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. 

Coniston; Raven Tor, Thursday 9th July 2009

With a reasonable forecast for the day, we opted for climbing the grade 4 scramble of Raven Tor, which lies just south east of Levers Water, rather than Easy Terrace on Dow Crag as we 'd been there before.

As usual the Cicerone guides can be difficult to interptret sometimes, with things like "obvious red scree shute" and "a small (non existant to us) cairn marks the start of the route".

However we set off up what we thought was the correct "rib of rock on a central buttress", only to find it a little too easy as it should've been harder - for us!

Although it looks steep , which it was in certain places, the rock has plenty of holds and you do get a sense of being on a big crag. However it just didn't seem difficult enough!

As the guide says though, scrappy scrambling can be found almost anywhere and made as easy or as hard as you like. So, after we finished we went back down and selected another possible candidate for the correct route and tried that!

Coniston, Great Carrs and back, Tuesday 7th July 20090

With the forecasts being so unpredicatable, myself and Lorna decided to head for the hills, starting once again at the Walna Scar road car park. From there we went north, up past The Pudding Stone and on past Levers Water, up to Black Sails, the point between Swirl How and Wetherlam.

Looking back over Levers Water on our way up to Black Sails, with Raven Tor on the right. From Black Sails, we went west up the rocky path on the Prison Band to the summit of Swirl How at 804m, and then north again to Great Carrs at 788m.

On the summit of Great Carrs stands a memorial to the crew of a Halifax Bomber that crashed in 1944, with what remains of the wreckage.

The eight crew members are named on the memorial with the youngest being just 19.

The view of the Langdales with Pavey Ark centre of the picture.

Looking south again to our next stop; the top of Dow Crag at 778m over to the right, with Brim Fell and Coniston Old Man on the left. After Dow Crag it was down to the old Walna Scar road and then east back to the car park.