An Extended Coledale Horseshoe from Braithwaite

I looked over the fells around Coledale, from Skiddaw, and remembered someone telling me what a mammoth trek it was up to Grisedale Pike and that if that wasn’t enough, you could include it in a circular that includes five Wainwrights. I’d looked at the map and wondered, why only five?

The extended Coledale Horseshoe is one of those Lake District rounds that starts as a classic and ends as something much bigger in my head. Beginning from a car park near Braithwaite, this version takes the well-known Coledale ridge and then stretches it into a 12-Wainwright, two-day mountain circuit with wild camping, winter weather and a proper sense of having lived through the hills rather than simply walked over them.

Is this walk for you?

If you love the idea of the Coledale Round and want a much bigger version of it, with extra Wainwrights and the feel of a proper mountain expedition, this is the monster for you. It suits very fit, experienced walkers comfortable with long, committing days on the hill. It is far beyond the brief of a casual day out from Braithwaite.

My extended Coledale Horseshoe

What an experience the extended Coledale Horseshoe is – 26 km, 12 Wainwrights, 1900m of ascent, a wild camp and a migraine. This was an experience I will never forget, one of my favourite Lake District walks, and a weekend that I learn so much about hiking and wild camping on. I’ll recommend it to everyone who loves Lakeland. Doing this route in a day would be a big push but you can drop the spurs and even miss out a couple near the end, what a shame!

Beautiful sky over the Coledale Horseshoe

Why extend a classic?

I’ll be taking on 12 Wainwrights this weekend. The standard Coledale Horseshoe is about 13km (8 miles) and takes in Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head, Crag Hill, Sail then Outerside, returning to Braithwaite through the rest of the valley. This is also the route of the Coledale Horseshoe Fell Race.

Walking the Wainwrights, and an avid wild camper, I feel like I would be daft not the get the spurs in. Therefore, my round is a little longer.

The long walk

I spend the night by the road side in the camper at Knott Head, a kink in the Whinlatter road, a kilometre from Braithwaite. I might advise to stay in accomodation or the camp site in the village. Not only are you right near the start of the route, but you also have facilities to make your camp more comfortable, and you have the Braithwaite pubs, for refreshments and a meal afterwards.

My route start just down the road, or if you’re in Braithwaite, half a kilometre north just outside the village on the Whinlatter road. This free car park has about a dozen spaces and at most times will be full by the time most people are eating their Rice Crispies. I’ll have a little ascent on my return to the village that I will no doubt resent.

I’m right at the foot of Grisedale Pike here, the start of the Coledale Round. I’m really looking forward to getting out and away from it all for a couple of days.

I must add that, packing my bag in the back of the van, I hang it from some scales and find it’s a very disappointing 14kg! I have a goal of 10 at this time, little did I know I would end up doing expeditions like this one with a pack well under 5!

Grisedale Pike – the long pull

From the car park, you head north west for a few hundred metres then hook round to contour south, avoiding a steep ascent. You’re now on the main track hiking along a ridge that will take you over Sleet How marked on the Ordnance Survey map. The 730m (2,400ft) rise takes you to Grisedale Pike summit, it’s just under three miles and a right slog, but the views going up and the panorama are so worth it.

On the top I meet a lovely couple from Ormskirk, Rupert and Priscilla, who are on their second round of the Wainwrights. I’m only halfway on my Wainwrights journey at this point. I could chat for hours about these hills, especially when they’re offering their knowledge of the fells I haven’t done.

The views are seriously stunning at 791m (2,595ft), but you’re in the right place I think as well, photos can’t do it justice but I’ll keep trying.

My route today takes me around the usual Coledale Horseshoe plus a few spurs to add the spiky Whiteside, the mighty Grasmoor and the beautiful Whiteless Pike, 12 in total. Hence, as it’s not a long summer’s day and I haven’t set off early I’m wild camping ‘somewhere when it gets dark’. When you have confidence navigating it’s ok to be sketchy with your plans now and again. I know I’ll be camping roughly around Coledale Hause.

Hopegill Head on to Whiteside

Coledale Hause - Eel Crag left, Grasmoor up to the right — Coledale Hause – Eel Crag left, Grasmoor up to the right

Grisedale Pike leads to Hopegill Head (which is stunning from the pike because of the awesome Hobcarton Crag), a 130-metre cliff of crumbling slate that happens to be the only place in England where the red alpine catchfly grows — strange to think something that rare is clinging on above Hobcarton Gill while I just trudge past. The exciting craggy spur takes me out to Whiteside, the highlight being the sight of the massive Grasmoor and Crummock Water.

The mighty Grasmoor

Returning to the side of Hopegill Head, I run the scree of Sand Hill, which takes me up to the Coledale Hause. I leave the bag at the crossroads, not something I recommend but I have essentials in a smaller bag; first aid kit, water bottle and some food. Heading out again, this time to Grasmoor, it’s a long trudge.

Crummock Water, Rannerdale Knotts and Grasmoor from Red Pike

In my blog Haystacks: the toughest, most adventurous route, I posted a photo of the views of Grasmoor from Red Pike – just stunning, it’s enormous.

Unfortunately, the views from Grasmoor summit are limited because it’s so rounded. It’s ticked off regardless and off I go back to the crossroads.

Out to Whiteless Pike and back to Wandope

I pick up the bag and take it out to leave it again along Whiteless Edge for a little trek out to Whiteless Pike for some gorgeous views of Crummock Water and the ‘Western Fells’ as the sun is fading. This is a perfect opportunity to have a sandwich and get the stove on for a brew. There’s something magical about watching the sun go down while you’re up a mountain in the Lakes.

Most people, even hikers, don’t have the confidence to watch a sun setting from the top of a mountain summit. Navigating and walking down takes skill. I expressed my concerns about exactly this on my Udale Fells walk and since then have gained a gold award in navigation and started a number of hikes in the evening, pushing myself into the darkness, with a shelter in the bag and utter confidence in the mountains my goal. We’ll see what the next 24hrs brings.

Wandope

Returning to pick up the bag again, I fork right up to Wandope then pitch my tent on Crag Hill, my 7th Wainwright of the day. The sun drops behind the fells as I open my bag to retrieve my sleep kit and stove.

Wild camping on Crag Hill, -10c and a snowstorm

By late teatime, the tent’s up and I have a wonderful vegetable soup on the stove, granary bread at the ready. I’m on a very intentional journey tonight to get warm.

I ate plenty, cooked using my new AlpKit BruKit, which is awesome for £35. Similar to the Jetboil, it heats water so quick, the wind doesn’t get to the flame as it’s protected. Connected with a bayonet fitting, the pan is easy to take off, but stable while cooking and it’s non-stick so cleans easily after the rice pudding dessert.

Freezing cold

A couple of hours after the sun disappears, the temperature’s dropped dramatically. After reading the temperature as -10c at 8pm, I batten down the hatches and shimmy into my sleeping bag. I do believe I could sense a full moon, but it was too cold out to even check.

Someone I’d had too many conversations with once told me to try sleeping naked. He said that your body heats the air inside your sleeping bag and that keeps you warm. I thought I’d try it just to prove him wrong, and got too cold. The warm air escapes, it’s called convection, it’s a thick idea. Us humans have been layering up for thousands of years, it works. My coat get’s stuffed in a bag for a pillow.

Eventually, I get warm, and the thermometer tells me it’s 30c in my sleeping bag, this is a success. This was all long before I wrote my blog on How To Stay Warm At Night Camping, nights like this made me a master, I’m rarely cold at night these days.

The sleep app on the phone tells me I got 6 hours of great sleep. I wake cold at 4:30 though and next time I will bring a flask so I could have a brew at this time to heat me a little. It’s early days in my mountain wild camping journey.

If you must know, I don’t have to leave the tent to pee thanks to my investment in an ‘Innocent’ orange juice bottle from Tebay Services on the way up here. This doubles as a hot water bottle. It works guys, don’t knock it until you’ve spent the night in a tiny tent on a mountain summit at 839m (2,753ft).

It’s snowing, and I figure I have a couple of hours at least to go before I can get out. I can’t risk the morning walk in the dark as it’s straight out to Sail over the arête which I’ll need light to negotiate safely.

Day two – migraine, cloud, snow and a jaw-dropping scene

I didn’t freeze to death, but I did wake with a migraine, something I suffer from since having a brain haemorrhage 20 years ago. To add insult to injury, I unzip the tent to see only cloud and snow on the ground; my tent has frozen solid.

After starting the day with a Redbush tea, I pack up and set off from a very cloudy Crag Hill as soon as the light allows. As I clamber down the steep bank, heading East, the arête looks a little scary in the cloud, an abyss.

After I take a selfie in the cloud on Sail, the strangest thing happens.

The cloud completely clears to reveal the most beautiful mountain scenery. Crag Hill, my camp for the night and descent over the last hour appears, and considering how I feel, it takes my breath away. Honestly, it was a jaw-dropping moment – that hill is huge! I’ve cherished this photo ever since, not just for its magnificence but for what it physically did to me that day, rewards you just can’t get sat in your pyjamas at home with a bag of Cheetos.

Sail to Scar Crags

Brewing up on the Coledale Horseshoe in Winter

Coming down from Sail, having no water and no stream at this altitude, I break some hard snow with my boot and scoop a little into the AlpKit stove pan.

I melt a little on the heat and top the pot up. After a couple of minutes, just enough time to eat a bag of tuna and sweetcorn, I’m activating the protein with what I now consider the best cup of tea I have ever drunk.

It’s sweet to just sit on a bank looking south over to the Newlands Round shrouded in cloud, getting a peak now and again, knowing that nobody will ever see what I see. Nobody is around, I take no photos, I just chill.

Sitting on the side of this snowy hill heading downwards to a col and the start of the zig-zag path up to Scar Crags a mile away, my next destination, I feel really empty, sad. I wonder if I’m losing the plot.

Looking back

My first Wainwright, Wansfell, I did with my son Jack. The Troutbeck Tongue I did with Amber, and took Teresa out to Sour Howes after a beer and a small bottle of wine on the summit of Sallows, at 9:30 in the morning. All wonderful.

When I started walking in the mountains I wanted to lose weight, get fit, relieve stress and six months ago, my head was in a mess. I needed the hills; I got addicted. God knows what I would have done these last nine months without getting up into these hills – nervous breakdown, divorce, who knows.

Now though, I would love to share them.

Anyway. Down this first zig-zag to strip off.

I have loads of clothes on, I was freezing when I set off and the sun is now beating down on me, I’m roasting. I strip down to the skin and start again, stuffing damp thermals in my bag. There’s something very freeing about being completely naked on a snowy hillside too early for anybody to be around. I’m at the crossroads before Scar Crags, where on the Coledale Horsehoe Fell Race, you would veer left to head for Outerside and ‘the end’.

I feel like I’m only half way!

Scar Crags and Causey Pike

I’m much lower now, and I’m on the last few fells. The next two are another extension to the Coledale Horseshoe, but as Wainwrights, they need ticking off. Scar Crags is a bimble on the way to Causey Pike. I leave the bag at a junction so I can come back and head for the two little ones in the middle of the valley.

Returning from Causey Pike, I fork right, off the fellside, slip on the ice running down the sheep trod. The trekking pole takes my weight and breaks in two. I believe I might have gone tumbling down the side if one of the cheap £5 Go Outdoors walking poles hadn’t saved me.

Water – or lack of it

The ‘Water-To-Go’ filter bottle is really needed here, but it’s all frozen up, so it’s useless. I need water, so I resort to drinking straight from the stream. I’ve not done this much since having the Sawyer filter, but bacteria couldn’t survive in this water, it’s almost too cold to drink. I’m confident that I will live.

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The two little ones in the middle

Coledale Horseshoe Walking the Wainwrights

Outerside and Barrow bring the extended Coledale Horseshoe to an end. They are easy low hills, but I’ve clocked up a few miles, outdone myself with regard to the ascent and I have had a migraine since waking. The cold mornings don’t agree with the arteries in my head; I’ve regrettably had a very emotional day. Maybe I overdid it this time but this is one I’ll never forget.

I’ve not looked at the GPS all day and I’m a bit surprised that it tells me I’ve done 19 miles and over 2,300m (7,600ft) of ascent. Imagine the calories used! How can you put enough calories in you on a hike like this?

It’s a short, painful wander out of Coledale, the village, Braithwaite campsite and back to the van.

What comes my way – rough with the smooth

I’m here to experience whatever comes to me. The fun of course, but also fear, excitement but also sadness, even misery. When you’ve had a day like this, you need comfort food. I decide to sack The Royal Oak meal and head into Keswick.

“Fish & chips with mushy peas, and the biggest cup of coffee you can muster,” I told the lady upstairs in The Kingfisher. I must say that since I started eating fish last year to aid with the protein, the haddock in The Kingfisher was the best I’ve had.

I get home and have a fantastic sleep in what feels like the most comfortable bed on the planet and the cosiest pillow that I’ve ever laid my head on.

Next time, it’s back to the Northern Fells. This time we have some work to do.