For our final Lakeland walk this
year was Pike O'Blisco. We had planned it so that if the weather
was good, we would park in Great Langdale, then climb Pike O'Blisco,
followed by Crinkle Crags and Bowfell, dropping back down the Band
to Great Langdale. But if the weather was not so good, we would
drive round to the car park by Blea Tarn, and just walk Pike O'Blisco
from there.
As it happened, the weather was not too bad,
but the forecast was not very good, and as we drove along the Great
Langdale valley, the clouds were getting lower, so we decided to
leave the Crinkles and Bowfell for another day, when we would hopefully
get some better views.
As we had planned, we parked at the Blea Tarn
car park, then walked across the road to the Tarn. |
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blea tarn |
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blake rigg from blea
tarn |
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blea tarn with the Langdale
Pikes in the background to the right |
| After stopping to admire the views
at Blea Tarn, we followed the path by Blea Moss Beck towards Wrynose
Pass. There were some lovely small waterfalls in the beck, and the
path was quite good. |
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Blea Moss Beck |
| When we reached Wrynose Pass, it was
looking quite black over Wetherlam, Swirl How and Great Carrs were
disappearing in the cloud. |
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wetherlam from wrynose
pass |
We walked along the road for a
while, stopping to move a caterpillar to safety away from the tarmac.
In spite of consulting with several textbooks,
I am not yet going to offer an identification, other than to say
I think it is a moth. |
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Rescuing a caterpillar
on wrynose Pass |
| We left Wrynose Pass at the bridge,
taking what can hardly be described as a clearly defined path towards
the summit of Pike O'Blisco. Luckily for the first half of the ascent
the so-called path followed a stream, which made it easier. |
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wrynose bridge |
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Lousewort on the way
to pike o'blisco |
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following the stream
towards pike o'blisco |
| When we reached a plateau beneath
Pike O'Blisco, the stream stopped, and there were several small tarns. |
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a small tarn near the
stream with blake rigg behind |
| By the time we reached the small tarns,
it was lashing down with rain, but fortunately, unlike the Coniston
Fells behind us, we were still not in cloud, and although the summit
was not in view yet and the path was no longer there, it was quite
easy to see where we were heading. |
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Looking towards pike
o'blisco in the rain |
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the summit is getting
a little nearer |
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view towards the helvellyn
range |
| After several "false" summits,
we finally climbed over some rocks and were able to see the true summit
above. It too, was still out of the clouds, even though it was still
pouring with rain. |
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David at the summit of
pike o'blisco |
| The summit cairn is a magnificent
one, but with the rain and wind lashing, we decided to delay our lunch
until we got down to somewhere slightly more sheltered. |
| The Crinkles and Bowfell kept disappearing
in cloud, then re-appearing a few minutes later, and we were pleased
we had decided to save them for a better day. |
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crinkle crags and bowfell
from Pike o'blisco |
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Anna getting wet on pike
o'blisco |
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the langdale pikes from
pike o'blisco |
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great langdale from pike
o'blisco |
Our chosen descent was to Red Tarn,
then Three Shire Stone and back along Wrynose Pass. As soon as we
dropped down a little from the summit, we managed to find sufficient
shelter from the wind and rain to have some lunch in at least a
little comfort.
Whilst eating our sandwiches, we were slightly
surprised to see a couple approaching Red Tarn from Wrynose Pass,
with an umbrella. The consulted their map, then walked off in the
direction of Crinkle Crags. Nothing wrong with an umbrella, of course,
but we were amazed how they managed to keep it up in the wind, and
I must admit they were the first fellwalkers we had ever seen with
one in the mountains. |
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Descending towards red
tarn with Cold Pike behind |
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cloud over the crinkles
but bowfell still clear |
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bowfell |
| The path to Red Tarn is good, and
the path from Red Tarn to Wrynose Pass even better. Besides, having
been to Red Tarn twice before, we knew where we were going by the
time we got this far. |
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the path from pike o'blisco
to Red Tarn |
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the path to great knott
and the crinkles |
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red tarn |
| We had to climb over the stiles across
the fence put up by the National Trust as part of their re-heafing
scheme. By the stiles are boards explaining about the re-heafing scheme
and warning that the electric fencing is likely to cause compasses
to malfunction! |
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a warning by the electric
fence |
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looking back towards
pike o'blisco |
We were soon at the Three Shire
Stone, from where we walked along the road until we reached the
path to Blea Moss Beck and Blea Tarn, which we followed back to
the car. |
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David by the three shire
stone on wrynose pass |
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little langdale from
wrynose pass |
