Peak to Pub Day 7: Blencathra and Skiddaw

The last day, and the route saves its biggest single climb for the end: nearly 1,900m of ascent over four tops — Blencathra (868m), Sale How (666m), Skiddaw (931m) and Carl Side (746m) — the two great northern fells and their outliers, standing apart from everything else and looming over Keswick. It’s a fitting finale and, for us, the hardest day of the lot. Intense is the word I keep coming back to. Partly that’s the distance and the climb; mostly it’s how we chose to go up Blencathra.

Up Hall’s Fell

You can walk up Blencathra by gentle ways. We didn’t. We went up Hall’s Fell, the ridge that runs dead straight from Threlkeld to the summit, and its top section — Narrow Edge — is a proper scramble. Hands on rock, a real drop either side, the kind of ground where you put the poles away and pay attention. It is, by common agreement, the finest direct way up any Lakeland fell, and it deposits you right on the summit with no anticlimax. It also takes it out of you. By the time we topped out on Blencathra we’d already spent more than we would have on an ordinary path.

The long crossing to Skiddaw

From Blencathra the route turns its back on the comfort of Keswick and strikes off west across a wide, boggy, featureless saddle — past Sale How — toward Skiddaw. This is the unglamorous middle of the day: a long, wet, trudging crossing with the summit of Skiddaw sitting there refusing to get closer. Then the final pull up Skiddaw itself, at 931m the high point of the day and one of the highest in England.

Why we skipped Carl Side

The official line comes off Skiddaw over Carl Side and down to Keswick. We didn’t. By the time we were up Skiddaw the cloud was right down — proper claggy — and we were running on empty after the scramble that morning. Faffing along an exposed subsidiary top in poor visibility, tired, on the last day, didn’t appeal. So we took the more direct descent off and left Carl Side for another day.

And we did go back for it. A while later we came up from Millbeck and did Skiddaw and Carl Side as their own little circular, in much better weather, which is the walk I’d point you at if you want the GPS track: download the Skiddaw & Carl Side GPX (a separate, later walk — not the full Day 7 line).

The George

We came down into Keswick with seven days in our legs and finished at the George, the oldest coaching inn in town. Last pub of the seven. We’d kept our side of the bargain all week — no nights in the pubs, but a drink in every one — and this was the one that counted. Lemonade never tasted better.

Practical notes

A note on the GPX. Honestly, I don’t have a clean GPS track from the day itself — Blencathra by Hall’s Fell never made it onto the watch, and it’s the one day of the seven I most wish I had. The download linked above is the later Skiddaw and Carl Side circular, which covers the back half of the day (and the bit we’d skipped) but not the Blencathra scramble. If I unearth the original, I’ll add it here.

Hall’s Fell is a scramble, not a walk. Narrow Edge is graded, exposed, and serious in the wet or in wind — if you’re not comfortable with hands-on ground and a drop, take one of Blencathra’s easier ridges instead. The crossing to Skiddaw needs the map (OS Explorer OL4 and OL5) and a compass if the cloud’s down, which it was for us.

Getting there: the proper route starts in Threlkeld and finishes in Keswick, an easy few miles apart. We did it from a base with the car, like the rest of the week.

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Part of the Lake District Peak to Pub — the last of the seven days. Previous: Day 6, Grasmere to Threlkeld. Back to the full route and all seven days.