Bigert Mire, Whitfell, Yoadcastle, Hesk Fell, Cumbria.
[ 12.0 km] Wed 17 Dec 2008

When I arrived above Dunnerdale it was still dark. The lanes were very narrow in the Bigert Mire area and it took me a while to find somewhere to park safely. Bigert Mire is a Farm surrounded by various building which all seem to be holiday cottages now with not a sign of life. I spotted a footpath sign and followed it up along a rough track towards Bigertmire Pasture. Having left the walls behind the track soon petered out so I crossed some deceptively wet ground until I came to another wall heading up towards Whitfell.

Sunrise above Bigert Mire.

I crossed the last wall through a gate and headed steeply up the hillside. The views were good though not particularly clear. On the summit I took a couple of photos of the substantial stone cairn, took a GPS reference on the trig point and spotted a brief gap in the cloud which showed me the way to Fox Crags. There was more wet ground to cross but then a reasonable path took my past Holehouse Tarn where I left it to check out Stainton Pike.

From there I could just see a partial panorama but most of the higher fells were in cloud. At least it wasn’t raining. My next call was Yoadcastle where the wind was quite strong on the rocky summit. I looked across to Hesk Fell, my next objective, to figure out the best way across the intervening bog. I started by following a faint path but it soon vanished but appeared again after the wettest bits. An easy gradient took me to the summit of the featureless Hesk Fell.

Whitfell summit.

One of the buildings by the slate quarry.

here were no rocky outcrops anywhere nearby so the summit cairn comprised about 5 stones. I descended to the SW and soon had a nice view of the Holehouse Gill valley which I’d never seen before. There was no footpath in the valley bottom so I followed the wall to the old slate quarry which had some buildings still remaining. A handy stile in the wall took me to a track which I followed to the public path down to Hole House. I’m glad I was on foot for the last bit of road as it is very narrow and has walls on both sides.