A great day today climbing Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike from Gatesgarth Farm. A little high cloud in the morning cleared by early afternoon to give clear blue skies and wonderful views.
We set off from Gatesgarth Farm at 10am and followed the path across the fields to Peggy's Bridge climbing up above the trees we took the long gentle path up towards Scarth Gap.
It wasn't long before we had some great views over Buttermere and Crummock Water towards Grasmoor.
We were soon up at Scarth Gap Pass, for a Saturday it all seemed very quiet up here today, a couple of people were on the path behind us and there were a couple of people coming up towards Scarth Gap from the Ennerdale side of Haystacks but otherwise there were very few people on the fells today.
We followed the path up towards the summit of Haystacks, up and over the easy scrambles and were soon up on the summit of Haystacks, for a short while we had the top to ourselves.
We pressed on, dropping down below the summit of Haystacks for the view along the Ennerdale Valley before taking the path down towards a very calm Innominate Tarn, on a day like this you can really see why Wainwright loved this spot, the views of the higher fells surrounding Haystacks are spectacular across the water of the tarn.
From Innominate Tarn we followed the path towards Black Beck, turning off the path a little to get the spectacular view along the valley towards the coast before descending to Black Beck and taking the short detour to Blackbeck Tarn.
From Blackbeck Tarn we climbed up onto Green Crag, probably the best view of the day and a wonderful spot to stop and have our lunch.
After Lunch we followed the path down by Little Round How, opting to take the path by Dubs Hut and up onto Fleetwith Pike.
There has been a lot of work done on Dubs Hut the last month or so since I was here last, the management of the hut has been taken over by the Mountain Bothies Association and they have put in new windows and done a lot of work on the hut, even put some old pictures of the hut up on the wall.
From Dubs Hut we climbed up the old mine path behind the hut to meet the path climbing up towards the summit of Fleetwith Pike. By now the high level cloud of the morning had all cleared and we reached the summit of Fleetwith Pike in bright winter sunshine, not bad for the last weekend in November.
After the obligatory photo stop on the summit of Fleetwith Pike we were off again, descending the Fleetwith Edge path back towards Gatesgarth Farm, a steep path that requires a little caution when wet but today we were soon down passing the war memorial and back down to the road.
Another great day on the fells.
