Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

Sunday 27th July 2014

A Walk

Wetherlam via Red Dell

9 Miles Grade 1scr

Leader: Neil Thompson

Report By Peter Flynn

Photos by Pete Rutland, Lauren Sarasini & Peter Flynn

After a two hour bus journey the 14 who set off up the Copper Mines valley would have regarded it as insult added to injury had the weather been bad for the day,  but in fact we had excellent weather for 90% of the walk.  Sweaters and jumpers came out at the summit but not for long and for the most part it was sunny and warm.  A warm welcome to Bethan for her first outing and it was good to see Elaine again. We started off with a slight diversion to take in a couple of scrambling routes on the crags above the path and they proved very entertaining, with the rock warm and dry and providing brilliant friction.  Back to the path,  then nearer the summit another diversion to another scramble,  this time on considerably more serious rock which was easy to by-pass but for those who tried it provided one or two little surprises.  The path we took from the summit also held a few challenges – the terrain was very difficult,  the path simply disappeared every so often,  it zig-zagged and meandered all over the place and especially with the last bit,  where we went slightly astray and followed White Gill, I suspect we were the first to tread that route since the Norsemen were pillaging, arsoning and whatever else they did about 1200 years ago.  By this time it had started raining – not heavily but enough to make the route down quite a challenge.  Thanks to Neil for an “interesting” walk. 

Peter