LAKE DISTRICT
What should you do when bad weather ruins your summit plans? James Forrest finds a gnarly low-level alternative, surrounded by LAKELAND’s mightiest peaks.
I stand atop a humongous boulder, confronting the onslaught head-on. The wind howls with a primal ferocity, whipping the lake into a frenzy of white horses and swirling spindrift typhoons. With my arms aloft and legs tensed, like a warrior bracing for impact from an advancing army, I’m tempted to bellow a war cry of defiance to Mother Nature: “C’mon, is that all you’ve got?”
Across the black-blue expanse of Wast Water, Yewbarrow’s Dropping Crag ridge soars into the greying skies with a volcano-like profile. To its right, the colossal mass of Kirk Fell lurks, veiled and withdrawn, as if content to surrender the limelight to its charismatic neighbour Great Gable. Gable needs no second invitation, proudly displaying the Great Napes – a dark, craggy blockade of rock jutting out of the mountain like a gothic cathedral – with unbridled swagger and bravado. This might be low-level walking on a hastily-arranged plan B route, but the views are mesmerisingly first-choice.
I’m hiking a 13km clockwise loop around Wast Water, England’s deepest lake, in this wondrously rugged western edge of Lakeland under the shadow of Scafell Pike. This wasn’t the plan; I shouldn’t really be here. I should be high in the fells, teetering along the labyrinthine Climber’s Traverse to the 892m summit of mighty Pillar. But, after Storm Babet threw a spanner in the works of my loftier ambitions, I’m taking on this lower-level alternative via the infamous Wast Water Screes path. Alfred Wainwright described one segment of this route as “a vicious quarter-mile, compared with which the top of Scafell Pike is like a bowling green.” Maybe by avoiding the summits I’ve inadvertently upped the ante.
Rewind a few hours and I park up at the Wasdale Head village green. “Oh man, have you seen the forecast?” I ask photographer Tom, as we greet each other in the car park. Storm Babet is wreaking havoc across the UK and, although it’s dry and clear in Cumbria, the wind is out of control. “Gusting to 64mph at 3pm on Pillar’s summit, up to 72mph by 8pm,” I add ominously.
Tom doesn’t look enthused, so we dive into the Wasdale Head Inn and re-plan our day. A few coffees and we’re back in business, about to take on the Lake District�
