Mellbreak and Hen Comb
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| Mellbreak - photo by Michael Graham |
The journey started badly as I hit a rock the size of a football and dragged it beneath the car. In the dark and pissing rain, I used the torch on my phone to check for damage underneath the car. All looked OK, but it still put me in a bad mood.
I parked in Loweswater next to a farm gate at Church Bridge. Following a cobbled track south, I was soon heading up Raven Crag and White Crag. The wind was a shock to the system, taking my breath a few times. In fact, as the path up Raven Crag became narrower and steeper, and the gusts got stronger, I did wonder about aborting. I carried on and the ascent soon became easier as the path flattened and the northern summit of Mellbreak appeared in the distance. I passed the northern cairn, shortly followed by the southern cairn and the views down into Buttermere soon came into view. My phone was in my backpack and the wind was too strong for me to be bothered to get it out to take a photograph [hence my use of Michael Graham's lovely photo to illustrate what I might have seen, had the weather been a little different].
Anyway, I quickly built up some speed as I descended the southern slopes of Mellbreak. As this was my first fell run of the holiday I was still re-adjusting to an unfamiliar running style and was far too tense coming down. I seemed to descend somewhere in the region of 250m-300m. Reaching the plateau to the south west of Scale Knott I looked up at what was to follow; a steep ascent alongside Scale Force that would eventually bring me to the path to Little Dodd (and then Starling Dodd). The re-climb, plus the weather conditions made me think twice about the planned route (11 miles) and so I made the decision to cut the route short, bypassing Starling Dodd and Great Borne and heading straight over the Mosedale Beck to Hen Comb.
I'm not entirely sure this was my best idea as the shortcut across the Mosedale Beck tributaries was incredibly boggy; in fact, I ended up shin-deep several times. I had to spend a fair bit of time picking a sensible route over to Hen Comb, eventually heading up a steep bank towards Whiteoak Moss where I then took a right, heading north up and over Hen Comb. From Hen Comb I could see down into Loweswater and could just about make out where I'd parked the car. It seemed like miles away.
The descent down from Hen Comb was great fun and I managed to build up a lot of speed as I progressed over Loweswater Fell. It was slippery as hell and at one point my foot caught in a gully and I cartwheeled through the air. I landed on my back and laughed aloud when I realised that nothing other than my pride had been damaged. At the base of Loweswater Fell I was faced with the prospect of crossing Mosedale Beck. The Beck was really roaring through and the crossing stones were submerged. After a few aborted attempts to cross I decided to head further downstream through an old metal gate to a more suitable crossing point. I kept on jogging downstream until I came across a fallen tree bridging the rushing water. The tree trunk was far too wet and slippery to cross on foot, so I ended up straddling it onto the other side. Quite fun.
Re-joining the designated path, I joined up with the stone path that comes down from Mosedale, following it back to the car. I put the blowers on hot and full, trying to dry my sodden clothes. Seven damp miles.
