Spare Weekend

Patterdale to Fairfield, Helvellyn & Swirral Edge

March 25th, 2007

Walk Stats
Length: 19.2 km
Ascent: 1500 m
Highest point: 952m
Time: 8:30 hrs
Condition: Bright sunshine, turning a bit windy in the late afternoon
Maps: Explorer OL5 and Landranger 90
Difficulty: 4/5

Route download: GPX

Summary:

‘I thought we where just going for a short bimble,’ 8:30hrs and 19km later we finally get back. Against all of that, it was a nice walk & the day started fantastic, bright and warm. Started in Patterdale, up the side of Birks and along the ridge to Fairfield for a snack. By this point i wanted to go home but was forced up Helvellyn & back down Swirral Edge… the swines!

Description:

We started off from a Pub carpark in Patterdale (NY 39751580) headed W from the back of the carpark and missed the first path up the near Oxford Crag, as we started to follow the fence by accident, and headed up to rejoin the path. As we wanted to get up Fairfield & Helvellyn we decided to miss out the short section to the top of Birks even though it looked like fun as the path was covered in Snow. The Cape was our first snack stop and provided some spectacular views of the surrounding area including the climbs to come.

From the Cape we headed up Fairfield and had a now traditional half way Haribo stop, a small breeze started to develop which kept us cool but as we stopped for the Haribo we felt the chill. But i really didn’t like the descent to Grizedale Tarn as it was a mix of damp mud and a fine scree….. a wee bit painful on the knees.

A steady plod up to Dollywag pike, left me pretty much knackered, however Martin felt the need to divert from the path and run full pelt along the edge of the Crag. The path then followed the ridge up to the top of Helvellyn where we had our last snack of the day, and put on coats etc as the wind started to pick up.

Due to the wind & because i was knackered we decided to take the slightly easier descent of Swirral Edge rather than Striding Edge, and followed the path around Red Tarn and over the ridge. From here we followed the paths back to the carpark & walked round the carpark 3 times just so we could get the GPS track from 19.7km to over the 20km. Trust me it seemed sensible at the time.

All in all its the first walk we’ve been on this year with such good weather and had plenty of scope for variation.

Entry Filed under: This is not a scramble, Routes, Walks, General