Staveley Fell

Fellow blogger and friend Bowland Climber posted a couple of days ago about his ascent of Staveley Fell being on the list of Wainwright's Outlying Fells which he is working through.

Click for BC's blog

It seems BC had a rough time on this aforested hill setting off from Staveley village.

Today I decided to make a quick ascent from Sow How Lane to the north, which was the start of an epic day out with BC a few months ago geocaching. That experience, coupled with his aim to walk as much as possible on Wainwright's original routes, probably put him off using this territory again. But for me there were the advantages of gained height,  a track leading me to within a few hundred yards of the summit, and estimated time to fit within a short weather window.

There was one car with room for one more on the surfaced road at the start of the track, and I met the lady with a Springer spaniel coming the other way after a few hundred yards. I then struck off up the hillside which, albeit only a short distance to the summit, was over recently felled forest and pretty rough going.

There are two lumps of higher ground which seem to be the same height to within a foot, but the one to the north has a small cairn as indicated in Wainwright's book, and as you approach from the south you get a splendid surprise view of Windermere which is not visible from the southern lump, and certainly makes this a worthwhile ascent. Strangely, W makes no mention of this splendid view.

This fallen tree shows how little soil the roots would have had for grip, it is just solid rock after a few inches.

Off the track onto the rough going of felled forest

Long zoom to the lighthouse above Ulverston - 10km. away

Staveley Fell summit and the surprise view of Windermere. The fell is not named on the OS map and  I reckon it was given its name by Wainwright.

Long zoom to Heysham power station - 27kms. away !