Lake District: Great Borne and Starling Dodd

19 May 2012

After a morning doing some shopping to replace various items when Stephen's bag was stolen, and a nice lunch, we travelled to the edge of Ennerdale Water to visit some fells in the north-west of the district. The cloud had been breaking and lifting during the morning, and a pleasant afternoon was forecast.

After parking at the Bowness Point car park, we walk back along the road, with glimpses of Ennerdale Water

Ahead is Herdus, rising to Great Borne on the right. Our route inclines across to the slope towards the col on the left, before gaining height more steeply

A little further, and we have left the road, on this lovely afternoon.

Starting to gain some height, a look back across the road we walked along, to Crag Fell on the other side of Ennerdale Water.

George appears to be trying to hide from a sheep, but is just relaxing as he waits for me to catch him up.

Gradually gaining height, having "turned the corner". The original intention had been to climb the shoulder of the fell, but I didn't see a path and this inclining path resulted in some easy height gain. Eventually it petered out and some steep but easy climbing on grass brought us up to the flatter summit area.

George on Herdus, looking over Bowness Knott to Ennerdale Water, with Lank Rigg in the distance beyond the col leading into the Calder valley.

Later, the views to the fells at the upper end of Ennerdale start to open up

Did you spot George in this picture?

There he is!

Heading for the top of Great Borne

The view ahead to Starling Dodd

The trig point on Great Borne, looking to the coast

The view across Crummock Water (a small bit of which can be seen) to the Grasmoor massif. Although it wasn't planned at the time of today's walk, that was to be my objective tomorrow.

The route follows the fence towards Starling Dodd. Ahead, Ennerdale leads the eye to Great Gable in the distance, with Pillar closer to us on the south side of the valley

Another look across Crummock Water to Grasmoor and its satellites

George and me on top of Starling Dodd, with its twin cairns of rusting fence posts and stones. This was the first outing for the new hat and new coat, and a return to life for the sunglasses which had been relegated to spares.

The walk continued towards Red Pike, dropping down into the col before descending into Ennerdale. Great Gable grows nearer at the head of the valley, with Kirk Fell now in view behind Pillar

Descending alongside the stream, and about to join an alternative route of the Coast to Coast path, but clearly not one used very often to judge by the subtle path.

Safely down on the valley road, it is still more than four kilometres back to the car

A last look at Ennerdale Water

A pleasant walk with some good views, and the weather better than expected. I know these aren't the two most well known summits in Lakeland, but to walk for 4½ hours on a sunny Saturday afternoon in May and see no-one else at all was still quite remarkable.

Total distance 12.9 km and 815 metres of ascent in 4 hours 45 mins