Top 'o Selside and Carron Crag (Outlying Fells)

Wednesday 10th February

Brock Barrow      SD 298 898

Low Light Haw    SD 301 900

High Light Haw   SD 303 904

Top 'o Selside       SD 308 919

Carron Crag          SD 325 943

The title refers to Wainwright's chapter titles and the list above shows the fells visited in those chapters.

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Doing a walk with a fellow blogger presents a problem when writing  the post - if your companion has posted before you the story has been told, and often photos are almost identical.

The map here and Bowland Climber's account tell the story of this trip.

CLICK HERE FOR BOWLAND CLIMBER

Although only just over eight miles this was a tough walk for me, but it was a perfect weather day and a wholly satisfying round.

Last summer I was averaging sixteen miles a day on my backpacking trips, but rough terrain and around 2000ft of ascent make a big difference.

I recall a similar experience from Northumberland last year:

I'm often asked if I enjoy such outings, and my answer this time may be undecided, but the view from this very remote top and the feeling of utter isolation and tranquility on a perfect, weather-wise day compensated for the trials, and I had that little glow of knowing that I had conquered against some difficulty.

  CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL ACCOUNT


Do I learn from mistakes? I can recall numerous thrashes across felled forest landscape, by far the most difficult terrain to traverse, and my avowals to avoid such in the future. The problem here was to gain the return bridleway from the summit of Carron Crag, and the route we took was more or less the same as shown on my map. BC refers to our combined 100 years of experience, and that told us we would be in for trouble on that course, but just look at the map, bearing in mind the forest rides marked are non-existent due to new planting. In retrospect we should have returned by our inward route to rejoin the bridleway south of Mustard Hill. So much for multi-years expereince.

I seem to have become obsessed with the zoom facility on my camera, and this foreshortens the foreground and reduces the feeling of extensive wilderness that we tackled on the tops - BC's photos convey this better than mine.

Brock Barrow - our first summit

Coniston Lake, Dow Crag, The Old Man of Coniston, Swirl How and Wetherlam,

Distant Top 'o Selside but picture foreshortened due to zoom, reduces the feeling of extensive tracts of rough terrain

Zoom to Dow crag - look how far away it is on second photo!
I know I've chopped off the top, but it's not easy holding still at that extent of zoom combined with the difficulty of seeing cleaerly in the viewfinder. I suppose I should have a tripod 

Carron Crag. The benign looking bare patches are actually felled forest - the worst of terrains

BC going for the summit of Carron Crag

From Carron Crag

Pink is actual route of ascent

Our return route passed the old farmhouse of Low Parkamoor which I saw in June 2013 on a previous (Marilyn) ascent of Top 'o Selside.

Low Parkamoor here and the next pic. My route descended the valley before it. The old farmhouse is joint privately owned with the National Trust and they hire it as a holiday cottage - if you want ?
Here, an extract from their advertising:
"It is eco living all the way with no mains services. The house is served by a traditional Lakeland composting toilet, pure fell water straight from the well, with cooking and hot water provided by the restored Georgian wood-burning range. Living at Parkamoor is a unique experience. It takes care and consideration but the rewards of the simple pleasure of sitting by the fire or cooking on the range make it a treasured experience."

Mmm?