Bowscale Fell seen over Bannerdale
Bowscale Fell
Rising gracefully above the quiet, stone-built village of Mungrisdale, Bowscale Fell anchors the northeast extreme of the greater Blencathra group. It is intimately linked back into the main massif by the dramatic, high-level ridge line of Bannerdale Crags. Typical of many classic Northern Fells, its western slopes present a uniform, smooth, and convex grassy sheet, while its eastern flanks crack open into a spectacular amphitheater of crags and dark, plunging combes.
Tucked away within a deep glaciated bowl scooped out of the northern face of the mountain sits Bowscale Tarn. A text-book example of a corrie tarn, its 18-metre deep waters are hemmed in tightly by a massive, whale-backed moraine. In Victorian times, it was a thriving tourist hub where day-trippers were carried up the steep tracks on the backs of mountain ponies to experience its atmospheric, moody solitude. Today, tastes have changed, and the tarn is rarely visited. Local folk legend long held that its cold depths were home to two immortal, talking fish.
The stony shelter cairn on the high plateau of Bowscale Fell
The high plateau changes from smooth grass to a rough rash of stones as you approach the top. The actual summit is equipped with a comfortable stone wind shelter, with a secondary pointer cairn standing slightly further north to assist walkers navigating toward the drop-off for the tarn below. Standing at the high point reveals a phenomenal front-row view of the jagged silhouette of Blencathra and the razor edge of Sharp Edge, matched by a surprising, distant glimpse of the North Western Fells framed perfectly through the Glenderaterra gap.
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