Greystones, Broom Fell, Lord's Seat, Barf and Whinlatter • Walking the Cumbrian Mountains

Name of walk	Greystones, Broom Fell, Lord's Seat, Barf and Whinlatter
Date of walk	2010-10-20
Distance walked (miles)	8
Duration of walk	6 hours 0 minutes
Weather	Blue skies and sunshine, but cold
Peaks on walk	Greystones, Broom Fell, Lord`s Seat, Barf and Whinlatter
Walked with	Ged and Kas the blind dog
Parking	Spout Force Car Park

On Wednesday Ged, Kas and I parked at the Spout Force car park (free) to climb Graystones (1496ft), Broom Fell (1670ft), Lord’s Seat (1811ft), Barf (1536ft) and Whinlatter (1722ft). A walk of just over 8 miles and indicated by the red line on the map. It was forecast to be a bright, clear day with snow flurries in the west later and to be a cold day.

Looking up at the steep ascent of Graystones.

Before the ascent you descend down steps to the gill and Scawgill Bridge. This morning the ground was frosty and white! It was also quite cold out of the sun.

The steep ascent soon warmed us up and it was off with the coats. Looking across to Mellbreak on the left and Great Bourne, Hen Comb, Gavel Fell, Blake Fell, Burnbank Fell, Low fell and Fellbarrow.

Looking down at our steep ascent and across to Hopegill Head.

Looking across to Lord`s Seat ahead and the forest on the slopes of Whinlatter on the right......

Wind turbines on the Solway Firth.

The grassy summit of Graystones.

Looking back to Graystones from the climb up Broom Fell.

Heading for Broom Fell, the large summit cairn on the right.

Kas at the summit, the stile leading to Lord's Seat behind. Ullock Pike and Skiddaw in the background..

Summit of Lord's Seat. We met up with a large group of ramblers and their dogs, who were having lunch, so we didn`t hang around and pushed-on to Barf.

The route to Barf was rather boggy. This was unfortunate because we would need to return back up to Lord's Seat in order to continue on our route.

Looking back up to Lord's Seat from the start of the ascent of Barf.

Looking across Bassenthwaite Lake to Ullock Pike, Carlside, Dodd and Skiddaw.

Looking north to Binsey.

View across Derwent Water to the Helvellyn range.

Close up of one of my favourite churches, St. Bega`s. It has a 3/4 of a mile drive....no vehicles allowed! It`s wonderfully isolated. Most of the parishoners used to arrive by boat. The chancel and nave date from around 950 AD, the rest is from 1300. Well worth a visit!

We had lunch on Barf then returned to just below the summit of Lord's Seat, walking round to the left you meet a gravel track and stile which eventually takes you alongside the forest.

When you meet marker 5 take the right fork and continue until you come out on a forest road T junction. We then went right taking a track about 35 yards on the left. Do not do this! It turned out to be a bike only track and we had to climb a fence to get on to the open fell, as the promised stile with dog gate never materialised. There must be another track a bit further down the forest road!

Once we climbed the fence we were straight on to the track that leads to the summit of Whinlatter. Looking back on the far left to the forest near where we exited. On the right is Keswick with Clough Head behind.

Looking across Derwent Water to the Dodds.

Scotland is very clear today.

Once we had got to the summit of Whinlatter we headed for Brown Top, taking five minutes in the shelter for a drink.

From Brown Top looking across at Graystones our first fell of the day. We headed NNE for the edge of the forest, climbing the fence next to an old wall.