Lonsdale Fell Runners Bowland 1500s

The Bowland 1500s round visits 19 tops over 1500ft with one ring contour in the massif. Starting and finishing from it immediately appealed to us as an adventure very close to our home in Lancaster. Jess posted it an an idea to Lonsdale Fell Runners back in the spring and we set a date for 30th September after checking that there would be no grouse shooting then. More information is available on the gofar website and we also found Andy Verden and John Rodgers’ accounts on the Bowland Fell Runners website very helpful. Most of the photos here are from recces. For reasons which will become clear I didn’t manage to take many on the day itself.

Leg 1 - Claire, Phil and Rob

Rob and I met at 0530 at crossroads ready to car share over to Abbeystead for the start of the adventure at 0600. I received a message from Phil at 0532 and he joined us shortly afterwards in a world of missed alarms and adrenaline. To be fair, he’d only got back from a conference in Berlin at 0330 that morning.

We eventually set off from Abbeystead at 0617 and lost Rob within a minute. He’d run back to the car to get all his food! Recce rainbow They joked that I would have to mess something up later in the day. And I did. More on that later. Head torches on and off into the dawn. The climb up Hawthornthwaite seemed to take a long time, but we made it to the ridiculous fallen-over trig eventually. One summit down, only eighteen to go!

A short jog along a fenceline took us to White Moss, which isn’t much of a summit, but still, happy to tick off another one. From there we took a fairly direct line which was championed on a recce by Rowan. I remember a nice stretch of flat peat from the recce, which we didn’t manage to find. Instead I fell down a few heathery trenches much to the amusement of Phil and Rob. I quite like Holme House Fell: unlike many other Bowland ‘summits’ there is a small pile of stones indicating that maybe someone has been here Sunset on Hawthornthwaite (recce) before. There’s also a war memorial next to the summit on the track and the remains of a plane crash from WW2.

Back-track slightly and there is a useful path to Fiensdale Head which even starts with a few flagstones before deserting you in a boggy mire. From Fiensdale Head there is sort of a path following the fence line to Fairsnape and then round to Paddy’s Pole. Paddy’s Pole has a selection of summits to pick from: a cairn (with the pole), a palatial summit shelter Rob arriving at Totridge summit Joe, Rowan and Phil and a trig. We selected the pole as enjoying the hail at the being tallest and then headed back to summit of Holme House Fairsnape for the long trek round to Totridge Fell. There are a few deep water Fell (recce) features and steep peat hags on this section. Phil suggested ‘tot’ means ‘over there’ as this hill is always ‘over there’ and you never get to it. At the top is the sobering memorial plaque to Bill Smith who was found deceased in the bog up there in 2007. From Totridge we took the pleasant descent down to Smelt Mill and we were pretty much adhering to the schedule I had made up, which was a bit of a surprise.

Leg 2 - Claire, Phil, James, Rob to Whin’s Brow and John to White Hill

At Smelt Mill we were met by James and Rhian in their van, and John. Rhian then drove round to Cross O’ Greet to go for a nice bike ride and we began to wish we’d had a similar plan. James and John joined the three of us and we set off along the wall line through deep (almost) impenetrable bracken. Thankfully, the bracken doesn’t last that long, but this line would be substantially easier in winter or spring. From Whin’s Brow, Rob circled back to Abbeystead and we took the steep descent down to Brennand Farm. The next section is, in theory, bridleway and starts out positively with a track. John and Phil enjoying the climb to Whin’s Brow The track then disappears in the middle of a field and you’re on your own. Eventually a path appears out of a bog and leads down to Phil descending to Brennand Farm (recce) Whitendale Farm.

From Whitendale we took the steep grouse track up towards Baxton Fell. On the recce, Phil and I had cut the corner leftwards to Baxton in order to save distance. Mistake. We ended up in chest-high heather, peaty trenches and misery. Here be dragons. This time we took the fence line which was marginally less miserable. Marginally. At the top of Baxton Fell there is a small wooden post and a dead bird. We swiftly got out of there and descended to the Salter Fell road. The Salter Fell track is an indication of how nice tracks can be through Bowland. Our route didn’t follow it (that would be pleasant) but instead crossed straight over towards White Hill. Me and Phil loving life on Baxton Fell White Hill is actually quite an exciting summit because it has a trig and two large sighting towers, which were used for building the Haweswater Aqueduct. At some point here I dropped my phone, probably as I was eating a bag of cheese which was in the same pocket of my pack. My mishap for the day. On the descent off White Hill we encountered the first people

James and John traversing from the sighting towers we’d met all day, about 6 hours into our run. At Cross O’ on White Hill Greet it was wonderful to see Rhian waiting in a warm van and she promised us a cup of tea on our return. Hurray!

Leg 3 - Claire, Phil and James

Leg 3 is a short out and back from Cross O’ Greet to three ‘summits’. Somehow we persuaded James to come with us. Phil and I were both feeling quite tired and had gone a bit quiet at this point so we were very glad of James’ company. The first summit on this section is called Raven’s Castle. I have seen no ravens or castles here but there is some grass and a couple of small rocks. James has also discovered that Leg 3 sunset (recce) an alternative name for this hill is Hailshower Fell. Seems appropriate. On this leg I had my only fall in a bog up to my waist. I saw Phil jump over some green fluorescent slime and decided I could do the same. But I didn’t jump as far as Phil, much to his amusement.

When we got back to the van Rhian had made hot tea, which was extremely welcome. Phil and I filled up our water from the bottles we’d stashed the day before and plodded off back up White Hill for Leg 4. View over to Ingleborough from Raven’s Castle (recce)

Leg 4 - Claire and Phil

In my head Leg 4 was going to be pleasant after the pathless heathery mire of Legs 2 and 3. It was, but only after Wardstone. Plenty of pathless heathery mire before then… First, back over White Hill. Yay. At this point I realised I’d lost my phone and so suffered a bit of a mental dip.

We hadn’t reccied the section from White Hill to Wolfhole Crag as it looked like straightforward following fence lines on the map. Either the fences weren’t there or we couldn’t find them. I have to say that brain power was lacking a little at this point so who knows where those fences were. Not where we were anyway. We still managed to appreciate the beautiful wild valley between Wolfhole Crag and White Hill.

In the absence of a better idea, we Joe finds a direct line off Wolfhole on our took a direct line up onto the Wolfhole recce (the gate was plateau through bracken and heather. put back) At the top there was less bracken but not less heather. At the summit of Wolfhole Crag it started At the summit of Wolfhole Crag on our recce raining quite hard and we put our jackets on. They stayed on for the rest of the day as between showers the bitterly cold wind had picked up a bit.

From the summit of Wolfhole there was finally a trod! We followed it along the wall line to the shooter’s track which leads to Rigg Lane. Nearly home now… The fence line trod led us round to Brennand Great Hill. We still don’t know why it’s ‘great’. Phil somehow thought we’d been there earlier in the day so was not happy to learn we hadn’t. Out and back to the summit then a traverse across deep grass, moss and tussocks to the bottom of Long Crag. Some of this section was technically downhill but we couldn’t run over the ground any more. It felt like each foot was disappearing into moss and bog and then lifting it in a running motion out of the grass and bog Me and Phil searching and over the next tussock was not for Brennand Great Hill possible. So we walked. Downhill. summit (recce) Rob at Brennand Great Hill (recce) Yep.

Long Crag is a beautiful spot with lovely views but we were mostly cursing the heather and endless tussocks at this point. We didn’t manage to run. From there, we headed directly north to Grey Crag. Again, bog, peat hag, heather and tussock dominated the landscape and were not conducive to running. At least we amazingly got the line bob-on so thankfully didn’t have to do any extra distance.

From Grey Crag we followed a boggy half-trod up to Wardstone east trig. We were so so happy to be on an actual trod on the top of Wardstone and we were moving! Running even! Wardstone west trig was in the clag but this lifted to bright autumn sunshine when we got there. Amazing views! Down the path from Wardstone which is peaty and boggy at the best of times but felt like heaven- on-a-path after the rest of the day. We were so happy to be moving at some kind of pace over springy peat.

Across the shooter’s track and then we ran up to Grit Fell,

Greg, Phil and Rob plan lines from Long Crag to like ran, up a hill! There is a path! We saw a lady out Grey Crag (recce) walking here, the second people we’d met all day. So happy to be at the top of the final summit on Grit Fell that the return journey back to the shooter’s track didn’t last long at all. Then down to the luncheon hut and down to the fell gate, the destination of many a winter training run when bad conditions prohibit a trip to the Lakes. When we reached the last gate for the final km along the track to Abbeystead we both looked at our watches and realised we could do sub 11 hours if we got a move on. So we ran fast (it felt fast anyway) to Stoop’s Bridge to finish the round in 10:56:18.

Afterwards

Some car faff ensued and Rob picked up Phil and I from Abbeystead. My phone spent the night near to 54.0164450 latitude, -2.5069820 longitude i.e. on the back of White Hill. This was the last known location broadcast because I was using WhatsApp as a tracker. So Monday night necessitated the third trip to Cross O’ Greet in three days and the third and fourth ascents of White Hill, this time accompanied by Joe and Andy P. Amazingly, we found my phone safe and well. Luckily, I’d put it in a sandwich bag for safe keeping (thanks Ellie for instilling a love of sandwich bags into me), so it was bone dry and none the worse for wear. Sunset from Long Crag (recce)

Conclusions - Distance: 42.95miles/68km, 2371m ascent

What a great adventure. The terrain is wild and very rarely visited. It’s a privilege to be able to visit a (grouse managed) wilderness right here in England pretty much out the back door. If you like a bit of bleak, this round could be for you. But… I don’t want to see another tussock for a while.