Friday 10 – Sunday 12 February 2023

After 6 months of proper physio I was wanting to give my ankle and achilles a reintroduction to the hills following the pain laden traipse on the Raeburn meet led to me finally accepting I needed someone to tell me what to do.

With plenty of annual leave needing used I tentatively suggested an earlier start and finish which Greg and Susan coming on Thursday and Paulina and Susan staying to Monday, after all 13 quid a night in the lakes who could resist that bargain?

Greg suggested we attempt Cat Bells and ilkla Moor bhat ‘at on the Thursday and Friday, 2 nice gentleish walks to either build confidence in the heel or destroy it, while my scouring of Wainwright’s (AW) guides suggested that Place Fell would be not too bad as a longer walk and Glenridding Dodd could be good pre-northward journey for the Monday.

A comfortable run down the road on Thursday morning saw Greg and I at the foot of Cat Bells with plenty time before meeting former member Diana, and Susan in Keswick for deener, a good stiff starting climb up Skelgil Bank saw us on a breezey wide ridge and heading for the summit, with plenty of route choices up the scrambles to test the heid as well as the ankle. Views and sandwiches were taken and the descent from Hause Gate to and along the fellside back to the car saw us back in Keswick for some charity shop bagging before tea.

Friday started wet, windy and misty, so Greg and I shot cross country to South Yorkshire requiring at times me to dig into my navigational rallying skills to get us to Whetstone Gate where Ilkley and Bingley moors converge. Sadly hats were required as although it was dry the cutting cold wind and 10m visibility saw us stick to the short option with a walk out along a Yorkshire stone pavement and back Ilkla Moor baht view if you like, follows by scoffing lunch in the car with the heater on, to make up for the short walk we went even more cross country on the return driving by Malham Cove and an invisible Ribblehead Viaduct to Hawes for tea and cake before returning to the hut where Susan had been resting (and walked a few kms).

The rest of the group arrived on Friday night and while Susan was off to smash the Arnside Knott ultra, the rest of the group had their sights set on varieties of Helvellyn and Striding Edge which I’ve done before and knew was not ready to repeat. Place Fell had tickled my interest as a fairly gentle hike from the hut, I found myself with conflicting advice between AW and walk lakes, the former saying to go widdershins and the other to go clockwise, though as I would discover this was due to differing routes between silver bay on the shore path and the summit, setting out to place farm the track climbed steeply on a stone staircase to Boredale Hause which presented 5 different route options, unsure of which of the 2 in the right direction to take I took a bearing and found it pointing me over a gap but right at the summit, plumping for the most trod of the 2 I gained some more height and saw clearly that both options converged and then led clearly all the way to the summit, a good path trod in grass with a couple of rock steps requiring handwork took me to the rocky top. After a few moments of blissful solitude 3 large groups appeared while I ate my lunch.
A grassy trudge down to a coll by a sheepfold had me looking at a good sized lump with easy looking path to the top and High Dodd was added to my route before descending to the Ulswater way and an attractive lakeside amble back to the hut via the farm, a cracking day out of 15km but thanks to reading the wrong route on walk lakes I only expected 7!
Everyone returned to the hut from Helvellyn around the same time except Iain who was determined to bag Skiddaw which he duly did and still got back in time for tea!

Sunday plans were more diverse with some deciding that my talk of the views from Place Fell was making it worth doing though on the 7km route not 15km, others taking the boat to Howton and walking back along the shore and I decided a restful day would be good and took the bus to Pooley Bridge, a lap of and up Dunmallard Hill to at least get a hill in before lunch and the sail back.

Susan, Paulina and I stayed over the Sunday night and took a mid-monday gander up Glenridding Dodd, which although small was recommended by AW particularly for the views of Ulswater and the mountains though the later were obscured by a haze, the path up was steep and rocky, the summit wide and undulating with some work needed to get to the cairns denoting the best views and the descent down damaged by windfall en trees a good technical challenge that except for a few screams of over extension my heel coped with remarkably well. A light snack in the pub was partaken before finally heading home.

• Report by Niall W