Its a good job I dont write these things in the mornings as they would be full of grumpy. This morning, all the clocks were an hour fast, even the radio was an hour fast, and it was persisting down big time as I drove over from Weardale - with me mutterring darkly about weather forecasters and how it was about time we had some warm weather.
Then the sun came out.
Me and the dingo (I also invited Alan but he came out with some lame excuse about it being his ruby wedding anniversary or something) arrived at the tiny car park at Felldyke in the Western lakes - just southish of Lamplugh.
Our aim was to bag the wainwright neglected top of Knock Murton aka Murton Fell. How AW came to overlook this one is a mystery. It stands proudly and lumpily just next to the Loweswater fells and sticks up just short of 500 feet from the pass with those hills. Its not even an "Outlying Fell" - I suspect the publishers said that the book was big enough!
Its an easy bag, though from the road to the west and there are zig-zag tracks and a path through the heather and moss that forms it's carpet. On top, it has a shelter and two cairns.
We descended South to Leaps Beck and then through a corner of forest and up on to Blake Fell via High and Low Pen. After a late lunch, we bagged the little top of Sharp Knott, then over the col to Carling Knott and Loweswater End.
We then contoured West again to the Wiseholme Beck col and bagged BUrnbank fell and Owsen fell, then down to the Wiseholme valley/coire to follow a track to Lamplugh. Just as the track hits the pastures, however, there's two signs on the gate which indicate that there's no footpath. One helpfully instructs the walker to "[censored] Off". I ignored the invitation and walked through to the road, which I followed back to the start for ease and speed, although there is a footpath (but I'd had enough) 9 Miles, 2400 feet of uphill - larks, and, notably, meadow pipits singing. (Meadow pipits are, apparently a favourite victim of cuckoos, so the fact that they're singing is a good sign of better things to come) Lots and lots of snow seen on the Helvellyn ridge , although not all that much everywhere else.
Cracking views, today, too.
The route's a bit complicated, but then I made it up as I went along.