Christmas Eve Walk - Caw, Lake District

Caw summit - I'm sure that normally the views are lovely!
After a short (15 minute ish) drive from Woodend cottage where we were staying during our two week stay in the Lakes we arrived at the small village of Seathwaite, the start point of our  circular walk that would take us to the summits of Caw (529m) and Pikes (469m).

 There is a small car park near the church that we'd picked as our starting point and the weather on arrival here was fairly grey and breezy but at least it wasn't raining - so we kitted up and headed off along the footpath which leads initially through Newfield Wood before passing onto more open ground and and following Old Park Beck (stream) up to the crags around Brock Barrow.

The walk up to Brock Barrow is fairly steep and we decided to make life slightly more interesting and navigate our way up through the rocks of Goat Crag (which lie on the Westerly slopes of Caw) on the last few hundred meters to the summit rather than follow the main path which leads around the crags, past Brown Haw, and then drops back down along Long Mire to the woods near Stephenson Ground.

 There is no marked public footpath or right of way to the either of the summits of Caw or Pikes and you need to just pick a point that you're going to turn off the path and follow your chosen bearing to the summit.


We reached the summit, still shrouded in hill fog, just after midday and after a few quick pictures headed down off the summit in a North Easterly direction towards the slightly lower summit of Pikes.
A lovely spot for lunch
As we'd started walking slightly later than normal we decided to stop for lunch on the craggy slopes of Pikes and fire up the Jet Boil for a much needed hot drink.

 From the summit of Pikes we continued on the same NE heading until we met the bridleway/footpath split below Yaud Mire and then followed the LH footpath towards Walna Scar Quarries (disused), passing Dawson Pike to the left and the slightly higher White Pike (598m) to the right.





The quarry in the mist and fog was quite eerie and we spent a bit of time walking around the various crumbling buildings and slate piles before continuing along the fairly broad bridleway to Walna Scar road where our path turned left to drop downwards, following the stream of Long House Gill, and then eventually meeting the road at Long House.

From the road/path intersection you can either take the footpath past Turner Hall Farm and Under Crag or continue along the road as they both end up back at the start point by the church.  On this walk we opted for the road purely because the ground underfoot was really sodden and the path past the farm looked to be fairly muddy and boggy - so yes, we wimped out and took the tarmac!

The ViewRanger plot (from my Garmin GPSMap 62) is here - apologies for the start point error!

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Easy does it! Wet and slipery on the way down

Location: Seathwaite, Cumbria CA12, UK

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