Name of walk	Great Stickle and Stickle Pike
Date of walk	2014-11-30
Distance walked (miles)	3
Duration of walk	2 hours 0 minutes
Weather	Blue skies and great clarity
Peaks on walk	Great Stickle and Stickle Pike
Walked with	Brendan
Parking	Kiln Bank

On Sunday Brendan and I drove to the top of Kiln Bank in Dunnerdale to have a walk up Great Stickle (990ft) and Stickle Pike (1231ft), two fells from Wainwright’s Outlying Fell Book that I haven’t visited since 2009. Today’s walk is one of Sean McMahon’s walks from his website, www.stridingedge.net, which he has reproduced in this months ‘Trail’ magazine. It is about three miles long and takes only a couple of hours.

The view down from the route up to Stickle Tarn to where we parked the car, and across to Caw on the right.

Stickle Tarn

Stickle Pike summit, which we would leave until our return.

The view down into the basin. Great Stickle on the far left. We would head off right and take the higher path just below the knolls, and return over the knolls.

The craggy Stickle Pike from the south.

Stickle Pike from the route to Great Stickle.

Same again! Shadows are hard to disguise at this time of the year. We were walking directly in to the sunlight which today was quite blinding. I was glad to reach the shade on the slopes of Great Stickle.

View out from Great Stickle summit towards the Duddon Estuary.

Superb clarity today! A wonderful panorama in all directions. Stickle Pike and Caw behind Brendan.

View east.

View west.

View north. We head to the left to return via Tarn Hill and the tarns.

The first of many beautiful blue tarns.

Looking back to Great Stickle.

View west towards Blackcombe with mist on top.

Heading for the cairn on Tarn Hill.

Stickle Pike and a tarn......I wonder why this is named Tarn Hill? At least give me a clue!

Tarn Hill summit cairn looking out over yet another tarn.

A fenced-off tarn...I do like variety!

Taken from the last grassy knoll before Stickle Pike. On the far right in a small clearing is an ancient stone circle.

The stone circle and Stickle Pike.

We now climb steeply up to Stickle Pike summit. View out to the Duddon Estuary from the southern end.

View back down to Stickle Tarn.

Brendan at the cairn with the panorama of hills behind him which includes the Scafells, Bowfell and Harter Fell.

View back to the cairn.

Me at the cairn.

A closer view of them there hills. We meet a guy from London on the summit and I take his photo for him, but so far we have met no one else on the walk.

We head back down towards our car. Looking down on Stickle Tarn.

On the way down I hear some shouts to the north. The head of a young man is peeking out of some rocks, he has hurt himself. We navigate over rough ground to the rocky outcrop. He has dislocated his knee, but has managed to put it back in again, but is unable to move without assistance. His wife and two small children, aged about four and two, have gone back down to seek assistance. We are joined by the guy from London. The young man has dislocated his knee before (on his wedding night apparently!) and remained remarkably calm and good humoured. Once we got him up and out from between some rocks he was still able to weight bare. He used Brendan's walking poles, and gradually after some painkillers and a few breaks, plus the assistance of two more walkers directed up by his wife, we managed to get him off the steep ground towards the path. From here the route down to the cars is grassy so we went down to my car, a 4x4, and Brendan drove it up to meet the young man and chauffeured him back down to his car and family. I hope he is now on the road to recovery. The photo above is of the car on its way back down.

So all in all a very eventful walk! We stopped off in Broughton on the way home for coffee and cake.

Jo.