Bowfell & Crinkle Crags - part 1

November 21, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Bowfell and Crinkle Crags - part 1

Almost straight after my weekend in the lakes with work friends, I was fortunate enough to have another few days in the lakes the very next weekend. And even better, I pretty much had wall to wall sunshine for the whole weekend.

When I visit the Lakes with my best mate Duncan, I often take a day off work and travel up early on the Friday to go walking and take photos, and Duncan joins me in the evening. As I am on my own I try and keep to simpler routes, just in case the weather turns bad. On this occasion I decided to walk up Bowfell, starting in Langdale, one of the easiest routes to navigate. You can see the main path winding up the hill - The Band - from some distance away.

So after stopping for cooked breakfast at Chesters, at Skelwith Bridge (a favourite haunt of ours as it serves probably the best cakes ever!!), I set off, at first under quite heavy cloud cover. However, as I reached The Band and started climbing, the weather cleared, and the sun stayed out for the rest of the day.

As you climb the Band, you get great views of the Crinkle Crags to your left (first image) and Pike O'Stickle and the Mickledon valley to your right (second two images).

After a steady climb up the band you reach a small plateau with options to go left or right. This is called Three Tarns - for obvious reasons as there are three small tarns. From here the views extend forwards to Eskdale as well as Langdale behind.

The route to Bowfell is a steep but steady climb to the right. Crinkle Crags (more later) are off to the left. As you approach the summit you walk alongside a large expanse of sloping rock - the Great Slab of Flat Crags. The views back over Langdale are spectacular.

Pike O'Stickle and the Langdale Pikes still dominate the middle distance, but look increasingly small as you go higher.

The short distance further on, the summit of Bowfell provides spectacular views in all directions.

Firstly back towards Langdale and the Langdale Pikes.

The view the other way is dominated by the Scafell range - the two highest peaks in England - Scafell (left) and Scafell Pike (right).

Moving round towards Langdale brings views towards Glaramara.

And then distant views of the Helvellyn range in the east.

With great views of the River Esk snaking through Eskdale in the other direction.

The weather was glorious. With my initial target for the day achieved, I took my time to savour the views (and take one or two pictures!!)

This next image shows the view back from where I had come. Three Tarns is at the foot of the picture with the route off to the right to Crinkle Crags. Pike O'Blisco is seen in the middle left of the picture, and Great Knott can be seen middle right, with the Coniston fells in the background. At that point I wasn't to know, but the next day I would stand on those fells and look back on the route of this walk from the other direction!

It was such a great day and I had plenty of time, so I decided to extend my walk to Crinkle Crags.

More of from there in the next post.

Keywords: bowfell, lake district, langdale, langdale pikes, pike o'blisco, scafell, scafell pike

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