ii) St John's in-the-Vale - High Rigg - St John's in-the-Vale
iii) Ashness Bridge - Walla Crag - Ashness Bridge
7 miles, 3000 feet of ascent
When I completed the twenty mile 'Helvellyn Ridges' walk I originally intended to add Seat Sandal on at the end, but unfortunately the clock beat me and so it had to be completed separately. As the other two fells are in the rough vicinity it seemed to make sense to add these to the list.
The walk up Raise Beck is quite steep and Tilly almost seems to be saying ''Up there? You are joking!''
She and her partner in crime, Dusty, did make it however and certainly deserved a rest when they made it to the top. The stretch up from Grisedale Tarn to the summit is certainly pretty steep.
Seat Sandal has two very distinct tops; one looking over Easedale and the other over Fairfield.
There were still two more complete walks to do and so we had to crack on. As we headed back down to Grisedale Tarn we were treated to an excellent view of the shapely mass of St Sunday Crag and then it was back to the car parked down at Dunmail Raise.
I then drove over to St John's-in-the-Vale to climb High Rigg. AW writes that it took him 35 minutes to do this short climb, whereas anybody ''full of the joys of Spring'' should do it in 15 minutes. It took me 20 minutes so I didn't do too badly considering I stopped a couple of times to take photographs.
The view of the higher fells from the top was hampered a little by low cloud, but the view down Thirlmere, with Raven Crag prominent was good.
Then it was back to the car parked near the church of St John's-in-the-Vale. Very pretty!
Having driven passed Castlerigg Stone Circle, I headed for Ashness Bridge from where we set off for Walla Crag....................
The summit was very, very busy and so I took only a couple of photographs; Bassenthwaite and Dodd were just catching some late sunshine. I then headed straight back to Ashness Bridge which was also swarming with tourists!
A strange day with one superb walk and summit, followed by two walks and summits that are, shall we say, less stimulating!
All photographs taken with either a Nikon D40X (10.2mp) or a Nikon Coolpix 4200 (4.2mp)
