{"id":139244,"date":"2025-01-12T20:01:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-12T20:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/?p=139244"},"modified":"2025-01-15T07:55:06","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T07:55:06","slug":"thursday-on-catbells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/2025\/01\/12\/thursday-on-catbells\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday on Cat Bells"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On a lane between Keswick and Portinscale, by the River Greta and much used by camper van cognoscenti, I measure out water for my coffee. Numbed fingers and chink of ice on aluminium speak to temperatures last night having plunged to a low of minus 8 but, in the warm embrace of thermal skinwear in thermalite liner in down summer bag in 3-season bag under 13.5 tog king size duvet on Expedia air mattress atop four storage boxes in a Berlingo Multispace stripped of rear seats – as described in <\/span>A rubber tramp in Redcar<\/strong><\/a> – I’ve passed the night in 5 star bliss.<\/span><\/p>\n

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After coffee it’s southways to Cat Bells …<\/span><\/p>\n

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… then a sharp southeast descent from Hause Gate to Manesty for a sunlit stroll along the lane to Grange in Borrowdale.<\/p>\n

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Grid lines 1 kilometre apart<\/h6>\n
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One winter in the ‘seventies I played football with strangers on Derwent Water. In those days a cold snap might last for weeks. A bloke from the Council would take daily test drills and, when the ice hit ten inches, pronounce it safe for cars between Keswick jetties and inhabited island.<\/p>\n

Things ain’t wot they used to be. Our cold spells now seldom last more than a few days – that’s nowhere near enough, however chilled the air, to get ice you can truly trust.<\/p>\n

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Psalm 121, KJV<\/strong>: I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills …<\/em><\/p>\n

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On a rubber tramp in early March 2022<\/strong><\/a>, with the Russian SMO just a week in, I wrote:<\/p>\n

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In Grasmere by noon, I took the bus to Keswick, another to Portinscale, and briefly entertained getting up onto Cat Bells for the peerless vistas \u2013 to the east Derwentwater, Borrowdale and distant Helvellyn; to the west Grasmoor, Causey and Grisedale Pikes \u2013 but opted for the gentler anticlockwise circumperambulation of Derwentwater.<\/h6>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Today it’s the stroll round the lake I’ll eschew, in favour of said peerless vistas.<\/p>\n

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The way is steep and in two places a scramble up ice encased rock is called for. I could’ve made good use of crampons.<\/p>\n

To my right the western fells holding Grizedale Pike, Eel Crag and Causey Pike, and beyond them Buttermere and Crummock Water …<\/p>\n

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… while to my left Keswick huddles in the lee of windswept Skiddaw.<\/p>\n

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I’m walking pretty much due south so, where you see the lake, I’m looking left and east …<\/p>\n

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… and where you see snow and mountain at more or less lens level, I’m looking right and west.<\/p>\n

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Looking eastwards across Derwent Water to the Borrowdale Fells I’ll be treading tomorrow.<\/p>\n

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Now for the descent; poles de rigeur<\/em>. Especially lower down, where compacted snow on the path …<\/p>\n

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… gives way to ice coated rock.<\/p>\n

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I make it down, without mishap, to that pretty lane into Grange.<\/p>\n

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Gentleman gatepost seeks lady gatepost for friendship with extras.<\/p>\n

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The Derwent from the bridge at Grange. Fed by a thousand icy rills and plunging waterfalls from the crags and ridges of Green Gable, Seathwaite Fell and Glaramara, it hurries north to Derwent Water.<\/p>\n

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Styhead Tarn, nestling between Great Gable and Seathwaite Fell in the map’s southwest corner, is a watershed. Where Green Gable drains northways to Borrowdale, Great Gable, higher and better known, drains southways to Wasdale. In the summer of 1970 a brother and I, sent astray by swirling mist and compass fooled by iron in the rocks around Scafell, wound up at Wasdale Head – with our tent at Seatoller, centre of the map. Getting back before nightfall being out of the question, we spent the evening at the Wasdale Head Inn – and fifteen shillings (seventy-five pence) on bed and breakfast. To ensure the campsite didn’t call mountain rescue out we had to make a trunk call, along analogue wires strung from poles following the valleys thirty miles to Barrow in Furness then routing north to Keswick and back to Borrowdale, despite a crow-fly no more than five miles.<\/p>\n

The Derwent, sunlit below the elegant double arched bridge at Grange …<\/p>\n

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… and a few sunless metres downstream of the same.<\/p>\n

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On the far side of the bridge …<\/p>\n

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… I reach the bus stop where the lane T-junctions the main road up through Borrowdale. I have a fifteen minute wait for the 78 to Keswick, which arrives bang on schedule at 15:31. Its upper deck is open to the elements for sightseeing but, not wanting for fresh air, I opt for the engine-warm below.<\/p>\n

After pint and meal – a Japanese ramen surprisingly good for a Wetherspoons – in town I take the moonlit path across earth hard as iron, past frozen shallow lakes on the flood plain north of Derwent Water, to the lane where van and warm bedding await.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow it’ll be Stonethwaite Valley, Dock Tarn and Watendlath<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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* * *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

* On a lane between Keswick and Portinscale, by the River Greta and much used by camper van cognoscenti, I measure out water for my coffee. Numbed fingers and chink of ice on aluminium speak to temperatures last night having … Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-quote","hentry","category-travel-uk","category-nature","post_format-post-format-quote"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139244"}],"version-history":[{"count":182,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139734,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139244\/revisions\/139734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steelcityscribblings.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}