Height: 2631 feet
Bible Position: The Gable Group
Conditions: Cloudy and occasional rain
Viewranger Stats:
Stats from Viewranger
Position: 7th highest in Western Fells
Other Wainwrights on this walk:
It was my turn to drive and we were planning one of the walks I had been dreading since we did Yewbarrow back in August 2013. I remember sitting at a great bait stop on Yewbarrow overlooking Kirk Fell thinking that is going to be a tough walk. As I set off for Peter before 6 am it was pouring with rain although the forecast was for showers and clear spells with heavy rain late in the day.
Start of the walk
We arrived at Honister Slate Mine on the Honister Pass just before 8.30 again in heavy rain. The rain seemed to stop for a minute and then start up again so we sat in the car for maybe half an hour. It seemed to clear enough for us to start walking although we had waterproofs on from the start.
The start of the walk is one we have done many times up the old tramway towards Drum House.
On the track up to Drum House
When we reached Drum House we turned left, heading in the direction of Brandreth to join Moses Trod.
Looking back down the track from Drum House
Our path from Drum House
We were beginning to climb slowly again and whilst it was still cloudy there were signs of some clearer spells too.
Looking back to Haystacks (the dark mountain on the left) and Buttermere and Crummock Water beyond
The path levelled out and we had a long spell of walking on the flat and even slightly descending.
Long, steady path took us to our first bait stop
Baitstop
The path took us to our first bait stop almost 2.5 hours into the walk.
Our first sight of Kirk Fell
Our bait stop gave us our first sight of Kirk Fell although if it had been clearer we would have been able to see if for the past hour. Also immediately behind us was Great Gable. We stopped for 20 minutes, fuelled up ready for the big push to the summit.
View of Wasdale
As we set off from the bait stop descending rapidly towards Beck Head Tarn with Kirk Fell right behind it.
Kirk Fell in all its glory with Beck Head Tarn in front
Kirk Fell summit
The summit getting closer
and closer
and closer
Great Gable from Kirk Fell summit
Panorama of the north western fells including Grasmoor, Skiddaw and Blencathra
The descent
As usual it was windy at the top so we headed back down on the same path. The hardest part of the descent was right ahead with the drop back down to Beck Head Tarn and back up to our bait stop. We stopped at the same bait stop again with a slightly different view. Now that the cloud had cleared, we could see the path we were going to take from right to left.
Our high level path back to the car
We set off on the path and could now see the might of Kirk Fell. To be honest if we had seen this view earlier in the morning it may have been more daunting.
Kirk Fell
Panorama showing Haystacks, High Crag behind, Buttermere, Crummock Water and Fleetwith Pike
We got back to the car at 3.50 pm so a long walk, 30,000 steps according to my Fitbit and just under 7.5 miles as the stats below show.
Stats from Viewranger
Graph from Viewranger showing Speed, distance and altitude
Kirk Fell was a great top to bag out of the final eight and strangely in spite of the long distance, I felt the best I have felt after a walk in a long time. Only the “magnificent” seven left to do now. We are hoping to get Catstycam done this year and that leaves Scafell, Lingmell, Pillar, Scoat Fell, Haycock and Iron Crag.
See you on the next one.
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