Thursday, June 17, 2010

Great Mell Fell

Today we headed off beyond Keswick to climb some fells that we have not been up before. Our original plan took us to the Helvellyn range, but as we passed Cockermouth before 9:30 the temperature was already 21degrees so we set our sights on somewhere lower. We decided on Great & Little Mell Fell, two fells somewhat in isolation from the rest of the Lake District Fells. We left the road to walk up this good track through the trees. We left the track to continue up the fell in this open, hot landscape Soon Blencathra appeared before us
Further around the full Blencathra range
Then we turned to head for the summit, the next couple of pictures don't really do justice to how steep it was
But this one does.....
Somewhat hazy, Grisedale Pike & the Coledale round
After many false summits we do reach the peak of Great Mell Fell (537m)
Bess trying to run away on the summit photo as she realises she is in the picture
We have made a circular walk of the fell so head away from the summit in the opposite direction
You would never guess the wind blows from the west here?
We leave the trees & head for the original track, back to where we have parked
Little Mell Fell is the next target, sadly these fells are joined by name but no ridge line so it is back to the bottom before climbing again
Gowbarrow Fell beyond this meadow, which we climbed last Autumn
We collect lunch from the car & head for Greenrow
We ran into a problem at Greenrow as the land owners had marked every access from the footpath to the road (200ft) as private & put plenty of barbed wire in place to ensure you could not get across, so reluctantly we turned back.
Great Mell Fell which we had just climbed
Some much needed refreshment for Bess & Crag
Having not reached the summit of Little Mell Fell we decided to drive to & stop at Bassenthwaite Lake for lunch
Bess & Crag are happy with the decision
Skiddaw through the haze
You may not believe they have already had a decent walk today...
We are soon joined by a lady Jack Russell called Scratch who was determined to hang around & keep up with Crag
This was futile as you could see from the previous video, he was however happy to socialise when he waited for another stone to be thrown
Bess wasn't so interested however
A good walk, shame we couldn't get to the second fell, but we expect to be camping at Ullswater during the summer & will attack the fell from a different side where we will get access.

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