Wansfell

Lakeland scene at High Skelghyll

Monday, 1 May 2023

Ascent:      510 metres
Distance:   10.5 kilometres
Time:         2 hours 31mins

Wansfell Pike      482m              39mins
Wansfell              487m        1hr 05mins

It was the end of the May weekend. We left the Airbnb at Skelwith Fold at 10:00am and sauntered up the nearby hill of Latterbarrow that overlooks Windermere. I had arranged to meet my old walking friend Mark, who lives in Ambleside at lunchtime. He had already walked over Loughrigg and Silver Howe and it was his birthday. After a catch up we decided to walk up the nearby Wansfell from his house. It would give us a chance to chat about past walks, politics, families and assorted other topics including battery storage and podcasts.

Mark has climbed all 214 Wainwright hills 21 times and has walked on the Lakeland Fells almost every day since retiring to Ambleside 8 years ago. He knows every path so we could concentrate on talking, route finding was axiomatic. As we were discussing the Rory Stewart/Alistair Campbell podcast that interviewed Tony Blair, an aggressive walker close to us shouted that Blair was a terrible man as I would know if I had ever met him. I retorted that I had had lunch with him and that compared to the last five Prime Ministers, he was a genius. He hurled some more abuse at me before accelerating away on the climb as we continued to blether but kept him at a close distance. 

We reached Wansfell Pike shortly behind him, he hurried off for the Wainwright summit of Wansfell, 2 kilometres away and 7 metres higher. We followed as I was keen to climb the Wainwright and I was looking forward to extending the argument, not so much to praise Blair as to inveigh against subsequent prime ministers who have brought us to the present crisis. It was quite boggy, Mark had not anticipated taking in Wansfell as well.  He suggested an alternative route off the hill to avoid returning by the way we had come. Our adversary reached the summit slightly ahead but instead of returning and having to pass us, he diverted across a boggy section below the path. 

The weather had been improving so we took some time to scan the skyline towards the line of hills that were a Roman high street and culminate in the eponymous High Street. We took a circuitous route back to Ambleside dropping down above Troutbeck to High Skelghyll. It extended the walk and gave us more time to continue our perpetual conversation. It was after 4pm when I set off home, pleased to be travelling north and avoiding the exodus of bank holiday traffic heading back from the Lake District to the English cities.

Mark on a charge towards Wansfell

Looking northeast from Wansfell to High Street