Great Bourne and Starling Dodd

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Looking down into Ennerdale whilst descending from Starling Dodd.
A bit of unfinished business this one. I'd intended to run Great Borne and Starling Dodd earlier this week as part of my loop around Mellbreak and Hen Comb. As I mentioned, the tail end of Storm Brian was still lingering and it made for quite a challenging run, hence why it was cut short. So, with much improved weather conditions, I re-plotted the route and headed out early to bag another two Wainwrights.

Parking at the National Trust car park beneath Bowness Knott at Ennerdale Water, I ran briefly up the road before taking a sharp right and heading up the steep path to the Knott and Rake Beck. The path is relatively comfortable to run, minus a few steep sections where I had to slow down to avoid large patches of mud and/or bog.

At 230m I reached Brown How, where the path takes a sharp left and becomes unrelentingly steep and considerably more challenging. I followed the path over the narrow contours, keeping the beck and waterfalls to my left. At around 500m I hit the clouds, at which point the path levels off, becoming more run-able. By this point, despite the good conditions in the Ennerdale Valley, visibility was down to around 50m, if that. Following the route plotted on my Garmin I picked my way up to the rocky summit of Great Borne at 616m. There was zero wind which made the experience quite eerie as I knew that hidden behind the cloud was the greatness of the Ennerdale Valley.

Following a newish fence, I headed east along a clear but sodden path, descending by around 100m. Gradually I changed course, heading south-easterly up a steep path to the summit of Starling Dodd. I imagine, on a clear day, that the summit of Starling Dodd would afford impressive views, this morning however all I could see was cloud and a bundle of old fence rails. Oh well.

Starling Dodd and its modern art.

At this point, despite checking my OS map and my Garmin watch I got lost and ended up spiralling around the summit until I found the path the leads to Red Pike. It's so easy to become disorientated in the mist and I lost all sense of direction, trundling over the rocky summit until Garmin finally informed me "Course found".

Heading further east over Little Dodd I followed a boggy path south east in what I assume was the shadow of Ling Comb. What the hell would I know? I could have been in the shadow of the Arndale Centre for all I knew as the cloud was still very dense. At this point I began climbing the south western approach to Red Pike. This is steep. And pointless, as I would soon be taking a sharp right and descending into the valley once again, so I cut the corner and became lost, again. I soon re-found the path and could enjoy the run down into the valley. As I ducked below the clouds I got a glimpse of what might have been.

Emerging near the High Gillerthwaite YHS, I reclaimed a bit of time running out of the valley along the track, back to the car. At ground level the valley looked lovely, it's just a shame the two summits were covered. Despite this, it was still 7 enjoyable miles.

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