Splitting the Threshthwaite Round : Stony Cove Pike and Hartsop Dodd

Four peaks: Gray Crag, Thornthwaite Crag, Stony Cove Pike and Hartop Dodd lie like a necklace around the deep valley of Pasture Beck. They represent an almost irresistible target to the eager Wainwright bagger. Surely all four can easily be bagged in a single outing?

For once, I recommend patience. Hear me out.

Consider. If you want to climb all four, you have only two realistic choices - start at Hartsop Dodd or start on Grey Crag. Now, tell me - have you ever even looked at these? If not, let me advise you that Hartsop Dodd is the steepest, soul-rotting 1400-foot pitch outside Dore Head, and that Grey Crag, climbed from Hartsop, is one of the dullest, thankless fellsides you could ever set foot on.

So here's my suggestion. Use a different approach. Lying virtually unnoticed in the centre of this necklace is a priceless jewel - the Pasture Beck valley and the wonderful glacial landscape of Threshthwaite Cove. Temper your impatience and award this group of fells the privilege of two separate visits, and start each with a climb up to Threshthwaite Mouth.

Yesterday, a day of peerless blue skies and freezing cold wind, I dumped my sad apology for a car in Hartsop's excellent car park and took the farm track that works round the bottom of Hartsop Dodd. Looking up, I thanked my lucky stars that I wasn't going up there again, and shortly afterwards was gazing along the two-mile length of Pasture Beck valley. My target was already clearly in sight - the beckoning throat of Threshthwaite Mouth.

The going here is delightful - it's called Pasture Bottom, and is every bit as nice as its name suggests- smooth and grassy with the tinkling beck never far to your left. Before long, of course, things get serious, and you have to watch your feet, but in the main, you follow a beautifully pitched path.

There are two stages to the climb. The first takes you underneath the soaring Raven Crag - a famous climbers' crag -and gives you your first clear view of Threshthwaite Cove. This is a wonderfully impressive bowl in which you can easily imagine the glaciers of the last Ice Age melted only yesterday. The second, the final ascent to Threshthwaite Mouth itself is easier than it looks. It's all of 600 feet straight up, but you're always on excellent paths, and there are no false summits to make your heart sink.

Eventually, the gradient eases, a wall appears, and you're gazing over the top into the promised land of Trout Beck. This is one of the very few places in Lakeland where you feel you're traversing a high mountain pass. If anywhere here deserves to feature a Buddhist stupa and prayer flags, it's this spot!

Yesterday I sat cowering behind the wall to eat my morning banana while a freezing wind from Ambleside whistled over my head. I'd seen no one since leaving Hartshop - no one ahead, no one behind, no one on the fells at either side. Perfect! But the day was just about to get even better. Turning to the right, I addressed the stiff crags leading up to Stony Cove Pike.

This is gentle scrambling at its finest. There's no clear route, and who would have it any other way? You're left to your own devices to pick your way up the various ledges and boulders, always on beautifully grippy volcanic rocks. Climbing is much easier than descending, of course, as the preoccupied fellow scramblers I now began to meet breathlessly confirmed. But I was going up, so that was fine with me!

Honestly, if you don't love this route, you should give up on fell walking!

The summit of Stony Cove Pike itself, however, is a disappointment. According to Wainwright, of course, this is Caudale Moor. But Caudale Moor is just a random collection of dull humps on a vague dome of dour moorland. It seems that modern mapping technology has identified Stony Cove Pike as the highest of the dull humps, and tidy-minded souls have felt it their duty to build a cairn here. But there's no view, and frankly, the cairn doesn't convince. Better to turn your attention to the sweeping ridge now tempting you to give your tired legs a treat on the long descent back to Hartsop.

Basically, you just follow the wall here along a lovely, smooth path through rough grass and sedge. Hartsop Dodd lies right at the end and has the decency to offer a final rise - just enough to justify its claim to be a Wainwright without making a nuisance of itself at the end of a challenging day.

For me, this was time for lunch and an opportunity to lord it over the sweating fell-walkers coming up from Hartsop. The view here is, of course, superb, and since everything for me was now downhill, I was able to enjoy every moment of it. Twenty minutes later, I was back at the car and headed for home.

Honestly, I can't think of any Lakeland route to better this one. But then, of course, I've still to go back again and try the Thornthwaite Crag/Gray Crag leg. As I said earlier, it pays not to gobble your Wainrights. They don't make them any more, you know.

Jimearl6 and beth like this post