Posing on the climb of the east flank of Troutbeck Tongue
We set off for Sour Howes by taking the bridleway past The Howe at 413024 where some path reconstruction work was in progress, supported by the Fix The Fells Charity (Pictured). This charity does some serious work in restoring eroded footpaths as this one is. In fact the Wainwright Society have raised thousands of pounds to help projects like this one. We continued above Limefitt Park - a large leisure park of cabins, chalets and caravans in Troutbeck that has been built up over the years. We briefly joined the Garburn Road track by crossing it before climbing the access land up onto the dull fell known as Sour Howes LDW-180. I didn't take a photo here but the cairnless top is a series of grassy topped hollows. We activated for Wainwrights On The Air and made five contacts.
There was little to see as the mist had come swirling up the hill from Lake Windermere, although this lack of vision was to be short lived as the sky soon cleared once we set off to our next summit. We dropped around 100 feet into a depression at Moor Head and then ascended 200 feet to Sallows LDW-166 (pictured right).
From here I made contact with Geoff G4WHA in Penrith. He was 17 miles distant from Sallows (1693') with my signals passing through the line of sight path in the depression at 2250' between Mardale Ill Bell (LDW-059) and Harter Fell (LDW-048) less than four miles from where I was stood. An amazing contact and one worth highlighting. There was no chance of other contacts with Penrith that day from the other two summits due to the presence of the High Street range above us.
We now dropped down access land to the Garburn pass but soon left it to continue losing height passing the sheepfold at 428049. We took some rest and also our lunch on the side of the hill near Ing at 422048 and then headed north up Hagg Gill with Troutbeck Tongue LDW-207 in our sights (Centre of picture). The unsafe and rickety foot bridge at 426064 was crossed despite it being officially "closed". Stuart Marshalls route advised that we then take the precipitous route up the east side of the Tongue and this we did. We were warned. Climbing this was all part of the adventure for me but with some trepidation for Judy owing to the steepness of the hillside. Another couple just above us were following the same route and we persuaded them to take our photo once we were on top (below left). They weren't impressed by the choice of route either.
On Baystones (Wansfell Pike) LDW-178
We would have liked to walk the ridge across to Wansfell Pike but due to depleted energy levels having climbed over 3000' we cut our losses and made down to The Hundreds joining Nanny Lane at 403040 to take us back to Troutbeck and another footpath, which led to the back of the Church near to the car park which we reached at 5.15pm.
Wansfell Pike / Baystones is another place we will revisit, probably from Ambleside once the 214 fells have been completed.
Stations Worked (25 contacts):
G1OHH Sue Lancaster (All four summits)
G1KLZ Doug Ingleton (All four summits)
G6LKB Dave Ulverston (All four summits)
G1CCL Dave Morecambe
G4ZRP Brian Wirral
G4BLH Mike Nelson
G7SKR Dave Warrington
G6MZX Geoff Thornton in Craven
M3ZCB/M Caroline (Mobile near Buckden)
M1MAJ/M Martin (Mobile near Buckden)
This had been a great walk and a reasonable number of contacts were completed for WOTA.
Stations Worked (25 contacts):
G1OHH Sue Lancaster (All four summits)
G1KLZ Doug Ingleton (All four summits)
G6LKB Dave Ulverston (All four summits)
G1CCL Dave Morecambe
G4ZRP Brian Wirral
G4BLH Mike Nelson
G7SKR Dave Warrington
G6MZX Geoff Thornton in Craven
M3ZCB/M Caroline (Mobile near Buckden)
M1MAJ/M Martin (Mobile near Buckden)
This had been a great walk and a reasonable number of contacts were completed for WOTA.
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