAGE 30
Blencathra is undoubtedly the greatest mountain in the Lake District’s Northern Fells and for many it’s the most magical in the entire national park. It dominates the drive into Lakeland from Penrith on the A66, causing many motorists to gaze upwards in awe at its muscular flanks, sinuous ridges and towering summit saddle.
This is a complex and charismatic mountain, one that rewards repeated visits. Any experience on Blencathra will lodge itself in the memory banks and be remembered for a lifetime.
For those of an adventurous inclination, there are two contenders for the finest way up. The most famous, and for many the ultimate way to climb the mountain, is tucked around the back of the mountain, above Scales Tarn: the notorious Sharp Edge.
This is a serious grade one scramble on a razor-sharp ridge line that’s dangerous when wet but wonderful when dry.
Halls Fell Ridge is the alternative. It’s a magnificent and direct ascent of a narrow and subtly curving arête that leads to the 868-metre perch of Hallsfell Top, Blencathra’s main summit.
It nudges into grade one scrambling territory, providing the excitement, but isn’t quite as serious as Sharp Edge.
Alfred Wainwright, something of a doyen when it came to Lakeland’s fells, proclaimed Halls Fell Ridge to be ‘positively the finest way to any mountain-top in the district.’ He also wrote more pages about Blencathra than any other fell in his famous Pictorial Guides – read into that what you will. Once the initial, lung-busting pull up Halls Fell’s broad south-facing spur is behind you, traversing the arête is pure joy. With its sister ridges of Gategill to the west and Doddick to the east, and with the summit in your cross hairs directly ahead, it’s a grand mountain setting. Spectacular views towards Derwent Water and to the tumultuous fells beyond become grander with every step and, before long, you’ll abruptly arrive at the summit. The descent back to Threlkeld, via the rounded and grassy Blease Fell, allows you to drink in the views and reflect on one of England’s best hillwalking ad
