Last updated 10:45, Thursday, 14 August 2008

A long, but rewarding, day along one of our most beautiful ridges

From Dollywaggon Pike: a shaft of evening sunlight pierces the clouds to light up Wyth Burn

Map: OS Explorer maps OL4 and OL5.

Start: The start of the lane heading NE from Dale Bottom, near Castlerigg (GR NY295217). It is probably best to park near the AA box at Dunmail Raise and then catch the bus north along the A591 to Dale Bottom.

Finish: Dunmail Raise (GR NY329111).

Public transport: Bus 555 (telephone 0871 200 2233).

Refreshments: Travellers’ Rest pub near Grasmere.

Distance: 14.6 miles

Total ascent: 4,824ft

Total descent: 4,602ft

Time: 8½ to 10 hours

Grade: Hard/strenuous

Overview: This has to be one of the best and longest ridge walks in the Lakes. Stretching from Clough Head (2,381ft) in the north to Dollywaggon Pike (2,815ft) in the south via Great Dodd (2,811ft), Watson’s Dodd (2,588ft), Raise (2,896ft), Helvellyn (3,117ft) and Nethermost Pike (2,923ft), it never drops below 2,026ft. There is a fair bit of road and track walking at the start to overcome the transport difficulties associated with linear walks, but the reward is a long and wonderful day on the high fells.

The Walk: At Dale Bottom, walk along the lane signposted to St John’s in the Vale Church and the Carlisle Diocesan Youth Centre, quickly passing the campsite at Dale Bottom Farm. Just after a gate on the road, you reach a T-junction where you turn left – towards Sykes and the church. In about a third-of-a-mile, turn right up a rough track – still heading towards the church. Eventually, as the track becomes surfaced again, you will pass the church. Keep to the lane as it heads downhill, through a gate and then bends sharp right near Yew Tree Farm. Turn right at the next road junction, right again at the B5322 and then left almost immediately – towards Matterdale (2.2 miles from the start). Right! That’s all the road walking done!

Ignore a track off to the right near some farm buildings early on. Having passed through some gates along the way, you reach more open country and the track climbs to a crossing of ways. Keep straight ahead – uphill through the disused quarry.

You begin climbing with a fence on your right just after passing through a gate (3.6 miles from the start). Continue for another half-mile beyond this gate and then, as you reach the brow of the hill, cross the stile in the fence. (If you reach a tin-roofed building just to the immediate left of the path, you have gone too far and need to backtrack about 50 yards.)

A moderately steep, narrow path heads up the grassy slope (SW, swinging S). At the top of the first rise, you have the cairn-topped mound of White Pike to your left. Turn right here (SW) to continue climbing on to Clough Head.

The summit is marked by a trig point (4.9 miles from the start). The views from here are truly magnificent as practically all the major fells to the west of the A591 line up – from the Coniston range in the south, through Crinkle Crags and Bow Fell to the Scafell group and then on to Great Gable, the Newlands fells, the mountains around Coledale and, to the north, Skiddaw. On a clear day, even the mountains of Dumfries & Galloway are visible across the Solway Firth.

You will see two paths heading away from the trig point. Take the one on the left (SW, swinging S as it descends). The grassy track, which is boggy in places, passes to the left of the small, rocky knoll of Calfhow Pike before it crosses a line of redundant fenceposts and begins to climb towards Great Dodd. The clear path disappears just before the summit; keep heading uphill in the same direction and you will soon reach the cairn at the top (6.65 miles from the start).

Continuing SE from the summit cairn, you reach a large shelter. Head SSW to pick up a clear path on the wide, grassy ridge. Just over 300 yards after the shelter, just before you come on to Watson’s Dodd, you will see that there are three paths crossing the fell-top ahead of you. To get to Watson’s Dodd, take the one furthest to the right; to bypass it, choose the one on the left.

If you go out to the summit cairn, you will need to take the grassy path (SE) to regain the main path. The clear track now swings SSE to climb Stybarrow Dodd. It misses the summit cairn - which is a few yards to the left – and swings SW. As you reach a cairn on the western edge of the ridge, the path seems to disappear. However, if you walk a few paces south from here, you will quickly pick up a constructed path that drops down to Sticks Pass (8.55 miles from the start).

The well-walked, cairned ridge path climbs beyond the pass to Raise. There is a definite sense of heading on to the higher fells here as the grassy slopes are replaced by rocky outcrops and the pleasant twittering of the skylarks gives way to the ravens’ harsh squawks.

From Raise, the clear path heads SW and drops to a shallow saddle where it is joined by the Keppel Cove track coming up from the left. There is now a short climb to Whiteside, before a narrower ridge leads more steeply on to Lower Man (10.4 miles from the start). At the top, turn round and you will be able to see, for the first time, the entire ridge laid out behind you. It’s a long way back to Clough Head – and there’s still more ahead of you!

You now swing left to make your way to the top of Helvellyn, England’s third highest mountain (10.7 miles from the start). From the trig point, drop to the large shelter and then stick to the eastern rim of the mountain to peer down on to Red Tarn far below and the brave souls strung out along vertiginous Striding Edge.

You soon rejoin the main path. Where it forks, bear left. It quickly forks again and you can bear left to climb to the top of Nethermost Pike and High Crag (11.8 miles from the start) or keep right to bypass the summits.

The narrower trail on to Nethermost Pike later rejoins the main path, which dips again just before Dollywaggon Pike. Where it forks, bear left to climb to the summit (12.3 miles from the start) or keep right to bypass it. The narrower trail on to Dollywaggon Pike rejoins the main path just as begins to descend steeply towards Grisedale Tarn.

Anyone familiar with Dollywaggon Pike will know the path down to the tarn used to be a misery, a wide scar of uncomfortably loose stones and boulders; now, thanks to the Fix The Fells project, it is a good, well-pitched path.

The key to getting to Dunmail Raise lies with a path leading from the western end of Grisedale Tarn and along Raise Beck. As you descend though, the path you are on swings towards the eastern end of the tarn. When it does so, leave it and head out across potentially damp, pathless ground – keeping the tarn to your left. You may be lucky enough to pick up a faint trail along the way.

If you look up to Seat Sandal straight ahead, you will see a tumbledown wall coming down the northern face. This ends just before the bottom of the slope, but if you imagine it continuing in a straight line, the point at which it would reach the base of the slope is the point at which you should pick up the clearer path heading WSW (13.2 miles from the start).

The route is easy at first but it gets steeper and rockier as it follows the line of Raise Beck, which drops down to Dunmail Raise via a series of waterfalls. As the valley opens out, bear left through the bracken. As you cross a small beck, ignore the path to the right and go straight across. The path, increasingly indistinct, slowly drops to the fence on your right. Cross it via a step stile next to the parking area on the A591.

Points of interest: The path down from Dollywaggon Pike to Grisedale Tarn used to be an eroded mess of loose stones, forming a scar several metres wide. In the summer of 2006, teams from the Fix The Fells project built a pitched path here to make life easier for walkers and to ensure that people stick to the path and do not cause further erosion of the fellside. Each metre of path required one tonne of stone, which was airlifted in by helicopter, one tonne at a time.

The pitching here is at a good angle for walkers unlike some of the work carried out in the 1970s and still visible in areas of the Lake District today. These early repairs replicated the pitching done by quarrymen centuries ago. They laid the stones at the same angle as the slope – perfect for easing the sliding movement of quarry sledges, but not so good for walkers’ boots, especially in damp or icy conditions.