Once over the cattle grid it was like a different world. A very narrow road hemmed in by walls and hedges, a house, a water works place and a farm and the noise! Bleating sheep and lambs and the ever so noisy bird song……I can’t remember when silence and the absence of noise seemed so loud. I could hear everything! I can see why AW wrote about the need to keep Swindale the way it was, I guess it is still that way today, quiet, peaceful, tranquil, and beautiful. Leave your car at the cattle grid and walk back in time !

After a half hours walk we came to Swindale Head and the start of the  walk (if that makes sense) . By now I had a pretty good idea of the way forwards but the head of Swindale looked like a dead end, most valley heads have an obvious way out over some sort of pass but Swindale just seemed to end!

That did not matter too much as AW’s walk description says to head straight up Nabs Crag. Perhaps the way back would show a more discernable route?  I stopped for a coffee break now, I took the time to check the map and AW’s book to try and get the next part of the walk into my head. I had reached a point where the well defined track just , well basically it disappeared! No sign of a path, track or bridleway so I took that as a hint to head upwards! The weather was starting to turn a bit ugly now with menacing clouds and the odd spot of rain. Straight up the fell side we went heading for a gap in the crags, I found this to be hard work but as I was on my own and setting my own timetable today I took my time and before I knew it I was just below the top and it started to rain, time to swap the fleece for the waterproof jacket then!

In the shelter of one of the last crags I decided it was time for a bit of lunch. I sat there huddled against the crag trying to keep out of the rain and drank some hot soup and ate part of a sandwich, Sam helped himself to most of it! Here I was sat high above Swindale contemplating life, the universe , how many days to go before the world cup starts and other important stuff  when the weather brightened up and stopped raining, what a result!

So after our lunch and contemplation time, well I contemplated while Sam undertook a bit of a geographical dig amongst the rocks and moss we headed up the final section of Nabs Crag and out onto Nabs Moor. Ahead lay some rocky outcrops across a flat area of tussocks. No sign of any path so it was a case of heading straight towards the rocky bits. Sam had a whale of a time up here, I lost count of the places that he wallowed in while I tried to avoid them, he even started to chase after a crow that was passing by, eventually coming back looking rather fed up and panting a lot, that will teach him!

I was beginning to get a bit worried now as I was expecting to come across the Selside fence but I could see no sign of it, my navigation could not be that bad could it? The ground started to fall away in front and sure enough there it was, a very old wire fence. Sam got under it OK and I gingerly went over it, it did seem very fragile!

Before too long we reached the rocky outcrop and the cairn that AW mentioned. I took the time to check with the map, AW’s book and the GPS to be sure I was where I thought I was because up here there are not too many features to navigate by. It is very wild moorland, the only sign of civilization was traffic on the M6 many miles away. The weather turned nasty again we set off for Howes in rain showers, yuck! AW mentioned an “unexpected tarn”, Sam found three! The one he chose to have a swim in had about an inch of water floating on about a foot of slimy mud! So with one very smelly dog walking behind me, constantly stopping to roll about in the grass trying to clean himself up we reached the “indefinite summit” of Howes adorned by a cairn now!

We headed down towards a stream, again Sam loved the areas I tried to avoid and as we got lower Mosedale Cottage and then the spoil heaps from the old quarry appeared. The rain got worse and I decided that I did not want to spend an hour looking around the place so instead headed straight down the fell side to pick up the old bridleway that hopefully would take us back to Swindale. This was easier said than done as I couldn’t see any path never mind a bridleway.

As we walked along this faint track I was thinking about AW’s description of it at this point and felt that I was on the right track. I was therefore surprised to see a party of 4 walkers below me walking in the opposite direction! A quick check of the map and I realised that they were on the track coming from Wet Sleddale, a relief as I thought I might have been struggling along the valley while a perfectly good path was just over there!

Everyone talks about the changeable nature of Lakeland weather, today was no exception except it now started to change for the better, within a few short minutes the drab and dreary surroundings, the wild and remote valley that felt really inhospitable under grey sky’s and rain turned into a rather nice place to be, I find it quite amusing how a walk like this can change from a “why am I doing his?” to a “hey, it’s a great walk this!”

I was surprised to see coming up behind us a mountain biker, as the ground was very wet underfoot he was actually pushing his bike along. Even weighed down by a rucksack and panniers on the bike he was making much quicker progress than us, needless to say he soon disappeared into the distance. So the weather was better, in fact as my enjoyment factor went up so did my body temperature in the sun, I soon had to stop and remove my jacket, I was back to just a base layer again. Taking this opportunity to have another coffee break another party of 4 walkers passed me, again heading in the opposite direction. I looked at the map and tried to figure out where they were heading for, this was the second party of 4 walkers that I had seen, all heading towards Mosedale Cottage and I presume then onto Gatesgarth Pass, talk about a walk on the wild side!

Resuming the walk we soon came across the Selside Fence again and once through the metal gate followed a path that headed towards what I hoped was the start of Forces Falls. The name Forces Falls got me thinking. “Forces” is a word used to describe waterfalls that seems to be in common use in Yorkshire, waterfalls are called “Falls” sometimes on the OS maps, so I was wondering if at sometimes in the past various cartographers had marked the maps around this area as firstly “Forces” and secondly as “Falls”, then at a later date someone combined the two to became “Forces Falls”. I pondered over this as Sam went for a swim in the first pool down from the start, I would describe this part as a “Force”. Sam was loving this bit, I was happy too as he miraculously started to become much cleaner and less smelly after all of his previous swimming and rolling in muddy bits escapades!

We made our way down stream following as best we could the forces, pools and waterfalls. I was impressed with the place. These waterfalls went on and on, in places just gently cascading downwards, in others deep ravines caused big waterfalls. I began to wonder what John and Sarah would have made of them as a scrambling route upwards, I think that they would have been impressed, I know I was! Back at home I found a mention of them in my Scrambling guide book as a grade 2 scramble.

At the bottom of the falls I decided it was time for a second lunch break. The falls had been the highlight of the walk and as it would now be a case of retracing the original route past Swindale Head once through the Drumlin fields, I felt like I wanted to linger here just a while longer. Sam had another swim and I just lounged about on a really comfortable bank of grass above the last pool, the sun was shinning and all was well with the world once again, I wasn’t sun bathing or anything like, that but sitting/lying there felt pretty damn relaxing!

Somehow I managed to eventually drag myself away from idyllic setting and set of to try and pick up the path through the Drumlin fields. With the sun out I started to notice that the south facing slopes of the Drumlins had Bluebells growing on them, they contrasted nicely with the other colours, not on a Rannerdale scale, but still very nice to look at. We reached the end of the track through the Drumlins pretty much where we left it to climb Nabs Crag a few hours before and I was still mystified as to where the continuation of it went. We had taken a detour off the path in Mosedale to follow the course of the waterfalls and lost track of where it went, very strange, perhaps it is a secret path!

Retracing our steps back past Swindale Head and along the valley I had presumed would be less interesting, but if anything it was more interesting than the way up for some reason, perhaps it had to do with the sunshine? I found this valley to be very peaceful, I got to thinking about the next valley northwards, Mardale , now covered by Haweswater. Perhaps this was how Mardale felt like before the reservoir was built. The sight of Gouther Crag on the other side of the valley put a stop to these thoughts, I hadn’t really noticed these crags on the walk in, another reason why walking up and down a valley can be interesting and not ”I've seen it all before!”
Back at the car I popped the boot open and sat in the boot , removed my boots and socks and aired my feet while finishing the last of the coffee while Sam laid down and went to sleep. Watching some Fell Ponies graze I contemplated the walk, yet again AW’s Outlying Fells had provided me with a really satisfying walk, no big hills, no big height gain, no famous names but a walk with interesting features along the way amongst a very quiet part of the Lake District. I had really enjoyed it apart from the bits I didn’t enjoy (the bank holiday rain!) Forces Falls had indeed been a real treat. I had seemed to spend quite a lot of time thinking about the past on this walk, how life in Swindale was so removed from the modern world, what it must have been like in Mardale pre Haweswater time, the 1966 world cup! In fact I sort of carried on with this train of thought as I chose to drive back home along the A6 over Shap instead of the M6, nostalgia indeed!