Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

Sunday 9th October 2016

B Walk

Barrow - Outerside

8 Miles Grade 2

Leader: Sandra Stockley

Report & Photos by Peter Flynn

As this was the first B walk I have been on apart from my first ever with the club (about 93 years ago, it seems) I had no idea how it compared with the “normal” walk,  if there is such a beast.  I was told that it was faster and steeper than most.  This was rather gratifying, partly  because due to not having had a good walk for at least a month I was one of several who complained about how hard and steep it was.  The walk was delightful,  very carefully planned and recce’d by Sandra,  and took us first of all to Barrow.  At least one person was expecting a very long bus ride, and thought the Barrow to Outerside walk might take slightly longer than the normal time allocated to club walks.  From Barrow it was downhill,  across a bit of a boggy section and then very steeply,  with a tiny element of scrambling up to Outerside for a pleasant, leisurely lunch.  The views of the surrounding fells were wonderful.  We thought we could see a group that would answer in size at least to the A party on Eel Crag but in reality it could have been anyone.  The path back was the very rough miners’ track above Stonycroft Gill and was the scene of one event that was very definitely not planned by Sandra.  She was chattering – as normal – to all within hearing range when suddenly,  in what I would reckon to be more or less the same spot as the one when half a dozen A  walkers last year were lifted off their feet and flung down the hillside,  she pitched forward,  cracked her face against a sharpish rock and lay still for a while.   Totally bizarre and absolutely no reason it should have happened unless that particular spot is somehow jinxed.  She recovered rapidly and we continued along the road for a short time and took a beautiful footpath past Uzzicar Farm and along Newlands Beck to a new hump backed bridge at Little Braithwaite,  which had been designed from scratch by our resident bridge engineer,  Phil.  We offered to scratch his name on it but he refused,  in case it collapsed at the next floods.  Then through Portinscale and back to the delights and haute cuisine of afternoon tea in Keswick.Lovely to welcome at least one newcomer, Lesley, on the walks and many thanks to Sandra for a beautiful walk on an absolutely gorgeous day.

Peter