Setting off up Nanny Lane was a bit of a surprise to me at first as I found it much steeper than I had for some reason expected, at least it meant that within a few minutes I had chance to look over Troutbeck to the wonderful vista of the snow clad slopes of Sour Howes and Sallows, along to Yoke, Ill Bell and beyond, ominously the continuation of the ridge was obscured by rather dark looking clouds. Soon the track eased in gradient and we came across the first section of trouble, ice. In places the full width of Nanny Lane was covered in ice, easily overcome with care but a sure sign of how cold it was. I had to laugh at Sam as he forgot to turn on his traction control, all four legs struggling for grip in the icy conditions as he ran full tilt across the stretch of ice.
The ice soon gave way to the remnants of the last snows, mainly on just one side of the lane that must be in shadow for most of the day, Sam loved this and once again I had that lovely feeling of crunchy snow underfoot, fantastic! It was great to be up here today, I felt in no rush and just ambled along the lane enjoying the views behind me as the view to the front was not exactly awe inspiring, Sam kept playing in the snow, alternating between eating it and rolling in it, easily pleased or what.
We eventually reached the point where Nanny Lane turned right and the path up to Wansfell left to the left (makes sense to me!) Sam was way ahead of me of course and introduced himself to a party of walkers descending, he did actually behave himself and I had a couple of comments about what a lovely dog etc etc as we passed. If they only knew! From here on there were signs of a reconstructed path (in places) all the way up to the summit of Wansfell Pike. Most of the time the stone paving was covered in ice as a consequence of these paths also acting as a run off for water, either bad design of bad luck! It was not a problem if you walked to the side of the paving, but doesn’t that go against the idea of these paths in the first place, ie preventing erosion by keeping to the path and not walking to the side of them? I had to stop myself from more of these deep thoughts as I was feeling very hungry now, only half way to the top and I was stopping for food, I must be really out of shape, or was it the thought of the curried parsnip soup sloshing about in a flask in my rucksack on this cold winters day……………………………..
I found a rocky outcrop to sit on and helped myself to what I consider to be one of life’s greatest pleasures, curried parsnip soup over looking the Lake District on a cold winter’s day, I know I am easily pleased but it really doesn’t get much better than that! Sam had to contend with some gravy bones but I think he had a similar warm feeling all over as well! After we had set off again we came across a couple descending, jeans and trainers, the next couple had full winter gear including ice axe and crampons, and this gave me a fair understanding of what conditions would be like on the top, mixed!
All too soon we reached the top and walked into a rather cold wind that we had been sheltered from. At this point I have to mention the latest addition to my walking equipment, a Paramo Taiga fleece, a Christmas present from the wife and what a fantastic present it is! Normally on a day like this I would be wearing my Paramo Alta jacket but today that was in the rucksack, even though it was bitingly cold in the wind I was toasty warm and even better than that absolutely no sign of any condensation inside it, it is saying something that when I am out walking with this Paramo gear on I feel more comfortable than I do with my work clothes on for example, I cannot rate this gear highly enough, the best buy I have ever made were the Cascada walking trousers, enough of the advert but seriously if you are thinking of any new walking gear Paramo is the dogs dangly bits! I took a few photos and considered some more soup but the sight of crowds of walkers heading up from the Ambleside direction made my mind up to head along the ridge to the higher top at Baystones. From here it was quite a contrast in conditions under foot. To the north the snow lay much more thickly compared to the south, and looking along the ridge towards the top of Kirkstone Pass it looked very wintery if there is such a word.
According to the map there is a path that follows the wall along the Wansfell ridge, needless to say there was no sign of it in the snow apart from various foot prints. I have to say that walking along this ridge was an absolute delight. The conditions seemed to change with every step. One minute it was soft crunchy snow, the next it was frozen solid and slippy. The ridge was a multitude of ups, downs and arounds. In the flatter places there were hints of what would be normally boggy areas that had frozen solid but had a small dusting of snow on them, most of it blown away to form drifts at the next raise or depression, it was just great. It was also interesting to see what the next footstep would bring, would it sink into the snow or land solidly on ice, you just could not tell!
We passed one lady walker on the ridge, we both agreed that it was a great day and that we were glad we were not on the higher fells, yes the dizzying height of just over 1500’ was high enough today in these conditions. Again even though I was just ambling along we soon reached the small cairn that marks the top of Baystones. To be honest I had been contemplating just doing this and then walking over to the end of Nanny Lane for a quick return to the car and not carrying on to Troutbeck Tongue, mainly because Troutbeck Tongue had caused me loads of headaches in planning a walk to it that did not involve a long road walk at the end or beginning. There is no direct link between Wansfell and the Tongue along any recognised path and my late start had meant parking in Troutbeck Village itself, a fair way from the valley floor that had to be used to get to and from the Tongue, the more I thought about it the more I disliked Troutbeck Tongue and I hadn’t even set foot on it yet! These deep thoughts only meant one thing, time to sit down and have some more soup! I studied the map and thought about the route that I could take as I kept feeding Sam more gravy bones in an attempt at keeping him quiet, unlike me he does not like sitting down, enjoying the view and contemplating deep thoughts. After finishing off the soup I had arrived at a decision, we still had lots of daylight left and I really did not like the idea of returning one day just to walk up Troutbeck Tongue on its own, so it was going to be bagged today whether it wanted to be or not, right then, how am I going to get there then, studying the map for 10 minutes did not seem to help!
All too soon we reached the last wall and once over it turned right to follow the wall to the road. This is where the fun stopped as this part was hard work. We followed the wall but the ground was very uneven and the snow between the tussocks was very powdery so it made for a rather stumbling method of making progress. We were heading for the sheepfold marked on the map and what I hoped was easy access to the road. As it turned out we were on the wrong side of the fence now, the wall having turned into a fence without me really noticing it! A quick backtrack and we came to a gate that was chained shut, but loose enough for me to lift it so that Sam could crawl under and strong enough for me to climb over. A final gate that was just tied shut with a piece of string allowed us into the sheepfold next to the road, so far so good. The gate onto the road was a problem as it was firmly and solidly chained shut, no way I could move it to allow Sam through. I then spent a few minutes looking around before deciding that Sam was going to have to be cajoled over the wall by brute force, ignorance and a few curses! It only took a few minutes and a few barks of annoyance before we crossed the road, something that I did not look forwards too as I knew how fast cars travelled along here. On the other side of the road another gate led into another sheepfold, thankfully this one was just closed with a latch so proved to be no problem at all.
Heading down towards the corner of the field we followed some faint tracks in the snow to find a really handy place where the wall went over a large rock, a place obviously used to cross the wall by many people before us. That put us next to Woundale Beck just above the waterfalls marked on the map and time for another food stop. This was a lovely little spot with the pools of water below the falls partially frozen over, Sam had to have a little dip of course but for once he did not submerse himself totally, I think it must have been too cold even for him.
I managed to cross the Beck without difficulty but then came another difficult wall to cross over, this last wall once crossed would allow us access down to Troutbeck and then on to the Tongue. Unfortunately this wall was very tall and looked very unstable so there was no easy way over, we had no choice but to walk along it until we found somewhere more suitable, before too long my prayers were answered when we came across a sheep crawl covered by some large stone slabs, I moved them aside and Sam was able to crawl through followed by myself and then I somehow managed to replace the slabs and block up the crawl once more, I am just glad no one was looking at the time as it was rather an undignified way to cross the wall.
Walking down the steep fields Sam managed to disturb a fox, that might explain the sheep carcass that I nearly trod in, yuck! I had to get Sam back on the lead now as sheep dotted the fell side, they seemed more concerned about Sam than they did by the Fox. My navigation was once again in luck as we reached the old footbridge over Troutbeck, but then disaster struck as my left foot sank into a pool of something very wet, cold and smelly that had been hidden by the snow. This made me slightly grumpy so after crossing the foot bridge I sat down on the river bank to examine the damage, Sam looked on and if he could have spoke he would have said something along the lines of “it’s usually me that does that!” I took the opportunity to have some coffee as the soup had run out, and contemplated the way forward with one wet foot, oh well.
I had noticed signs of a faint track that led up towards the Tongue as we had walked down from the road so after drying out slightly we set off through the edge of the trees up along this faint track. Once through the trees it started to get steep, it felt very steep but thankfully it did not last too long as the gradient eased and we reached a fence, oh not another one! I could see no signs of a stile or anything so we started to follow it for a while to see if there was an easy way over. I couldn’t believe it, it really must be my lucky day because I soon found a spot where someone had actually cut the lower section of the fence, just big enough for a dog to crawl through. Sam obliged and I carefully folded the wire back up after I had climbed over it, I had been looking very carefully at the fence and only just managed to see this man made shortcut, when I had finished with it once again it looked unbroken, I am not sure if I agree with this sort of thing but I must admit that I was grateful to whoever had damaged the fence in such a way.
The long ridge of Troutbeck Tongue was right in front of us now and we headed straight up so that we could walk along it to the summit, easier said than done because the way ahead was through snow drifts. This was real hard work as it was knee deep in places, luckily for me I had Sam to break trail for me but he struggled as well as he sunk waist deep into the soft snow. The only way he could make any progress was to sort of jump up on all fours and hope he managed to go a bit further forwards on the way back down, very funny to watch and at least it made it easier for me, I knew I had brought him for a reason today!
Soon enough we were on the ridge and a few minutes later we had reached the summit. We did not hang around for long as the wind by now was bitingly cold so we carried on over and started to descend towards Troutbeck Park. This was one of those places where I was a bit unsure about the route back to the car having two possible options. One was the road back from Troutbeck Park over Hagg Bridge and Ing Bridge and the other route was along the side of the valley to Limefitt Park. The second way would have been my choice if I had managed to park in my intended spot near the church but the first option was going to the route back today, road walking, my favourite surface to walk on, not!
Getting off Troutbeck Tongue was steep and once we crossed over a fence by use of a stile Sam had to go back on the lead as we were in the presence of sheep again. I hate this walking downhill with Sam on the lead, he is always much more eager than me, I don’t mind that going uphill but when going down it can be interesting if not dangerous, for me that is! We had to follow the path around to our left to pick up the track that runs along the Eastern side of Troutbeck Tongue, I never like doing that when I can see that I actually want to go straight ahead but sometimes you have to do it, walls being walls etc etc
Once at the track I stopped for a last coffee break and just my luck bits of blue sky started to appear above the Ill Bell ridge above us. That looked very nice now, lots of white stuff with blue stuff above it, picture postcard views really, it was just a shame we had not stayed at the summit for 10 minutes longer, next time maybe! Then followed 2 miles of walking along the road back to Troutbeck and the car, very quiet and to be honest a nice end to today’s walk, apart from what seemed to be a steep walk up through the village, the curse of starting a walk high up and having to finish by walking back upwards, it never seems right doing this, walking in the Lake District usually involves walking up something, and then back down, I will get it right one day!
A quick phone call home and I was very brave in asking what was for tea, I usually do all of the cooking and I never know what to expect when I am not there. I was pleased to hear that it was steak, baked potatoes and oh I have to go now…………. When we did arrive home to an empty house here was no sign of anything ready on the table, even Sam’s water and food bowl lay empty on the sink drainer, oh well, Sam was not happy and I, well I sorted him out, soaked in a bath and with perfect timing opened the front door to take delivery of an Indian takeaway from my favourite local Indian restaurant. When the wife arrived back from the stables and saw what I was eating she asked where hers was. “Well there’s steak and baked potatoes………..”