Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

Sunday 24th January 2016

B Walk

Lords Seat - Broom Fell

7 Miles Grade 2

Leader: John Harrison

Report by John Harrison

With two apparently good walks on the programme a more numerically substantial turnout could have been expected at the Sands but in the event 8 souls had risen to the challenge. The A walk seemed to have more appeal and so three of us set out on the B. Approaching Castle Inn the cloud was down to field level and so there was much discussion of weather forecast reliability and the like as the rain ( at this point a light drizzle ) began to appear on the windscreen. On parking and getting out of the car we found that it wasn’t actually raining and was very warm and so necessary to be as lightly clad as possible. After a short walk from the car and crossing road bridges still closed post flood, we began our ascent using the good forestry tracks into the Whinlatter Forest. The drizzle soon returned and necessitated the donning of waterproofs which gave rise to considerable overheating. Now onwards and upwards through the visitor centre and heading for Seat Howe which we reached closely followed by a group of young lads from Liverpool who spoke very nicely to Heather so that she would agree to take some photos using their hi-tech phones (well beyond me as I am sure they could tell). The weather we had so far experienced was nothing compared to what was to come. Our next objective was Lord’s Seat and as we emerged from the forest and the lee of the hillside the strength of the wind soon became apparent. We literally battled to the summit in a howling gale and tried to “discuss” whether we should proceed as planned to Broom Fell. The noise  and strength of the wind rendered discussion (and standing upright) impossible so we decided to revert to the protection of the forest. A fairly leisurely lunch was possible in the shelter of the trees and then we commenced an enjoyable descent on a network of good tracks and, being a modest group sizewise ( if not in other respects) were able to indulge in “good crack” and to put the World to rights. I think we felt that we had had a good walk  all enjoyed our day a bit more than we thought we might at the outset. Sorry there are no photos but not a photographer between us (unless you come from Liverpool and sweet talk Heather!)