Buttermere Fells

We felt the need for some rocky ground after the previous days boggy epic so we headed for the hills above Buttermere. The weather was again forecast as windy, but not prohibitively so. We decided we would head out and play it by ear, if the wind was too much we could always retreat to Buttermere.

We parked in the NT carpark and headed straight up onto the hillside, avoiding a detour up Rannerdale Knots thinking we might visit it on the way home should we have any energy left. It looked glorious in the sun, we were however getting battered by the wind as it roared up the valley. Often in the hills the dips between hills can funnel the wind more than the hill itself, and this was the case on this walk.

The park up onto Whitless Pike was excellent, tucked between the ridge avoiding the worst of wind with steps up it made for a pleasant ascent. Emma decided on this trip to try and avoid all photos hence the head down!

The ridge onwards however looked intimidating. We asked a passing walker about the conditions and they although they said it was windy they confirmed it wasn't impossible. On the ridge itself the wind was a bit gusty but not as bad as we thought. I still stayed well back even though the wind was blowing us away from the edge!

Back in the mist we took a GPS reading and headed to our next top Crag Hill, again on the promice that we would retreat if the winds got too strong. It was less windy than the ridge however and the soft snow in places made for easy going. Emma had been to the top before and remembered the poor broken trig point!

We retraced our steps to ascend Grasmoor, another easy path upwards. As we got onto the top we heard a howling sound and a pack of dogs came charging past on the horizon. They were mainly made up of hunting dogs & we figured it must be a trail competition as we had seen the owners in a layby in the valley earlier on our drive in. We didn't stop for long on the top and headed back down to pick up a ridge called Lad Hows - due to the mist we missed the start of the path and had to backtrack to find it. We heard the dogs again as we were ascending but couldn't see them. The wind battered us initially which was a little tricky with the loose scree underfoot. Thankfully it didn't last for long as we all enjoyed the views/path as we headed down towards the valley.

We saw the dogs again ahead of us as we descended, and heard the owners calling them with horns from the valley below. Conscious not to disturb the end we gave them a wide distance and traversed to the left to cross the beck where I nearly fell in!

The temptation to take in Rannerdale Knotts was high and we followed an easy stepped path through a gully right up onto the top (making it much easier going than in Wainwrights day!)

From the top it was gentle going back to the valley and the car park. We chatted to some other walkers who had been up in the clouds all day on the opposite fells - we felt quite lucky to have had at least some visibility. The excitement of the dogs certainly made it a memorable walk for Emma!