Half(ish) the Harvey Howgill Tops

With Claire away doing the OMM, I had a weekend with no plans. Original plan was to do the Dales Top Ten, but it's a long arse way and something that long in late October with no backup probably wasn't going to be wise. Especially the OMM weekend, notoriously a weekend for piss poor weather.

In the end, I settled for a recce around as much of the HHT as I got done. I haven't been in the Howgills for over ten years, and don't know the area that well. I didn't want to be navigating on a completely unfamiliar route in the dark, so I set out with a fairly vague plan.

I'd printed the area out on 5 sheets of A4 and marked all the tops on (in order).

Leaving the Cross Keys at about 8.30am (After a poor night's sleep in the van I struggled to get moving) I headed in the general direction of Wandale. Obstacle number one is the river crossing before climbing to Narthwaite. It was only just over ankle deep and not that cold. Then up to Narthwaite, and the first wrong turn of the day. Instead of climbing up to the path above the wall I took the farm track that leads to Mountain View. I didn't realise this until Mountain View was coming into sight, and I realised Bern Spence and I had come that way off the hill 14 years ago in some particularly evil weather.

I passed through some gates and followed a bearing to the top of Wandale, finding a clear trod from the south as I neared the summit, which would probably have brought me up from Narthwaite if I'd gone the right way.

I came down Wandale to the east, to pick up the path to Adamthwaite. Reaching the farm it took me a few minutes to find the path - it's just beyond the first barn and not waymarked, although the gates across the field are. Then climbing through some slop and handrailing a series of walls out onto the fell.

Crossing onto access land I headed NE directly up Harter Fell. At this stage the weather was still fairly friendly and I was quite warm with 2 base layers and a light waterproof. From Harter I headed down the clear trod towards the road crossing and Knott. Crossing the road by a layby I cut across to reach a stream crossing, then followed a trod 50m to the right before cutting straight for the top. It was a short, fairly easy climb and I headed off towards Knoutberry. Climbing Knoutberry I encountered a group in their 20s who had been dropped off and were heading for Sedbergh. I bumped into them several times as they walked through the worsening weather and I scuttled off on strange errands to side summits.

On Green Bell I branched off to Grere Fell, joining the walkers again on the walk over Stockless. It was absolutely pissing down by this point and blowing a cold wind, so I stopped to eat and put on waterproof trousers. The walking group continued to the summit of Randy Gill while I branched off to Hooksey. I passed them again between Randy Gill and Kensgriff, then lost track of them. Yarlside was a steep climb with little in the way of visible path. Once I reached the top I was in thick clag. Thankfully the Howgills are easy nav, at least if you're looking for summits. If you've run out of climb, you're on the summit, no false summits here. As I started to climb I apologised to a passing walker for spoiling his photo with my nasty garish coat...

From Yarlside I dropped down into Bowderdale. Getting below the cloud I had a lovely view of the valley, much like Wainwrights pencil drawing in "Walks on the Howgill Fells". I crossed the river near a tent pitched at the join with Hazel Gill, refilled my water bottle from Hazel Gill itself then started up Hazel Gill Knott.

The top of Hazel Gill was windy, very wet and very very cold. I made sure I reached the summit then started down the ridge to West Fell. That took a while, and took it's toll on my sense of humour. My feet were cold and I was very wet.

At West Fell I struggled to see anywhere sensible to descend on very steep grass in the pouring rain. I'd taken advantage of a break in the rain to swap my maps and been startled by the extent of the north western leg. In this weather and on my own, I decided cowardice was the better part of valour and headed south again.

The weather eased a bit on the Calf, although it was still very cold. I rearranged maps again, and identified a candidate route: Bram Rigg; Calders; Arant Haw; Sickers; Knott; then back to the van. On this side of the range it was almost nice, although thick cloud and still quite cold it wasn't actually pissing down or unpleasantly windy. I didn't know what the run in from Knott would be like though, so stuck to the plan.

Bram Rigg is pretty non-descript. Calders is a cairn and a sharp turn in the path. Arant Haw was well away from the main path, and I just kept climbing in the clag. Eventually I found the cairn, took a bearing for Sickers Fell and headed downhill. As I reached about 500m I dropped out of the cloud, and followed a gill down for an easy climb up Sickers.

Sickers to Knott was a fairly clear trod, then the trod went off to the south. I wanted to head north to the Cross Keys, so I took a bearing to join the wall at the bottom of access land.

The descent to the wall was through thick bracken, and fairly tough going. Followed by another ascent in thick bracken**. After that I found a trod along the wall, which took me to the Pennine Journey LDP and all the way back to the Cross Keys.

If I'd known I was going to have 90 minutes plus of daylight left I might have picked up a few more of the southern tops. As it was I did 19? - about 35km and 2300m of ascent, and still felt like I could have comfortably continued. An excellent day out with some slightly grim weather periods, and a good reintroduction to the Howgills after a long time away.

**Claire says there are a couple of clear paths here for the Sedbergh fell race, so I need to recce a better route.