Red Screes on walk 205: another backup walk, but a good one

On the way up Red Screes: Kirkstone Pass Inn below (see note)

WALK 205: Red Screes (2,541 feet above sea level, number 307 of my second round), Middle Dodd (2,106′, no. 308). 6 miles, 1,220 feet of ascent.

Since I last went to Cumbria, in February, it’s stopped being Cumbria: a wave of some administrative pen and we now have Cumberland Council in the north and west of the county, and Westmorland and Furness in the rest of it. Traditionalists may laud the return of Westmorland to the fold, back from the dead after abolition in 1974, but whatever the reasons for this I doubt it’ll make public transport any better overnight. A cancelled train this morning made my original planned destination of Great End too hard to reach in the time available, and while I might have gone up Helvellyn instead, there was enough snow and ice hanging around to make Swirral Edge look dubious. So once again I fail to pick up any of the really big fells still remaining on my second round.

Still, Red Screes, at 2,541 feet, is no dwarf. Yet it’s made a lot more accessible thanks to having the option, now that summer is here (at least in public transport terms) of getting a bus to Kirkstone Pass and starting from there, already 1,490 feet up. That turns it into a 40-minute ascent. Tack subsidiary Middle Dodd on then descend to Ambleside, and one has a fairly straightforward 6-mile walk with some very good views from the tops. Read all about it and see more photos on the walk 205 page.

View from the summit of Red Screes, showing there was enough snow around today to discourage any crag-hopping.

Incidentally, the Kirkstone Pass Inn has closed, which is a great shame: not just for this walk (a descent back to the inn being a possibility for ending it) but for Lakeland generally, as this was one of the most iconic and famous of hostelries. It doesn’t look like it’s going to open again any time soon, so for now this one has to be struck off the list, I’m afraid.

As of today, then, I have bagged 308 of the 330 Wainwrights on my second round, so have 22 to go. I want to try to get back to Cumbria, sorry, Cumberland/Westmorland/Furness, before a month passes, so shall we say by mid-May?