Staveley Fell • Walking the Cumbrian Mountains

Name of walk	Staveley Fell
Date of walk	2019-12-31
Distance walked (miles)	5
Duration of walk	3 hours 0 minutes
Weather	sunny
Peaks on walk	Staveley Fell
Walked with	Brendan
Parking	Chapel House Car Park

The last day of 2019 was to be a sunny one, so Brendan and I drove to Chapel House car park (less than half a mile past Staveley Church) for a walk up to Staveley Fell. This fell is one of Wainwright’s Outlying Fells, but this route up is different and considerably easier than his. The terrain has changed considerably since Wainwright wrote his Outlying Fell book. His route up was awkward then. Those who attempt it now say exactly the same, one fell walker compared it to walking through a forest in Borneo! We will follow the forest road and go round the back of the fell and head up beside an enclosure wall. (OS7) Staveley Fell is just to the north of Swainson on the map. Afterwards we would walk around Simpson Ground Reservoir.

View back at the parking area as we head up the forestry road.

We pass the mobile phone antennae.

Once through the trees the view opens up to see Windermere.

Our fell, but we are going around the back. Ignore all way mark turn offs.

Red bell Christmas decorations on a tree.

We continue upwards.

This tree has silver Christmas baubles.

The wall you follow up to the summit can't be seen from the forestry road, but there is a path that starts here. There is no sign or marker, but hopefully the tree position will ring a bell (Brendan will not be there to point the way when you walk it!) My GPS mapping helped me locate start of the path.

The path up to the wall.

The wall. Just follow it up, then head off through the heather for the summit. Forestry road to summit time 5 minutes, an easy route,

View back from the path through the heather.

Staveley Fell summit cairn. It took one hour to reach the summit from the car park.

Windermere and Gummers How ahead.

View down on Lakeside.

Closer view.

Well worth the effort, and an absence of Borneo terrain!

We have the summit and view all to ourselves.

Unlike the crowds on the summit of Gummers How!

I take a few shots of the view in other directions.

South west.

South.

Hill regression photo.

South east.

North east.

Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man.

All the mountains in view.

The route down by the wall.

We walked back along the forest road then took a way marked turn off on the left. This leads down to Simpson Ground Reservoir.

Boardwalks in the wood.

At the end of the 2nd boardwalk we took a walk down to the reservoir.

We then walked back to the path and headed for the far end of the reservoir and the dam.

Dam outflow.

The bow of a small boat sticking out the water.

I walked the length of the dam on the walk way.

We continued on the path and took the first right path, which takes you back along the far side of the reservoir, and back on to a forest road.

After a while on the forest road there is a way marked turn off which takes you through the forest and back to the main forest road that you came in on.