Walk Leader: Peter Lang

Number on walk: 4

Distance: 15 miles

Weather: Fine

Sallows and Sour Howes from Staveley 

The walk started at 9.00am from our meeting point in the short section of dead end road, just off the top end of Danes Road, close to its junction with the A591, in Staveley - nearest postcode LA8 9PR grid ref SD 461 983.  This short section off dead end road and Danes Road itself both have plentiful free on road parking. There was only a small turn out, with only four members in total including the walk leader, however this did not dampen spirits and made for a small sociable group. The weather forecast was not the best with heavy showers forecast all day however the start of the walk remained dry. We duly set off down Danes Road and took the first left along Brow Lane, past the church and into the village. There we crossed over the river at Barley Bridge heading left where we picked up the farmers track through Scroggs Farm. From there it was a mixture of farmers track, footpath and a short section of quiet country lane to clear the outskirts of Stavely before reaching Park House. At that point we joined the bridal way and continued out towards the high point of Green Quarter Fell. This is a relatively gentle climb with good views across the valley. On approaching the high point of Green Quarter Fell I made my first mistake of the day by commenting on how the weather was warm and dry unlike that forecast. Within five minutes the sky had suddenly turned black and the rain started !  With waterproofs on, we then continued to the main path running from Longsleddale over to Kentmere. There we turned left towards Kentmere heading gently down the side of the fell into Kentmere village. The views heading down to the village are excellent, even in the rain. Whilst doing a recce for this walk I had previously bumped into the new vicar of the church in Kentmere, a friendly chap called Laurence, who gave me permission to use the church facilities for a refreshment stop on the actual walk. The church is in remarkably good condition and has tables and chairs inside towards the rear, so we had somewhere dry to sit and eat our lunch. Unfortunately there are no toilets within the church. This was an early lunch as it had taken about 2 hours and 20 minutes to reach the church, not bad going for a group. On leaving the church the rain was still falling, quite light but continuously. It was then time for the slog up Garburn Pass, a quite long, rough and steep ascent. The good news was the rain stopped early on, in the ascent, so there was a quick stop to remove our waterproofs. This in turn led to my second mistake of the day - note to self - do not accidentally leave your stuff on the side of Garburn Pass when taking off waterproofs, as you will have to retrace the half kilometer back down the pass to find it and then reclimb all the lost height !  On reaching the top of the pass you come to a closed gate, where we turned left to a stile in the corner of the wall and then followed the short but steep path directly up the front of the fell to the summit of Sallows at 516m. This is a Wainwright top and the one hour slog to get there from the church was rewarded with good views in just about every direction. The rain then started again and was quite light but on and off for the rest of the day. We then took the easy sweeping ridge to our second top of Sour Howes at 483m. This is also a Wainwright top and has particularly good views all the way down Windermere and (on a good day) out to sea. Up to this point we had been on good paths however Sour Howes is the summit of Applethwaite Common which is access land and riddled with sheep tracks and faint little used paths. We stuck as close as possible to the line of the original "Wainwright path" which is shown in his pictorial guide and comes straight down the front of the fell. We soon came to a wall traversing the fell, where we turned right following the wall to its right hand corner where you will find a gate giving access further down the hill. After going through the gate the path becomes a little overgrown in some sections, resulting in wet legs for everyone. At the bottom of this section there is a gate which then leads out onto the main path running from Kentmere Hall back to Staveley. On joining this main path, with all the navigational difficulties over, we then had a further bite to eat and a brew. It was then level walking on good paths all the way back to Staveley. Enroute we passed Williamsons Monument which is set in a fantastic position on the top of High Knott a Wainwright outlying Fell. This was built in 1803 by the Reverend T Williamson in honour of his father Thomas Williamson who walked to the fell top everyday before his breakfast. Unfortunately the fell top and monument are on private land and the land owner no longer allows any access. After passing the monument we took the path through Raw Ghyll which brings you down the hill onto the A591 footpath just a few hundred yards from our start. I did make a GPX file for the route on the day, however this ended up quite messy due to my random wanderings up and down Garburn Pass trying to find my lost items. As such I have included the GPX file from my final recce two days earlier which shows the same route without my random detour. Total distance of the actual route (minus detour) was 14.9 miles and took 6hrs 26mins on the day.  Overall a nice walk, with a nice group, which was well received.