Looking north into Kentmere To Kentmere, once more. No need for a map when my own memory map presents time and place of all those other days, other seasons. The sun spotlights the crag at The Tongue, gleams white off Reservoir Cottage and shadows the disused quarry where I once disturbed a peregrine with its kill. On the last day of March I once heard skylark as a flock of fieldfare took flight from the sycamores by the barns at Stile End, heading north toward the snows at the head of Kentmere.
The morning light is wonderful, in defiance of a gloomy weather forecast.
The morning light is wonderful, in defiance of a gloomy weather forecast.
Bound for Shipman Knotts and Kentmere Pike, we leave the bridleway beyond Stile End and head north to scramble up Wray Crag. The ridge walk opens up vistas and at our feet deer grass and cotton grass take on the deep burnish of autumn. At Kentmere Pike, the weather closes in and vistas are lost. So we decide to retrace our footsteps. We’d like Shipman Knotts unknotted- we’d like to steer clear a descent over wet rock, if possible. Here the Harvey map encourages us to head west of the crags- the OS map shows walls which appear to bar the way. By a sheep fold or two, following the track of a quad bike, we quickly come down to the Herdwicks grazing about the barn with crow-stepped gable and sycamore trees. Rain sets in as we linger over mosses and lichen in the stone walls.
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