Walk : Rossett Pike (2,106ft)
from Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel
Date : 4th November 2021
Weather : Clear blue sky, bright sunshine, freezing cold on top @
10ºC
Distance : 6 miles round trip
Difficulty : 2 – A flat walk along Mickleden
followed by a steep climb on a good path, easy finish to summit
(1=easy 5=hard)
Which
area of Lakeland is this walk situated?
Terrain
Overview
Walk
Overview
Post
the clocks going back in late October and combined with the usual bad weather
at this time of year it was an unexpected but
very
welcome day with blue sky, bright sunshine and crisp conditions. In fact,
perfect weather for climbing, so this day was too good
to
pass up and it didn’t disappoint. At the head of the valley the path branching
off left towards Rossett Ghyll is largely stone
stepped
which
weaves its way quite ingeniously around the perils of the scree in the Ghyll.
The finish to the summit is easy
Couldn’t
resist this shot of the Langdale Pikes as we journeyed towards The Old Dungeon
Ghyll Hotel
The
car park at ODG Hotel is the start point for this walk. At time of writing, it
was £7.50 all day, however, this car park gets very full
very
early on in the day. We were lucky to claim one of the last few spots
From
the car park, walk round the back of the hotel to pick up the path down Mickleden
Setting
off down the Mickleden path
The
stone track keeps straight and level right up to the head of the valley and is
easy to follow
A
close up of Crinkle Crags across the Langdale valley
Further
down the track and a close up view of Pike o’ Stickle
First
view of today’s climb, Rossett Pike with the deep
gorge of the Ghyll leading up to the Col
Looking
back down the Langdale valley
At
the valley head a wooden bridge crosses Stake Gill
Over
the bridge and a sign propped up against a marker cairn points the way to the zig-zag
path that is used to climb up to the Col
on
its way to Esk Hause
Sue
sets off along the path which is thankfully stepped for the largest part
Looking
back to Pike o’ Stickle from the steep climb
The
path continues to zig-zag its way up towards the Col and here the point at
which you reach a series of slabs the path turns
back
towards Rossett Ghyll and the Pike itself
Looking
up to Cambridge Crag and Bowfell Buttress from the
path
Nearly
at the top of the Col now and the path weaves its way through a rock gully
before emerging on to more level ground
The
Col at the top of Rossett Ghyll – the route to the
summit turns right at the top and doubles back onto an easy grass slope
The
path makes an obvious right turn at its highest point
Great
End comes in to view
The
simple route to the summit of Rossett Pike
The
summit of Rossett Pike
A
360-degree view from the summit
A
personal milestone for me as I complete all the Fells in Book 4
Sue
is more bothered about keeping warm as the temperature combined with the wind
chill dropped below zero
I
journey the 40 odd yards or so to the East cairn for a fine view down Mickleden
On
the way back down, we had the great pleasure of bumping into Angela White aka “The Running Granny”. We
briefly met as
she
was making her way to the summit having already visited the tops of Bowfell and Esk Pike. She very
quickly caught up with
us
on our way down and we stopped for about 15 minutes talking. It is very well
worth a visit to her web site (above). A truly
remarkable
person who set a Guinness World Record for completing JOGLE in 18 days, 10 hours and
3 minutes.
A
pleasure to meet and chat with you Angela
Within
minutes of leaving us Angela had disappeared out of site to meet up with her
husband who had been working with the
“Fix
the Fells” Team on the The Band coming down from Bowfell, leaving us to complete our walk back to ODG Hotel
at a somewhat
slower
pace in the quick advancing twilight of the day
Back
down on the Mickleden path now and the last glimpse
of sunlight bedecks the top of Pike o’ Stickle
And
within the blink of an eye dusk descends over Langdale at the end of another
fantastic day out on the Lakeland Fells
Copyright
© aloveofthelakes.co.uk 2011 -
2021