Red Tarn from Glenridding via Birkhouse Moor

The names of such Lake District staples bring so many emotions and memories of slate and stone buildings, damp ferns, empty fellsides, Herdwicks and wonderfully aching legs. Amongst my first visits to the region was a photographic trip in, perhaps, 1996 or 1997, when I stood on the rocky western shore of Thirlmere with a camera and tripod and photographed the mass of Helvellyn standing proudly above the water. The summit cairn of the third highest peak in the national park stands against the weather at a giddy 950 metres above sea level, so it would be many years until I felt even vaguely capable of attempting a walk to the top.

There are many routes to the summit. One of the most popular and well-known is from Glenridding: a slate-grey village on the banks of Ullswater. We chose a common ascent, taking a well-trodden path past the Gillside campsite and onto a stepped and comparatively steep fellside leading directly to Wainwright’s least favourite fell-top: Birkhouse Moor. (Despite the tremendous view back to Ullswater, he found the felltop itself to be flat and boring.)

My feet (which had begun complaining before leaving home on our mammoth autumn road trip) still weren’t 100%, so we set out with the expectation of having to cut out hike short. The slog up to the first summit of the day went slowly—in particular because I was wearing far too much hiking gear, having over-estimated how cold the walk would be. After stripping back to a more sensible but still weather-proof outfit, the walk up began to go a little more easily, albeit with a definite limp and with slow going. The views back down to Ullswater and the village were quite something: especially when a slow-moving shaft of light on the return part of the afternoon lit up the village beautifully.

I’d come to terms with the fact that we wouldn’t get to Helvellyn itself, as we hadn’t started especially early in the day, the weather wasn’t ideal, and my mild lameness meant that any excessive exertion was out of the question. Instead, this would be a scouting trip both for me and for Jo: to get to at least one Wainwright fell (the aforementioned Birkhouse Moor), to see the Hole-in-the-Wall which I’ve read about for years, and thence to Red Tarn at the base of the final summit.

Red Tarn had been on the radar for many years since seeing David Dimbleby at Helvellyn in 2005, when we watched him tell of 19th century romantic painter Charles Gough’s fatal fall from Striding Edge in the BBC series “A Picture of Britain”.

The twin approaches to Helvellyn from the east are especially tricky: the famous and dangerous knife-edge ridge Striding Edge and the safer but sufficiently-challenging Swirral Edge lead up either side of the dark tarn. We wouldn’t attempt these on this visit: having reviewed and seen Striding Edge many times online and now in real life, it seems to be too much of a risk, not least because of a difficult scramble up a rock face once you’ve reached its uppermost end. Most mentions of Striding Edge note how dangerous it can be, so I’ve heard this enough times to know that I don’t need to attempt it.

Having now sat on the shore of Red Tarn after 5 kilometres and around 600 metres of ascent, I can see that the approach via Swirral Edge would be within my capability if I were to get more specific training in, increase my fitness before going, and start out earlier in the morning. Whether or not I will ever stand on the top of Helvellyn remains to be seen. There are plenty of other peaks I want to achieve in this, my favourite region of Britain, so I’ll continue to enjoy them all even if I never do get to put a stone on the summit cairn of this particular one.