Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club
Walk & Event Reports
Sunday 17th April 2016
A Walk
Clough Head - Calfhow Pike - Great Dodd
8.8 Miles Grade 2
Leader: Phil Howarth
Report by Phil Howarth
Photos by Mike Coates
Just 5 of us on the ‘A’ walk today. We welcomed Afsah, Bernard’s friend, who is moving up to Cumbria soon. She is very cosmopolitan, originally coming from Mauritius and has subsequently lived in Paris as well as London.
We parked at High Row, which at 1340 feet above sea level gave us a head start regarding the amount of climbing we had to do. The Old Coach Road was followed for a couple of miles reaching Mosedale Beck and then starting the steady climb up the shoulder of Clough Head (2382 ft.).
It could easily be thought that Clough Head is just a grassy northern outpost of the Helvellyn range, not really worth a visit. This was confirmed by numbers given that we only came across three other people the whole day. However when we reached the top we were rewarded with the best panoramic view I’ve seen of the Lake District for some time (and beyond to the Pennines and Solway Firth).
We headed due south to Calfhow Pike where we had a relaxed lunch discussing the fragmentation of our railway infrastructure and the complete lack of high speed routes in this country. The French can do it, why can’t we? Must be something to do with the standard of engineers in this country.
After lunch we did the final ascent to Great Dodd (2807 ft.) before descending the grassy ridge all the way back down to the car park. Thanks to all on the walk for making it a memorable day out.
Phil
