Whinlatter Forest was England's first mountain forest, and until recently was a rather depressing blanket of silent evergreens. However, that is gradually changing with a policy of re-planting with deciduous firs and broadleaf trees, and not always in regimented rows as before. You can also easily escape the forest out onto the fells, which are not particularly high and therefore are a good bet when the cloud cover is low - as it was this week. Here are some pictures (click on any picture for a larger version):
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See what I mean
about the firs? That is the Newlands Valley and Keswick about
1500 feet below. |
| Emerging from the
forest onto the fells near Lord's Seat, this is the view east towards
Barf and, in the distance, Ullock Pike below an invisible Skiddaw. |
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Looking
across at Broom Fell from the top of Lord's Seat. |
| Looking
past Broom Fell's impressive cairn down into the Lorton Valley. |
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Although
the clouds were low, visibility was quite good, both south into the
Lorton Valley and north into Scotland |
| A
glimpse of Bassenthwaite Lake from the path between Broom Fell and
Lord's Seat. |
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And
down into the Lorton Valley again, between Whinlatter Top on the left
and Graystones on the right. |
| From
the top of Barf, which you can see is a steep climb from the shores of
Bassenthwaite Lake about 1400 feet below. |
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This is the straight way up Barf. The white mark near the bottom is the Bishop's Rock, commemorating the gentleman who bet his mates that he could ride his horse up Barf - this was apparently after a few drinks at the Sun Hotel, Thornthwaite. The rock marks where the horse tipped him off and rolled on him... |
| Grisedale Pike
(the clouds were lifting a little) from the forest. You can see
that there is now a mixture of evergreen and deciduous trees... |
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Grisedale from
Whinlatter Top. |
| Grisedale from
Brown How. At least, there were only two bumps around there,
which I think must have been Brown How and Whinlatter Top... |
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