BB2219 :  The Hanging Cloud

Thursday 23rd June 2022

A cloud was hanging over us and I don’t mean that it was not a sunny day.  It was indeed sunny; exceptionally so.  But that cloud still hung.  A long-time BOOTboys follower, David W, has placed a question mark over whether or not we reached the higher summit of Mellbreak last week.  We might have gone back to check today but when Robin dropped out, we (Bryan, Stan and me) changed objective so that we could make an observational assessment from across the water.  By “water” I mean Crummock Water.  A by-product of this observational assessment expedition was that we could top six Wainwrights, five of which Stan and I each needed.

We parked near Hause Point, intent on following the same route as BB1011.  From the lakeside it did look, sadly, as if the southern Mellbreak top were the higher, however it was too soon to make a judgement.  

As we climbed, the perspective changed.

Whiteside is quite steep and reminded me rather of last week’s punishing ascent of Mellbreak, except it is longer and considerably higher.  We agreed that we would not wise to descend by that route.  Looking down on Mellbreak, it did now seem as if the northern top (which we had climbed last week) was somewhat the higher.

The path to Hopegill Head (the one we didn’t need) was much easier, though it looked far more dramatic.  

From a distance it looked like a series of sharp edges with steep drops on either side.  In reality it was nowhere near so bad.  

Sadly we now had to lose 500 feet of height in order to cross over Coledale Hause and begin the ascent of Grasmoor.  As its name suggests, this was quite different terrain.  We had a good view of our route so far.

It was an easy but long climb to the excellent viewpoint at the top.  There was a wide panorama of Lakeland tops, slightly hazified.

We more or less retraced our steps for the short detour to Wandope before pressing on to Whiteless Pike.  After series of interesting bumps which again proved much safer than they appeared from a distance and an inconclusive view of Mellbreak.....

..... we dropped down .....

..... as far as the path to Rannerdale Knotts.  No clear evidence here but a good view of the range around which we had wandered.

The descent was by one of the early “Fix the Fells” stone steps which weren’t in very good condition and proved rather testing at times.  Finally, we had the stroll back to the car which seemed somewhat longer than I expected.

The success of the day was the five ticks in the book for Stan and me.  However the cloud still hangs over us.  Mellbreak remains an outstanding matter which we shall have to conclude in the near future, armed with every type of GPS on which we can lay hands!

Don, Thursday 23rd June 2022

Comitibus:  Don, Bryan, Stan

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STATISTICS

BB2219 : The Hanging Cloud

Date:

Thursday 24th June 2022

Features:

Whiteside, Hopegill Head, Grasmoor, Wandope,
Whiteless Pike, Rannerdale Knotts

Distance in miles:
SatMap on Memory Map

10.1

Height climbed in feet:
SatMap on Memory Map:

3,864

GPS track (SatMap simplified):

BB2219gpx

Comitibus:

Bryan, Don, Stan

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