Garsdale Hills 2-day backpack

Pitch at West Baugh Fell TarnA 2-day circuit of the hills flanking Garsdale, a choice inspired by an overlap with a bank holiday weekend to avoid the influx of walkers to the well known areas – it was a good one in that respect, we saw nobody at all and the whole area was completely deserted. The tent pitch was an excellent one with a grand sunrise.

On the north side of Garsdale is the huge sprawl of Baugh Fell, home to two Nuttall 2000′ summits and divided on the map into West and East Baugh Fell, and its vastness is readily appreciated on a traverse like this: usually with a total lack of people it is a study in serene emptiness. Dotted with small curricks, tarns and gritty outcrops with evidence of a few old workings, it would be more akin to its Pennine neighbours to the north but for the lack of heather: this is a landscape of moorland grasses and sphagnum presided over by skylarks, curlews and plovers rather than their ubiquitous grouse.

On the south side is the Marilyn/Dewey top of Aye Gill Pike (Rise Hill), a long shallow whaleback hill that could hardly be less like the popular notion of a ‘pike’. This was to be the day of views, but apart from the brief dawn period the sky was grey and murky all day and the vistas very muted.

Full report & photos

2 thoughts on “Garsdale Hills 2-day backpack

  1. Your speciality seems to be high lake side campsites with stunning views and cracking sunrise – and here’s another one. The hills around Sedbergh are one’s I’ve only ever visited sporadically but all the reports I read seem to highlight how fine they are for long walks and high camps

  2. That’s a method I’m using more and more for designing backpack routes, especially for joint trips – start with a potential good pitch for scenery and/or dawns/dusks and work a route around it. A good result here.
    Very few walkers visit Baugh Fell at all and most of those are Nuttall baggers, but it’s well worth exploration by seekers of open spaciousness.

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