I had a walk up to Fairfield along the Hartsop above How ridge and back down along St Sunday today. The sun, amazingly, was shining although the wind was cold and strong, but still a great day out and very quiet on the fells. This one may be of interest to anyone going to the Brothers Water meet - certainly a good one to do from there although with hindsight I would have started/finished at Deepdale Bridge and walked the full HaH ridge. I also did the talked about Birks-Arnison 'bit', no problem, and did a 'route 1' down Arnison Gill to get to Deepdale Bridge.
Yes, it was very steep - the last photo (of Arnison) shows the route of descent and Arnison Gill. I spent the descent thinking of an excuse to give the farmer as I could see the easiest way out was through the yard! No worries though - the 'farm' turned out to be holiday cottages now.
My wife and I have just returned from a week in the Lake District where we also did Fairfield (on 13/04/2005).
We took the horseshoe route from Ambleside via Heron Pike / Great Rigg and back via Hart Crag / Dove Crag / High Pike.
We experienced showery rain for the first half of the walk with extensive hill fog. Despite hearing horror stories about people getting lost in the fog on Fairfield, we found it fairly easy (using a compass) to navigate ourselves from the top of Fairfield and down to Hart Crag. The weather then cleared up and it remained mostly dry and sunny for the rest of the afternoon.
There was no snow when we did this route, although there would have been if we had done it a couple of days beforehand or a couple of days afterwards.
RW.
"Sean McMahon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:
I had a walk up to Fairfield along the Hartsop above How ridge and back down along St Sunday today. The sun, amazingly, was shining although the wind was cold and strong, but still a great day out and very quiet on the fells. This one may be of interest to anyone going to the Brothers Water meet - certainly a good one to do from there although with hindsight I would have started/finished at Deepdale Bridge and walked the full HaH ridge. I also did the talked about Birks-Arnison 'bit', no problem, and did a 'route 1' down Arnison Gill to get to Deepdale Bridge.
Yes, the weather is a bit changeable at the moment to say the least! I still think Fairfield is a 'funny' top, navigational wise, and requires a bit of extra care when coming off it.
