Arriving in Mungrisdale I managed to park along the roadside near to the Mill Inn, right opposite a gate with a sign saying no public access. I have heard about access problems here and looking at AW’s route diagram it shows it crossing the fields through the gate to a stile in the wall above. My route was blocked from the very start! Walking along the road past the Mill Inn we soon came to the end of the field system and access onto the open fell side. The OS map shows a path heading diagonally up the East side of Souther Fell from here, but I wanted to walk up the North ridge so we followed a path that gradually rose up above the fields to a point above where I had parked where the ridge itself was gained. This slight detour of about 2/3rds of a mile and 20 minutes walking seemed a bit daft as my car was now only 100 yards away again! I didn’t mind too much though because the “detour” acted as a bit of a warm up as the ridge seemed quite steep from down here.

I had spotted a herd/flock/gathering of sheep on the drive into Mungrisdale so I was a bit reluctant to let Sam off the lead at the moment. Consequently I had to keep dragging him back or was it Sam dragging me up, in his excitement to get to the top first. Either way I was glad of the extra help he gave, I just attached the lead to the waist strap of my rucksack, lifted alternate legs and hey presto, forwards and upwards motion! This was OK until Sam decided to investigate something off the path and then I sort of followed him in  an awkward crabbing motion, I was quite glad that there was no one about to witness our antics!

15 minutes hard work later the gradient eased and a nice view of the rest of the ridge appeared above, time for a quick breath stop then. Because we had gained quite a lot of height we now had a view to the right of the rest of the walk and a choice of at least three descent routes that we could use later on in the day. Very prominent in this view was The Tongue and further around the East Ridge of Bowscale Fell, unfortunately the cloud level was such that the actual tops of Bannerdale Crags and Bowscale Fell were out of view, never mind, the weather had time to change!

With the ease in gradient helping we made good time up the rest of the ridge until we reached the broad summit plateau, well I say that we made good time, but how was I to know? If John and Sarah had been here I no doubt would be lagging behind them but now on my own at my own pace I felt like I was at least keeping up, one positive advantage of solitary Fellwalking!

Walking along here I met another walker heading in the opposite direction. We stopped and chatted as he asked me if the access problems at the bottom still existed. This bloke had been here before and I had to tell him about the route I had taken so I guess nothing much had changed. To my way of thinking walking up the ridge via a detour was not a problem, on the other hand if I was coming to the end of a walk and the pub (or the car) was just there right in front of you, and then you had to take a 20 minute detour to get to it, well that would be a problem, there are limits to restraint and abiding the law!

We soon reached the summit of Souther Fell, a small collection of stones marked the spot. It was time for a coffee break so after taking a few photos we headed downwards slightly to get out of the cold breeze and I then got out my latest Fellwalking equipment purchase, one of those foam seating mats, don’t laugh! This foam mat is not any sort of concession to age or infirmity, it’s just that I have got tired of sitting down somewhere to enjoy the view or have a cuppa to then find that when I stand again I have a wet backside! For the princely sum of £1.99 I now had a padded seat to sit on and keep the damp out, I was surprised to find that it actually worked, no longer will I spend ages looking for a comfy dry stone to sit on, something that seems very rare in the Northern Fells anyway!

Once suitably refreshed, and with a dry backside to boot, we headed off to our next objective of the day, Bannerdale Crags. As the crow flies from Souther Fell summit to the summit of Bannerdale Crags is just about a mile, unfortunately for walkers there is the small problem of the river Glenderamachin between the two. Well the river isn’t the problem really it’s the 700’ descent and 1200’ re - ascent that is the problem. Fortunately for walker there is a great path that runs above the valley from Mousethwaite Comb all the way to Glenderamachin Col and then only a few hundred feet of ascent to the summit of Bannerdale Crags. That is about 3 miles but when I planned this walk it seemed that once the steep ridge to Souther fell was done most of the rest of the walk would be at high level with only gradual gradients to walk up, what a plan!

Leaving Souther Fell’s less than impressive summit cairn Sam raced off ahead now that I thought it was safe for any local inhabitants who might be grazing in the area. When we started to loose height a substantial cairn appeared that overlooked the Glenderamachin valley. Sam had naturally gravitated in that direction anyway so I followed to the cairn which is slightly off the direct route. Why was this much more impressive cairn here and not at the summit? Perhaps it was to mark a point from where a great view was, today I could only guess as the most obvious “view” would be towards Sharp Edge but that was obscured by cloud. Leaving the cairn we headed off towards Mousethwaite Comb. When we walked up Blencathra from Scales a few years ago, passing Mousethwaite Comb I had the impression that the top of Souther Fell was “just up there”. Actually walking down from the top to the col seemed to take an age, it was much further than I remembered, but that’s my memory for you.

Just before the col I managed to get Sam back on the lead as I spotted a few small white objects below the path that we were going to take, I didn’t want to risk Sam chasing after some white objects that might turn out to have 4 legs, even if they didn’t have 4 legs I didn’t want to give Sam the opportunity to go and investigate them. The path that we walked on was the one that we had used to reach Sharp Edge, it followed the contour above the river valley all the way along, a great high level traverse that soon found us at the point where the path branched upwards towards  Scales Tarn and Blencathra.

Here we met a party of walkers/climbers who seemed to be practising moving across the ground all roped together, why I don’t know and I did not stop to ask as I felt my ignorance might show. We carried on heading towards the end of the valley and I had my mind set on a lunch stop at a point on the path where it passed a stream near an old level. We soon reached the spot and it was as I remembered it, an ideal place out of the wind with just enough room to place a newly acquired foam seating mat on next to somewhere for Sam to paddle in, what more could I ask for!

Lunch consisted of alternating between feeding myself, feeding Sam and throwing little stones into a little pool for Sam to chase after, anything for a quiet life! Across the valley I spotted a group of people in a sheepfold that also seemed to have stopped for lunch, I wondered what they were doing down there? Before too long they headed down the path and I had to drag myself away from my lunch spot, I was just too comfy sat there munching away and drinking coffee and wondering if the clouds would lift to give me a view of the top of Bannerdale Crags. It didn’t but I still enjoyed the view across the valley. It was a nice quiet lunch break, apart from Sam of course, who just wanted to eat everything I had, and play all the time while I wanted a few moments to myself to think about stuff, oh well….

We made our way along this faint path and the wind suddenly blew away the obstructing mist and we had a view towards the summit, not far away now, but even better was the sight of Sharp Edge behind us, it looked very dramatic from here framed by the clouds. A few minutes later and we reached the summit cairn and I was unimpressed, but in the distance seemed to be a more substantial cairn, so we wandered over to that and I was much more impressed, this was more like it! To my way of thinking the top of a fell/hill/mountain should feel like the top of something and not comprise of a vast expanse of flat moorland. At least this slightly lower cairn had a certain “Wow!” factor about it as it was perched above the East Ridge and crags. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh and if the cloud level was slightly higher I would have gotten a view from the actual summit, as it was this cairn overlooking the crags would do just fine.

From up here we had a great view over to Souther Fell and could make out the route we had followed on the traverse of the fell. The east ridge of Bannerdale Crags looked very spectacular from here as well, it looked like a smaller version of Sharp Edge, I think the next time I climb Bannerdale Crags that is the route I will use, just to see. After loosing my Canon Ixus V camera somewhere in the snow on Whiteside last year I have now invested in a Canon Ixus 850 IS camera, I am still playing with all the settings and haven’t figured out the self timer bit yet so I thought I would just take a photo of Sam at the cairn. I positioned Sam where I wanted him, retreated a few steps and, well the photos speak for themselves, never work with children or animals someone once said, how true! We probably lingered here for quite a while before setting off to follow the path that skirted the crags above Bannerdale heading towards the next objective, Bowscale Fell.

I really enjoyed being just sat there, high above the valley below, walking alone has a great advantage of not being under any sort of pressure to crack on, you can stop when and where you want without having to have a general discussion and vote about it. It felt quite remote and wild and I was loving it, even Sam seemed to be in thoughtful mood as he just sat there next to me without a murmur, a nice change from the raucous barks that suggest that he would rather carry on than stop!

On the move once again we continued to follow the path until a little thought crossed my mind, I was so engrossed in walking along the path that it took a while for the fact that we had now started to descend slightly to register. I stopped and looked around, yup we had started going downwards towards the Tongue, not where I wanted to go. I had not noticed any path branching off towards Bowscale Fell so opted to head upwards across the pathless moorland instead. Sam was put in charge of navigation again and he trotted (do dogs trot or is it just horses?) back and forth across the tussocks in search of a path. He found none but we kept heading upwards at a really slow pace as it was hard work on the ankles until something appeared out of the gloom. This turned out to be the large wind shelter at the top of Bowscale Fell, great navigating Sam!

It was a bit breezy here and because of the mist we had no views as such so we opted to head down. We had a few choices of route but as two of them involved retracing our steps I decided to carry on along the east ridge of Bowscale Fell, this would mean maximum time spent high up with a steep descent at the end, I always like to stay as high as possible for as long as possible and try not to think of the pain that a steep descent would mean on knees and feet so we followed a faint path downwards in the general direction we wanted. Occasionally the mist would clear and we could see the subsidiary summit that we were headed for, then the mist would close in again. Then the mist would clear even more and suddenly we had a view over towards High Pike and Carrock Fell, that is one thing I have always liked about walking in mist, the hide and seek nature of the views that may or may not come depending on the vagaries of the weather, of course there are always the days that the mist never moves, that then gives you an excuse to come back again sometime with the hope that you will get a view that time. If you go back somewhere again and you still have no views due to mist,  just make sure you don’t buy a lottery ticket that day and save yourself a quid!

Anyway, due to good planning on my part I had timed this walk so that as we reached the lowest point between the summit of Bowscale Fell and its subsidiary summit the mist cleared up for good, how clever am I than! I stopped for a moment and consulted the Wainwright book. I was reading it backwards ish now as I consulted the  “Ascent from Mungrisdale” page. AW said that Bowscale Tarn comes into view when the subsidiary summit is reached and a slight detour reveals it fully. Heading in the opposite direction all I can say is that it seemed like more than a “slight detour” to enable me to get a view of Bowscale Tarn below, I was in danger of loosing a lot of height as I “detoured” off the direct line to the subsidiary summit to get a view of the tarn, in fact try as I might I never managed to get a complete view of the tarn, but that was only because I couldn’t be bothered to descend enough, this far into a walk and the thought of walking uphill again after descending to get a view really did not appeal to me, lazy git!

So with a somewhat incomplete view of Bowscale Tarn completed we headed over the subsidiary summit and followed the path along the East Ridge.  By now the finishing line was in sight, well it wasn’t really but the route that we took up Souther Fell was visible and nestled somewhere at the end of it was the village and the car. By now my feet had started to play up, so a few stops along the way helped relieve the pain. I must admit that it was nice to take my time along here, ok so I had to keep stopping to allow my feet to stop throbbing, but with the end of the walk in sight and being on a ridge with that lovely sense of height all around me I felt like I had nothing to rush for, I just wanted to linger a while longer up here. So after a few brief stops and a longer last cheeky coffee break when Sam finished off the last of my sandwiches  we finished walking down the pleasant ridge and began the steep last section. I had seen this part of the walk from our ascent of Souther Fell a few hours before and from across the valley it looked incredibly steep, in truth it wasn’t as steep as it had seemed but it was still steep enough for me to loose my footing and end up on my backside at least once as Sam’s eagerness to get back to the car caused him to pull me off my feet, he was back on the lead as I couldn’t see much of what was below, possibly some sheep having a nice afternoon stroll or something. I had tried shouts of Heel, Stop, Wait and Steady but he was having none of it! In fact the only thing that seemed to work in slowing him down was letting go of the lead, this then retracted itself onto his collar and the noise always made him stop, especially on one section where it was that steep that the lead went flying down after him, bounced and hit him on the head, that got his attention!

That last section I found the hardest of the day, eventually we reached the road and walked around the village and back to the car. As I changed into some more suitable clothing for the drive home I contemplated the walk and the solitary walking experience. I had thoroughly enjoyed walking at my own pace, doing my own thing when and where I wanted, but I had missed the company of John and Sarah and wished they had been there to share the experience with me. I have done lots of walks on my own but actually doing some new Wainwrights without John and Sarah had been a big decision for me to take, I was still in two minds about it all but now that that first one had been done solo as it were, I couldn’t wait to start thinking about the next one……………but then again John usually drives and I did miss the cheeky little cat nap I usually have on the way home, I had forgotten how long the drive is!