Low Fell and Fellbarrow

"We might not make it to the top" were the mutterings I heard behind me, almost lost in the noise of the wind across the field, just 5 minutes into our walk. True, it was windy - as forecast- and I was mindful of the fact it is often the wind rather than mist or rain that can be the reason for abandoning a walk, however there weren't many dangers on Felbarrow so on we plodded. Our route started from Thackthwaite farm and the plan was to head up to Fellbarrow and then along the ridge to Low Fell. As we ascended the old drovers road we we sheltered for a while but were always aware of the howling westerly gusts above us and occasionally blowing us around the path. A change of plan, we would do Low Fell first then at least walking along the ridge to Fellbarrow we would have the wind behind us. Being a relatively new area of the Lakes for us, we were able to make out some of the western fells across Loweswater and Crummock water and further on, the higher Buttermere fells in cloud. A lot of walking still to do!
The path took us all the way to the summit of Low Fell a small summit but a dramatic difference in the wind speed from about 3 ft below the summit where we could just stand up compared to the top itself where we had to crawl up as there was no chance of standing. A quick retreat, retracing our steps to a kissing gate where we headed left across the fell side to the rounded ridge which led us down then up to Fellbarrow. We held on to each other approaching the summit cairn to help prevent us doing a Mary Poppins! As we turned back from the summit the sleet had started blowing horizontally into our faces and we descended quickly to find the style over the fence which was the point at which we could drop down for a more sheltered walk back to the car. As we cross the final field before the farm another gust of wind nearly blew us off our feet reminding us of the initial mutterings at the start of the walk, but we had done it!

Time 2 hrs 30 minutes
Grade Excellent These lower fells get usually tackled in poor weather. This would also be an excellent, but quite different walk, on a sunny summer's afternoon.

Memories

• Wind particularly the difference 3ft made ob Low fell
• A lot more Wainwrights to tackle

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