Don't You Just Get Tired Of All Those Views?

      Another dry and almost sunny evening where I just had to seize the opportunity and grab a quick walk. I'd decided upon Lingmoor Fell, which is familiar to me as I must have been up here as many as sixty times in the past eighteen years, in fact I've walked it, run it and even cycled over it. Normally i would park in Elterwater, only today I was able to leave my car at a friend's house in the village, of course I always feel safer when I can do this in an evening.

     Began the hike by walking along the Colwith road as far as the Eltermere Hotel then forking right, on the Baysbrown back lane, there's a good steep little hill on this road which should get you breathing. If you look over the walls, you will notice in the trees signs of a good litter of long-ago quarry workings, they can be easily up to a thousand years old. You will come to the first major junction on your right, this is a good slate track up onto Lingmoor, on a gentle incline, through light fell-side woodland, which soon breaks out onto some old quarry workings, beyond the tree-line. Here you can get the first hint of the good views to come.

      Time for a rest and who am I to argue? We're soon off once again and now there's no trees to hide the view, although it's best to keep your eyes on the track as there are plenty of loose slates to trip you up and force you to make an unnecessary call to the Langdale and Ambleside Mountain Rescue! The path continues in something of a zigzag movement up the remainder of the fell upon a fairly steep to reasonable incline, which is the normal route to follow. This time however, I made a spur of the moment decision to take a different course, which is along the quarry track to more former workings. The path such as it is now takes a more severe up-turn, until you are physically walking up the old slate sleigh route.

      I can't honestly recommend this route to anyone, although my brother seems to use it quite often, this was my third ever ascent, who knows, I may never come this way again! At the bottom the slates are still embedded in place and this acts almost like a staircase, yet as you get further up, the slates are loose and somewhat dangerous, not the way to bring the family! You could be going home in a helicopter, one of the big yellow ones!
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     Soon you break the top and find yourself in the old quarry workings, which are fairly spectacular, and worth a look around, even though it could easily be very dangerous. There is no clear path out of here, although a quick scramble up to the left to a convenient iron fence, puts you back on the fell, then a short walk round the side puts you on the sumit of Lingmoor.