Holme Fell and Claife Heights

Holme Fell (NY315006; 317m)

Setting out from a nice car park along the dead-end road to High Tibberthwaite, lying to the west of Holme Fell, our ascent included a chat with a couple of MRT chaps manning a drinks station for the Lakeland Marathon (we were, apparently, just ahead of the first runners) and an encounter with a border collie which removed the sun cream from the back of my right leg with its tongue. So, reasonably uneventful really...

Our descent included the accidental herding of a Belted Galloway all the way down to the gate on the track at the foot of the fell.

The hill itself is a small and easy one, with plenty of animal trods to ease passage through the heather and bracken for those, like us, who shun the less-direct main trodden line. It's not a bad viewpoint either, and at the time we were up there barely a cloud was to be seen in the sky.

It was a short walk (again) but not a bad little hill. Our stroll (which could have been made a little shorter - not that any further shortness was necessary - by starting from one of a number of pull-ins we found along the road on the east side of Pierce How Beck) came in at just 2.7 miles with 600' of ascent.

Claife Heights (SD 382973; 270m)

Being in the car today, the drive to Far Sawrey was quick and easy, even in the face of oncoming little cars whose drivers seem to think they're three or four feet wider than they are.

The village hall there provides parking in return for a couple of pounds in their honesty box and it was ideally positioned for our purposes. Even better, they also have benches, which gave us a nice place to perch to eat our sandwiches (it was only 11am but once again I was hungry enough to eat a scabby dog).

The walk up to Claife Heights, approaching via the track to its west side, was relatively uninteresting and the summit likewise with only a tiny snippet of a view visible through the trees...

...so we opted to return via the path to the east of the summit in the hope of getting to look at Windermere below us. The path itself was slightly more pleasing, but the views largely still absent. It went down as the least interesting hill of my trip so far.

With 3.75 miles walked (750' of ascent is my rough guess) we were back at the village hall and off to Ambleside to fondle a bit of gear and to eat ice-cream.