With only 3 tops left to do, it is now the business end of the journey.  Hopefully, Scoat Fell or top number 69 of 71 would be completed today.  Scoat Fell is the third highest mountain in the Western Fells behind Gable and Pillar.  The forecast earlier in the week was not good but had improved as the week went on.  Peter picked me up at 6.00 am for the long journey to the west coast and my favourite part of the Lake District, Wasdale.

We arrived at the car park at Overbeck, the same one we started the walk to Yewbarrow, booted up and had our scotch eggs from Homer Hill Farmshop.

Start of the walk

We were off and walking just after 8.45.  We were going to follow Overbeck all the way up to Dore Head then turn left towards Red Pike and on to Scoat Fell.

It was still early but already quite warm and sunny.  Right from the start we were climbing steadily on this walk and in no time at all had gained some height.

It was now 10.30 so time for a break and a cuppa.  The views were already great even at this relatively low height, we were still only about half way in height.

We sat for about half an hour and then set off for Dore Head where we would turn left and finish the climb.

This was a walk where we were climbing all the way with very few flat parts. However none of the climbs were too strenuous, just enough to keep the heart pumping.  From Dore Head the walk did get steeper until we could see Red Pike.

At this point we could now see Scoat Fell right ahead with a small drop in height as we passed Red Pike and a final push to the summit.

Scoat Fell summit

We arrived at the summit just before 1pm, almost 4 hour climb (with a couple of stops).

There are 2 cairns at the summit, one on the wall, centre of the picture above and one in the distance on the right of picture.  The one on the wall is recognised as the summit but we visited both just in case.

We sat for a while to admire the views and have a little bait.

The descent

We had options for the way down, one of which was to head to Pillar but with a big drop and climb at Wind Gap it was just too far.  It would have been great to get two in today but we would save that one for the next walk.  Another option was to descend the way we had come up or to drop towards Haycock and then follow Netherbeck back to the car.  The last option was the one we chose to make the walk a nice circular one.

We dropped fairly quickly, in about an hour we were back down to around 1000 feet.  It was a very long walk back to the car however once we did get relatively flat.

When we arrived back at Netherbeck Bridge, we had a 10 minute walk back along the road to the car park.  We arrived at the car just after 4pm so another long day but very satisfying that I only have two left to do now.  Pillar and Scafel will hopefully be completed this year as planned.

See you on the next one.

Click here to view the walk in 3D