Route: Coniston Old Man and Brim Fell
Area: Southern Lake District
Date of walk: 14th June 2014
Walkers: Andrew and Gilly
Distance: 7.1 miles
Weather: cloudy with some sunny spells – warm and humid
We parked in the car park at the top of Walna Scar Road and followed the popular path up through the old quarries as far as Low Water. From there we climbed up Brim Fell Haws along a very faint and clearly little used path. We were the only people going up this way today. It was a steady but easy climb up to the summit of Brim Fell and a simple stroll from there up to Coniston Old Man
The summit of the Old Man was the highest point of the walk, but for us it was the lowest – a crowd of people hogging the summit cairn, talking loudly to each other or into their mobile phones and seemingly oblivious to the spectacular mountain scenery around them. Wainwright would have turned in his grave, though reading his description of the fell, things were just the same then as they are now
We didn’t linger there and descended to Goat’s Water, and as we did so admired the intimidating wall of Dow Crags – and the climbers ascending it. It was an easy walk back to the car park and we both agreed that we’d had a brilliant walk, marred only by the crowd scene on the Old Man – a minor irritation lasting two minutes and insignificant in comparison with the four hours of enjoyment we’d had
For other walks here, visit my Find Walks page and enter the name in the ‘Search site’ box
Click on the icon below for the route map (subscribers to OS Maps can view detailed maps of the route, visualise it in aerial 3D, and download the GPX file. Non-subscribers will see a base map)
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What a treat in store as we leave the car park
Further along the path looking towards Great Carrs and Wetherlam
The old quarries ahead
Walking through the quarries
Looking back to Coniston Water
Low Water - it was here that we left the main path to climb up the deserted slopes to the right of the picture
And it was here that Bonnie made two new friends ……
A shoal of dogfish! Our Bonnie on the right and by coincidence the one on the left is also called Bonnie
Looking back down to Low Water - the popular path we’d left can be seen zigzagging up to the Old Man
Coniston and Coniston Water
Levers Water from Raven Tor
Gilly and Bonnie admire the view from Raven Tor
Looking towards Coniston Old Man
Levers Water - a reservoir, with the dam on the right
Almost on the summit ridge now, looking across to Swirl How
Coniston Water
Brim Fell
Coniston Old Man straight ahead and the Duddon Estuary on the right
Closer to the summit of the Old Man
Trig point at the summit, looking back to Brim Fell
Looking back down to Low Water. The main path is on the right but we’d gone up the slopes to the left of the picture
On the way down now, this is Goat’s Water with Dow Crag on the right
Dow Crag
Zooming in on Dow Crag and some intrepid climbers at the foot of the crags
From this point it’s an easy descent back to the start
Bog cotton
The end of the walk and a last look along our ascent path
Back in the North Lakes, a young red squirrel in the garden
