B0609
Clough Head and Great Dodd
Thursday
27th April 2006
It
was one of those good to be alive mornings. Hardly
a cloud in the sky. Wonderful clear visibility.
Spring at its very best. The May was out.
So clouts were cast. Out went the thermals,
face mask, goggles, winter gloves, hand-warmers etc
and on went the summer trousers. Pulling out of
the gate I stopped the car. Was it wise to go
without my thermals? So I went back for my tights.
A very good decision.
All
we (Bryan, Tony and I) had planned was that we would
leave Coledale for another day and decide where we were
to go when we met up. Bryan presented us with
two options. The first, given that we went up Harter
Fell last week was to go up the other Harter Fell from
Eskdale. However we were a little time challenged
(me having been stopped by sheep and wall in the road
in Natland) and it was rather a long way. More
importantly, it would be impolite, even indecent, for
the Boot Boys to go over to Eskdale without going en
masse to the Burnmoor Inn at Boot to pay our respects
to our presumed deceased (or was it diseased?) inspiration,
the redoubtable Big
Josie of Boot. So that too was left for
another day and we elected to go to Dockray and tackle
Clough Head and Great Dodd, totally new territory for
me but another good decision.
It
was a beautiful drive (other than for the
dead badger) but when we parked up at High Row the wind
was not only stronger than expected, it had a distinctly
cold edge to it. Time to put the tights on. The
best decision of the day!
The
Approach
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High
Row is another of Bryan's sneaky car parks
that gain you a lot of height before you
put foot to ground. But the route from here
is very un-lake-district-ish.
It
feels more like Scotland. Long approaches
and rounded hills. In fact 2.3 miles
of the Old Coach Road before we left it
and even then we turned off sooner than
we should as Tony and I climbed what turned
out to be the wrong style whilst Bryan was
distracted by a call of nature.
|
And
so it was that we pioneered a new and initially slightly
boggy route up White Pike and on to Clough Head where,
it being past 12 o'clock and Tony's feeding time, we
took lunch.
Coledale
beyond Derwent Water
|
Blencathra
|
The
views up here are fantastic. Blencathra, Skiddaw,
Derwentwater, Bassenthwaite and the Coledale hills that
we had originally intended to go up. Sadly however
the day was starting to go off and the air was nowhere
near as bright and as clear as it had been earlier.
Great
Dodd from Clough Head
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From
here we had to lose height before climbing
up to Calthow Pike and then on to Great
Dodd.
There
is a small area up here with the most remarkable
vista- from the same spot you can see four
of the major lakes- Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite
to the north, Thirlmere to the west and
Ullswater to the east.
We
had the second stop in the shelter and then
more or less straight down across the grassy
fell back to Groove Beck, the Old Coach
Road and the car.
|
As
often happens, the day picked up a bit again on the
way home but not for what were by now two dead badgers!
The
walk seemed shorter than my computer said it was but
with rather more climbing than its estimate. Whatever,
it was another good day for Boot Boys, although not
for badgers.
Don,
27th April 2006
STATISTICS
Distance: 8.3
miles
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Height
climbed: 2,100 feet
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Map
reference: See Map
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Wainwrights: Clough
Head and Great Dodd.
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