Parked in the car park at top of pass on B6478 – 719481. Quick out and back to trig point on Waddington Fell: a path goes straight up from car park and follows quarry perimeter. Countless signs warn you away from edge. Back at car park, I followed a faint, boggy path that led east to a big ladder stile in the wall near the edge of the wood. For Easington Fell you don’t cross this but again follow a faint path on left (NW) of wall leading to small cairn marking the summit. Then I followed the same wall along north side of woods towards Beacon Hill. At first this was pleasant enough. Then I met a series of transverse walls coming in from northwest. A gate in the first was accessible by descending a bit, another in the second needed no descent. The field between these gate was basically a swamp and horrible to walk/wade across. Things improved after the second gate till I reached the third wall which had a ladder stile. Beyond that it turned into jungle, where the “path” just consisted in some of the luxuriant – and often spiky – vegetation having been flattened a bit. The last wall had a gate propped against it rather than breaching it.
After this, the terrain greatly improved for the short trudge up to the top of Beacon Hill. Loads of walls around here but plenty gates through them. The trig point was in a field evidently recently full of cattle but none about today. Path SW from here (Shivering Ginnel on map) along forest edge easy to spot between two broken walls. Turned right onto woods at corner (749479) and followed good path, going left at 3 way cross roads. When you meet a track soon after this go right and very soon right again at another. This is the path NW through the woods and took me pleasantly back to the ladder stile I passed on way up. From here a much more substantial path a little north of the one I followed up took me back to the road five minutes walk north of the car park. I recommend my outward route from Easington Fell to Beacon Hill to nobody. The walk back through the woods is the way to do it. Flowering heather was lovely. Weather less so, more or less constant, sometimes heavy, rain.
RSS Feed