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UWR 6: The "Shelf Route" on Eel Crag above Coledale |
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Written by John Paterson
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Monday, 09 July 2007 |
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 It is a long walk up Coledale from Braithwaite (over 2 miles) but the weather was great and birds were in abundance. I manged to photograph a pair of Stonechats, getting both male and female in the same picture. Force Crag mine at the head of the valley has an open day organised by the National Trust on 26th July. The last photgraph in the album has details. After crossing the ford and reaching the top of the waterfall it is time to leave the mine road and head left into a grassy cwm below a low line of crags and scree above which is Tower Ridge.
 In the cwm is a cairn which I presume is the one in which Wainwright buried some broken pieces of glass over 40 years ago. There is no path but look south from the cairn and follow a small stream for a few hundred yards to clear the crags and scree on the right. Eventually a VERY faint path leads up towards Tower Ridge and the green mossy bog at the start of the Shelf Route. The shelf is a wide grassy shelf and rises at an easy angle towards a notch on the skyline. A faint path and cairns mark the way. The views at the top of the shelf are good and at the top a bilberry ramp leads to a point where the scree path is joined rising from Coledale Hause. The path coming up from the hause is loose, steep and unpleasant but the path above is a delight leading gently above the top of Tower Ridge and easily to the summit of Crag Hill.
 
We lunched at Sail Pass. I had intended to drop down and head for Barrow Door from there but the weather was so good and the views so clear that I had no hesitation in climbing Scar Crags, Causey Pike and descending to Stonycroft via Rowling End. A short walk along the road soon led to a bridleway which skirted Barrow and led me back to Braithwaite via Braithwaite Lodge Farm.  
9 wonderful miles. Blue skies and smashing clouds. A great new way up Eel Crag which gets very little attention but deserves better. And to finish off a refreshing pint in the Coledale Inn.Enjoy the photos http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/559812941ENROGy |
| FORNSIDE CHRONICLES |
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 Today I had lunch with Alan Hinkes on Helvellyn! Well, to be more accurate, I was having lunch at the summit shelter when Alan popped up with a party of climbers. Read on.......
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 This is pretty much the circuit of minor peaks south of Swindale as described in Wainwright's Outlying Fells but with one important change. Wainwright describes a car parking space near the footbridge at Truss Gap farm. The public now have to park three quarters of a mile down the valley before the cattle grid (big sign to say no cars beyond this point) - so the walk is a mile and a half longer - my GPS gave a figure of 7.33 miles car to car.
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"It was great to see so many old friends again and to meet new people who have now become familiar names on the message board." Jill Rowland on the Honister 2007 weekend
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