TR:Fairfield



S

Sean McMahon

Guest
I had a walk up to Fairfield along the Hartsop above How ridge and back
down along St Sunday today. The sun, amazingly, was shining although
the wind was cold and strong, but still a great day out and very quiet
on the fells. This one may be of interest to anyone going to the
Brothers Water meet - certainly a good one to do from there although
with hindsight I would have started/finished at Deepdale Bridge and
walked the full HaH ridge. I also did the talked about Birks-Arnison
'bit', no problem, and did a 'route 1' down Arnison Gill to get to
Deepdale Bridge.

Photo's are posted:

http://www.stridingedge.net
 
Sean McMahon wrote:
> ...and did a 'route 1' down Arnison Gill to get to Deepdale Bridge.


Is that a grade 1 scramble...looks fun by the closeness of the
contours!
 
Yes, it was very steep - the last photo (of Arnison) shows the route of
descent and Arnison Gill. I spent the descent thinking of an excuse to
give the farmer as I could see the easiest way out was through the
yard! No worries though - the 'farm' turned out to be holiday cottages
now.
 
My wife and I have just returned from a week in the Lake District where we
also did Fairfield (on 13/04/2005).

We took the horseshoe route from Ambleside via Heron Pike / Great Rigg and
back via Hart Crag / Dove Crag / High Pike.

We experienced showery rain for the first half of the walk with extensive
hill fog. Despite hearing horror stories about people getting lost in the
fog on Fairfield, we found it fairly easy (using a compass) to navigate
ourselves from the top of Fairfield and down to Hart Crag. The weather then
cleared up and it remained mostly dry and sunny for the rest of the
afternoon.

There was no snow when we did this route, although there would have been if
we had done it a couple of days beforehand or a couple of days afterwards.

RW.

"Sean McMahon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I had a walk up to Fairfield along the Hartsop above How ridge and back
> down along St Sunday today. The sun, amazingly, was shining although
> the wind was cold and strong, but still a great day out and very quiet
> on the fells. This one may be of interest to anyone going to the
> Brothers Water meet - certainly a good one to do from there although
> with hindsight I would have started/finished at Deepdale Bridge and
> walked the full HaH ridge. I also did the talked about Birks-Arnison
> 'bit', no problem, and did a 'route 1' down Arnison Gill to get to
> Deepdale Bridge.
>
> Photo's are posted:
>
> http://www.stridingedge.net
>
 
Yes, the weather is a bit changeable at the moment to say the least! I
still think Fairfield is a 'funny' top, navigational wise, and requires
a bit of extra care when coming off it.