Iron Crag from Ennerdale
Height: 2100 feet
Bible Position: Copeland Forest
Conditions: Overcast but warm, a little rain at the start
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Position: Not in the Wainwright books
Other Wainwrights on this walk:
Todays challenge was going to be a little known top called Iron Crag. The only top in our 71 which even the great Wainwright didn’t tackle. It is tucked away between Wasdale and Ennerdale. It was my turn to drive so I picked Peter up at 6.00 am and we headed for the Western Lakes. We had three options
- Approach from Wasdale from the same place we tackled Seatallan. This would be a long, boggy slog.
- Approach from Ennerdale from the same place we tackled Haycock. Not amongst our favourite walks!
- Approach from a different part of Ennerdale Water. A walk into the unknown as we had not been in this area before.
None of the options were particularly attractive but option 3 only just got our vote. In this case a walk into the unknown seemed better than what we knew of the other 2 options! The weather lately has been outstanding, today was overcast but still very warm.
Start of the Walk
We arrived at Bleach Green car park near Crag Farm a little after 8.00 am. Our breakfast was our old favourite Angus the butcher of Seaham steak pies. We left the car park and walked towards Crag Farm. The path took us in front of the farm to the right, through a gate. Our direction was to turn left at the gate and double back behind the farm. We walked for about 10 or 15 minutes in that direction and decided that it was not gaining us any height. So we doubled back to the gate and walked a little way past it. There was a path on the left that began to climb immediately into the woods.
Ennerdale Water from start of the climb
As you can see from the photo above, it was very overcast. The car was parked just to the left of the construction site below in the middle of the picture. I had mapped the route on Viewranger and we were now sticking to the path. The route took us towards Crag Fell and it was a good job we had the Viewranger app today as the path was unclear in places. We passed in between Crag Fell on our left and Grike on our right. We then dropped slightly towards Black Pots, an old forest that had been felled.
Time for a Baitstop
When we reached Black Pots we stopped for a cuppa and something to eat whilst looking up towards Iron Crag which was in mist.
Looking back towards Black Pots
Peter knew Iron Crag was on the left of the wall in front of us. He also knew the wall was quite high near the summit so we decided to pass through the gate above. We didn’t want to reach the top but not reach the top because of a big wall did we?
The climb towards Iron Crag, just follow the wall.
Iron Crag summit
As it turned out there were two more gates through the wall higher up. The wall did get higher the more we climbed. The above photo shows us walking up to Boathow Crag in very wet grass! The summit was only another 30 minutes or so.
We reached the summit just before noon.
Iron Crag summit with the wall behind
Iron Crag summit, no great views today
We were delighted to get this one chalked off the list and also delighted that we chose option 3 above as this was a decent route.
The Descent
It was still quite early so we had plenty of time to get back down the same way. We crossed back over the wall through one of the gates as the path on that side was a little better. We dropped back down to Black Pots arriving back at our bait stop about 1pm. As we were approaching this point we could see Ennerdale Water to our right and there seemed to be a good path heading towards it. I suggested we took that path and walked back around the lake to the car. Seemed reasonable I thought! If we had followed the same route back down that we had ascended, it would have took about 90 minutes, certainly no more than 2 hours.
Ennerdale Water and the alleged short cut back to the car
Fairly quickly the path was no longer a path but was a walk through the heather towards the wall in the distance. Still no problem, right?
We crossed the wall and now the heather was gone but we had ferns in front of us. We had gone too far now to turn back and the lake was getting closer. Ferns were no big deal, right? As we got lower the ferns got higher and more dense. At some times the ferns were taller than us. Eventually the ferns gave way to woods and we could now hear voices from the lakeside path below.
The only photo I got of the ferns. Just as we got to the woods
Nearly there
We were nearly there. After the woods we had maybe 50 yards of more ferns and we were on the lakeside path. That was exhausting, so we sat for 10 minutes for a drink. Only about 2 more miles to walk back to the car!
So we got back to the car just after 4.00pm. The short cut had added about 90 minutes to our day. However the delight in chalking Iron Crag off far outweighed the extended walk.
And then there were three!
See you on the next one.
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