Information and photos of my mountaineering trips in Scotland,England and Wales:
Including hillwalking,scrambling and easy rock climbing.Also via ferrata, skiing and alpine trips in Europe.

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Tuesday, 26 June 2012

The Bell - Swirl How - Coniston Old Man, 26th June 2012

A better forecast gave us the chance to try the short (50m)but entertaining scramble on "The Bell",  just to the east of Coniston Old Man. We did this a long time ago, but now Lorna was feeling up to trying it to see how her ankle would cope. As a grade 1 scramble , there are loads of escape routes but you can make it more difficult with some air below your feet.  
Lorna enjoying her first taste of scrambling for over a year on The Bell.

As you make your way roughly north west over Below Book Felsls, you cross a series of small craglets which give good safe opportunities to practice moves with lots of grassy escape routes. We dropped down to Low Water, and then made uor way up to Levers Water via the old mine workings.   

Levers Water from the mine workings. Wild camp?
One of the very dodgy looking holes left by the mines that are around the edge of Levers Water.
We made our way along the east side of Levers Water, passing the grade 3 scramble on Raven Tor (seen above) on our left.
After Levers Water, comes another ascent to the coll between the Prison and Wetherlam. From here it's a nice scrambly path up to Swirl How at 802m, before heading south towards Coniston Old Man at 803m. After a quick snack (in the mist once again!), we went north west a short way to reach the top of the path descending to Goats Water. 
Yet again no views of the cliffs of Dow Crag as we continued down past Goats Water and back onto the Walna Scar road leading back to the car, just south of The Bell. 

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