Summary

Summits Achieved

Preface

"Will it ever stop raining this week" complained Tetley, staring miserably our of the window.

"Well we can only hope" replied Allen brightly trying to cheer his pal up. Continuing he said, "especially as I overheard Dad saying to Uncle Brian that he had arranged to walk with Uncle Eric on Thursday."

"We'll just have to keep our paws crossed", said Shaun.

 

The Walk

In the event the day was dry, but extremely windy, and by the end of the walk, we were all glad to get into the car. A convenient layby just on the Kendal side of M6 junction 37 was our start point. Walked up the hill towards Kendal to take the road left to Roan Edge Quarry, which is absolutely massive - awesome! Where the road ends the ongoing track is a bridleway. As we walked along the view opened out to the left of Killington Lake beyond the M6 motorway, with its service area hidden in the trees.

Eventually we reached a gate on the right, which we went through to climb to the trig point marking the summit of Roan Edge, seen here with the Lambrigg Wind Farm behind.

You may notice that Dad's hat is secured round his stick that is firmly planted in the ground. This is an indication of the strength of the wind up here, and we had to stay in the rucksack for our picture. It is very rare for us not to hop out, but Dad said we would have been blown away if we had.

Descended down to the gate and continued along the edge. The path then gradually descended to the minor Fairthorns Road, where we took a footpath right over a stile to Hall Bank Farm. Here a vet was in the process of removing the horns from a cow - not a nice sight and we were glad to get through the farmyard. Crossed a stile and went down the field under the power lines. A little while before we had seen a helicopter flying low over these - presumably surveying them. A fascinating sight. At the bottom we crossed a small stream and walked on to Millrigg Farm. Walking the narrow road, we came to and crossed the A684, then over the stile opposite to contour left of Bundrigg Moss - a very boggy morass, and then through a gate and onwards to a house called Birks.

Just before this Grizzly cried out "just look at that fantastic bluebell wood! You must take a picture Dad, to include in the story."

We were all getting hungry and ready for lunch, so it was fortunate that by a small building there was enough shelter to get out of the wind. The path was then followed on to Myers, where we crossed the road, and continued to Low Croft. Here through a gate on the right we were now in a narrow hedged track. Uncle Eric, who had done this part of the walk before, said "this is not recommended in the summer as it gets totally overgrown". Today is was lined with bluebells, celandine and other wild flowers-enchanting.

After a while we crossed a double stile. Dad snapped Uncle Eric as he checked our route on the map.

This was across the field to the house called Haygarth, and once past the buildings we immediately took the bridleway, climbing left to reach open fell. We were amused by this sign at the start of the bridleway.

Soon after the wall swung sharp right, a cairn marked a grassy track that led to the summit of Docker Fell marked by a post. Behind to the right was our final objective of the day Lambrigg Fell.

We retraced our route to the bridleway and then further along at a waymark went left, to make the rough crossing over heather and bog to another track. Shortly we went left of this to soon reach the rocky top of Lambrigg Fell marked by a cairn, where we immediately jumped out for our picture.

Now regained the track going left to a junction, where we went left again. Climbing up we crossed a wall by a stile, then the path passed near the wind farm. It was then just a short walk to the car, but not before Dad snapped this ewe with her lambs. Ah!

It had been another super walk, despite the windy conditions and we and Dad had never walked any of this before. Uncle Eric had done most of it, but had never visited the summits of Docker Fell & Lambrigg Fell. We are very proud to say that Uncle Eric has now done all the Howgill Fells and the associated outlying summits to the east, and all those to the west of the M6!!

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