Gragareth, Leck Fell.

 Wednesday 29th April 2026

Today's walk brought up a minor question of linguistics.

 On my way back down the road from my ascent of Gragareth I entered  a fenced off area off the road containing what is named on Ordnance Survey maps, and almost everywhere else as "Lost John's Cave"

It seems at some time perhaps late in the 19th.c. two friends, both called John entered the cave with candles but unfortuntely, candles exhausted, they died there. The point is that the singular possessive uses 's, but this was plural possessive which should use s'

Lost John's' was explored properly from the 1920s onwards. The word cave is misleading in that it forms part of the massive Three Counties System. From Wikipedia:

The Three Counties System is a set of inter-connected  limestone solutional cavesystems spanning the borders of Cumbria, Lancashire and North Yorkshire in the north of England. The possibility of connecting a number of discrete cave systems in the area to create a single super-system that spans the county borders was first proposed by Dave Brook in 1968, and it was achieved in 2011. The system is currently about 90 kilometres (56 mi) long, making it the longest in the UK and the thirty-fourth longest in the world, and there continues to be scope for considerably extending the system.^[5]

I can't help yearning to get onto higher ground and proper hills, but my breathing problem does not help. Anyway, I decided to give Gragareth a try because one can drive to about 400m. but there is still a stiff road climb followed by an even steeper ascent of the fell. From car to summit is about 1.7miles and it took me two hours. Memory Map gives 1007ft. of ascent for my route.

Driving up there from the A687 through Leck is on nail-bitingly narrow roads with some serious potholes. The possibility of meeting oncoming traffic fires the adrenalin, but on the two occasions I was lucky enough to be at points where passing was possible with skilful manouvering by both parties.

Views on this perfecly cloudless day were extensive but I was battling into a very strong wind, and on the summit it was definitely gale force preventing any desire to linger, but oh! it was so worthwhile to be out on the tops looking in all directions at endless limestone hills and terrain with views right out to Morecambe Bay and distant Lake District.

On my descent I passed by the Three Men of Gragareth, large cairns erected back in 16th.c.

The day was well rounded off with a hot soak, a good meal, a good bottle, and some of the best snooker ever with John Higgins robbing Neil Robertson of a place in the semi finals next day.

There is much talk of such folk performing at high standrards at supposedly advanced years. John Higgins is only 51. I was 68 when I walked from Land's End to John o' Groats and climbed most of the Munros in my 60s finshing at age 69. and I'm still having little adventures like this one at 86.

A steep road climb from the car. If you click photo to enlarge you can just see the Three Men of Gragareth om the skyline

From road to fell

One of the other cairns seen on the ascent

Your guess is as good as mine. Gragareth summit

The Three Men of Gragareth

Leck Fell house (farm)

Lost Johns' Cave

Ignore blue routes, today's is the red one