Great Borne

The last walk left "unlucky" 13 tops to do so it would be good to move on to the final 12 as quickly as possible!  We did Seatallan last time out and fully intended doing Haycock today, just a little further on.  However in the car on the way there I said to Peter I had a cold coming on so thought we would do the smallest top out of the 71, Great Borne.  The idea being it would be easy enough to get up and down fairly quickly, well its only 2021 feet after all!  So we headed to the Fish Inn at Buttermere and we were going to walk around Crummock Water and go up the way we came down when we did Starling Dodd back in May 2015.  We arrived at the Fish around 8.30 and with my knee strapped up and full of scotch egg, ready to walk around 8.45.

Early morning Crummock Water

Crummock Water

We walked between Buttermere and Crummock Water, alongside Buttermere Dubs heading towards Scale Force.  It was a clear and quite warm morning for early October, actually much warmer than our last walk in July.

Crummock Water on the left, Buttermere on the right

Scale Force

We crossed the bridge at Scale Force and begun to climb towards Hen Comb and Whiteoak Moss.

Crummock Water Panorama with Grasmoor in the distance

Whiteoak Moss was very boggy, in fact most of the walk was wet under foot, just as well it was a fine day.

Flautern Tarn and the final climb to the summit

We climbed above the boggy area towards Flautern Tarn just under Great Borne, it was now just before midday as we looked up at the final ascent to the summit.  It appeared a steep walk but had to be done as we were so close to another top.

At the bottom of this final push we met an older guy, only the fourth person we had met on the whole walk.  Not a very popular walk this, unless you had to do it!

Looking towards the coast from the climb to Great Borne

As it turned out the climb was not as tough as it looked and we reached the summit around 1pm.  A little over 4 hours walking and around 20,000 steps so far.  So much for the shortish walk to the lowest summit!

The summit with Red Pike on the left and Great Gable in the centre

Even at the summit it was still quite warm.  We now had to decide what was the quickest way down. That final ascent would be a tough descent and we didn't fancy crossing the bog again so we headed towards Starling Dodd to descend the same way we did back in May 2015.

Looking back to Great Borne

We knew there was still some distance to be covered to get back to the car but it was a nice day and we had plenty of light left.  We walked around Starling Dodd, just missing the top, heading in the direction of Red Pike.  We took a left dropping down to find the path which would lead us back down towards Scale Force.  It was a tough path, not too steep but rocky and a few difficult parts around the waterfall.  Also by now this was becoming the longest walk we had done so the legs were very tired.

Fitbit stats showing almost 9 hour walk!

A new record for a day

We got back to the car about 5.20 almost 9 hours after we had set off, very tired but satisfied that another one was chalked off, only 12 left to do now.

High Stile and Starling Dodd

This is our first walk of 2015 surprisingly.  Peter picked me up at 6.15am to head over to Buttermere.  We had been here twice before, once in late 2014 but it was just too windy to attempt on that day and then again in January but I didn't feel well on the climb after about half an hour so we turned back.  This time there were clear blue skies and no sign of a head cold from me so I was looking to get at least one maybe two tops chalked off.  We parked in the public car park behind The Fish and set off walking with the usual Angus the butcher steak and kidney pies.  We walked around the edge of Buttermere, crossed a little bridge and entered the woods and immediately started to climb.  It took about 20 minutes to walk through the woods onto the open fell.  Once onto the fell we continued to climb steadily towards Bleaberry Tarn.  It was here that we turned back on that windy day in November.  Today was much calmer as we sat and had some bait at the tarn.  There was a clear path heading up from the tarn towards Red Pike which we took.  This path started off quite easy and then the second half was scree and very steep.  We eventually reached the top just below the summit of Red Pike and turned left towards High Stile.  It was now a fairly easy walk to the summit.

Looking back to Bleaberry tarn and Crummock Water beyond

Summit just ahead

We sat at the top just out of the wind for some time having lunch and looking back down to Bleaberry Tarn, Buttermere and across to Grasmoor and further to the right Robinson with Skiddaw and Blencathra in the distance.  It was a clear day and we got a great view of the surrounding fells.

Great bait stop this

The path we followed from the tarn on my left shoulder, Crummock Water in the distance

High Stile ridge

 We walked along the ridge and then turned back towards Starling Dodd.  We were either going to tackle this one as well or turn right and head back down to the car.

Our next destination - Starling Dodd centre of picture 

As we walked around Red Pike and dropped towards the start of Starling Dodd it seemed well within reach and it made sense to do this one too.  It would be nice to only have 18 tops left after today.  It was a fairly short but steep climb to the summit in what was now a biting cold wind.

Starling Dodd with Red Pike and High Stile behind, Pillar on the right

We just grabbed a quick picture and came straight back down.  We turned left and crossed some heather heading towards a stream which we followed all the way down to Crummock Water.  It was a really steady descent, fairly easy on the knees today.  Once down, we walked around Crummock Water towards Buttermere and then back to the car.  We arrived back at the car just before 5.00 pm so a long day, just short of 30,000 steps and over 11 miles.  Most importantly only 18 to go now!

See you on the next one.