The Dovedale skyline.

29/08/2018.

Another walk from our holiday cottage in Hartsop, its great walking straight from the door, without having to take the car out. That's the beauty of this area there are walks from the door for every day of the week if wanted..Today we choose a walk around the skyline of Dovedale taking in 5 Wainwright fells...Hartsop above how..Hart crag...Dove crag...Little hart crag and High Hartsop dodd...We set off along the lane from the village until we came to the layby and bridge over the Goldrill beck..from here there is a decent path to Brothers water, but we needed to get up onto the ridge so it was up up up on a slippery path through Low wood. Grabbing at Tree roots, branches or clumps of grass we pulled our way up through the trees, getting hot, fleeces came off, hats came off..We eventually made it up above the treeline, some lovely views of the valley began to open up behind us..Crossing a ladder stile and we had made it onto the ridge..its a cracker, rising gently curving like a sickle to enclose the valley of Deepdale.It was the view back to Place fell that grabbed my attention...I was going to enjoy this walk along the ridge.

We were to follow the ridge all the way up to Hart crag..The way ahead looked awesome, especially towards Fairfield, a fantastic wall of crags. It was along here that we bumped into a group of three ramblers doing a recce for a walk they were planning on a weekend away.It turned out that they were doing the same walk as us only the other way round..We stood and chatted about walking and hills wishing them luck we set off in opposite directions...Out of the wind before we reached the top of Hart crag we decided on a coffee and a bite to eat..spicy vegetable pasties and vegetarian Scotch eggs made a nice change from sandwiches..As we munched we watched as several walkers wandered around between crags on the other side of the valley. It dawned on me that they were searching for the path up to the Priest hole, a cave high up amongst the rocks, I remembered finding it on a wild camp trip many years ago. Its a cool place...even got a visitors book.

Our path skirted to the left of Link cove, a sort of hanging valley, up a steep scree slope to Reach the top of Hart crag at 2698ft this was to be our highest point of the day. 2698ft sounds great..i have never used metres when out walking, I refuse too. Makes my blood boil...I wonder if when we have left the EU that our maps will go back to feet, ditching metres..wouldn't that be nice..We were now on the Path known as the Fairfield horseshoe, there seemed to be several people doing it today...

We stood for a while taking in the views, it had been worth every drop of sweat to get up here..The next top, Dove crag didn't seem far off ...an easy romp and we were soon there but hang on we realised that we were at the cairn that stands above the crags the true summit is a little further close to the path...I like to visit all of the cairns just to make sure. Theres nothing more annoying than finding out later that you never quite made the summit...done that a couple of times before, making a return visit necessary. Turning off to the left we leave the Fairfield horsehoe down steeply now to the next top...Little hart crag.

Little hart crag is a delightful little hill standing just above the magical 2000ft mark, it is known as the Sentinel of Scandale...it has the appearance of a crouching watchdog..it takes its duty of guarding the pass very serious missing nothing of the happenings there.I wondered if he liked other dogs wandering across his patch..he probably sniggered like Mutley when he saw Alfie disappear into a boggy hole.. he struggled but made it out eventually..Jet black...a putrid smell filled the air...we sat by a small tarn for another snack...that putrid smell putting me off my flapjack.

A nice path along the ridge now heading back to the valley..Alfie rolling in various puddles slowly getting cleaner.An extremely steep descent lay ahead of us [Karens fave]..Me and alf romped ahead..it can be so painful on the legs coming down these grassy slopes..i like to bound along almost running, you forget about the pain and are down in no time...Halway down I met two Ladies  that were a little on the shall we say large size...they had never done any hill walks before and were struggling..one said it was her 40th birthday and wanted to do something worthwhile to celebrate it..she pointed to where they were going...up to Red screes and down Middle dodd..A bit ambitious I thought.. I asked the second one how she was getting on...she said she was dying..You will be fine I said although I knew she wouldn't...I carried on...I could hear No1 shouting at No 2..GET UP !!!..at the barn at the bottom I had a 10 minute wait for Karen.

Walking back through the meadows Near Hartsop hall we took a last look back at the way we had come down..I could still hear those large ladies shouting at each other...a couple of characters from Viz magazine came to mind...

Right... so do we return via the decent path alongside Brothers water or do we go to the pub first?..What a pathetic question..The first didn't touch the sides.