Graystones, Broom Fell, Lord's Seat, Barf, Whinlatter - Sat 4th Nov 2017

Our first weekend up in the lakes for over a year and we decided to make use of the new premier inn in Cockermouth and tick off a few of the north western fells.

We decided to do route 28(The Wythop and Lorton fells)from the Stuart marshall book and set off from the forestry commission car park a couple of miles west of Whinlatter. As ever, we set off late but the car park was relatively empty and we had no problem getting parked up before heading down to Spout force to start our walk.

I always think it's a lovely time of year to visit the lakes and the colours were just stunning today.

The initial ascent alongside the wall is really steep and certainly got the blood pumping but we had plenty of little rest stops and time to take in the views. We were soon up at Graystones and decided we would leave out ling fell and sale fell as it looked a bit of a trudge to get over to them and this turned our walk into a really nice ridge walk over onto broom fell and then onto lord's seat.

From there we headed over to the delightfully named Barf and stopped for a sandwich looking out at the fantastic views towards keswick and Bassenthwaite lake.

Heading up the path from Spout Force

Graystones summit

Broom Fell

Looking over towards Lord's Seat

Barf

From Barf we headed up through thick heather which was hard going but soon ended up on the forestry tracks of Whinlatter and headed through a gate onto the fell. There was a fairly short steep section before an easy ridge walk onto the first of the Whinlatter summits and then onto Brown How where it started to rain and then hailstone and we came across a couple and their two dogs huddling in a stone shelter(the dogs did not look impressed!) 

It soon blew over and to be honest for november we were really lucky with the weather for most of the day! Heading back down alongside the pine forest at 4pm it was already starting to get dark and we were glad we'd made the decision to omit the other 2 fells as we'd have been wandering around in the dark otherwise.

We managed to get back to the car just as it started chucking it down, nicely tired and ready for a few pints to celebrate another 5 wainwrights in the bag!!  

Rainy Whinlatter