I started from the Glenridding car park: £8 to park for the day and they still charge you 20p to use the loo. And while the machine is meant to take plastic that bit didn’t seem to be working today so be sure you have plenty change. Over on the left bank of Glenridding Beck, signposts for Helvellyn lead past the campsite and up the valley. After a bit there’s a sign saying the public footpath crosses the bridge so I did. A faint path heads left upstream immediately after the bridge. Don’t make the mistake of following this as I wasted a little time doing. You want the road to the Youth Hostel a bit further on. Reaching the Youth Hostel I went right through the car park, past the old Greenside Mine works, and crossed the Beck again. A path from here climbs steadily up towards Red Tarn. Shortly before the Tarn I left it and headed up the east ridge of Catseye Cam, a straightforward grassy climb. The view that opens up here is quite wonderful, with Red Tarn shining in the September sunshine framed by the glorious horseshoe of Helvellyn and its two edges, Striding and Swirral.
Swirral Edge came next which is delightful and straightforward. The wee rocky nobble near the base is turned by a path on the right (facing Helvellyn) and at the short fun scrambly bit near the top the ridge is broad and there is little feeling of exposure. And so to the wonderful place that is Helvellyn's summit. Beautiful, inviting paths head off from here in every direction. Mine was easily northwest to Helvellyn Lower Man, then north to White Side and northeast to Raise and on to the head of Sticks Pass. From here a good path goes towards Glenridding which I followed as far as the quarry tips where I left it for a fainter path up Sheffield Pike. Sheffield Pike looks tiny from its much higher neighbours, rather less tiny from down here but it didn’t take long to reach the summit on the often rather boggy path.
“Even on a sunny summer day,” writes Wainwright of Sheffield Pike, “the top of the fell seems a dismal place…” On this beautiful September day this assertion seemed wildly, perversely untrue. I could have sat there forever enjoying the sight of Ullswater stretching away north. But there was a descent to be done. A path leads down the southeast ridge to a tarn where it steepens dramatically and descends a little vertiginously to the col before Glenridding Dodd. From here a path heads off to the right zigzagging down through steep heather back to Glenridding.
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