Seathwaite Fell

Seathwaite Fell

Route: Seathwaite Fell

Area: Southern Lake District

Date of walk: 19th January 2022

Walkers: Andrew and Gilly

Distance: 6.3 miles

Ascent: 1,800 feet

Weather: Cloudy with some sunny patches, bitterly cold on the tops

It’s 8 years since I last walked up Seathwaite Fell, far too long an interval for such a wonderful place. We parked in one of the roadside spaces just before the small settlement of Seathwaite, which has an unenviable reputation for having the heaviest rainfall in the country. Today proved to be dry, although it was bitterly cold

Having walked through Seathwaite, we crossed over Stockley Bridge, a beautiful old packhorse bridge which is Grade II listed.  We followed the well used path beside Styhead Gill and beyond Taylorgill Force waterfall we turned off left to join a faint path by an unnamed stream. This is easily missed, and the only sign of it is a small cairn. The path became steeper as we gained height but there were no undue difficulties.  We followed the path to the summit cairn (which isn’t at the highest point of the fell) and savoured the wonderful views all around, especially those looking back into Borrowdale

We then set off along the lumpy summit ridge in the direction of Great End, which is the key to navigating this complicated area, where the paths are very faint. We passed by several attractive unnamed tarns before arriving at Sprinkling Tarn, set in an amphitheatre of some of lakeland’s finest fells. The tarn is accredited as the source of the River Derwent. We walked around the right of the tarn and then joined the Sty Head path which we followed to Ruddy Gill, turning left here to head back down into Borrowdale via the Grains Gill path

During the course of over 4 hours we only passed a few other walkers, and encountered no-one at all on Seathwaite Fell itself. It had been a wonderful walk

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