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Crag Hill from Braithwaite, Keswick, Cumbria. Wed 18 Aug 2004

The weather report was bad, rain, wind and probably pestilence! At Braithwaite it was overcast with a blast of heavy rain at the start of the walk but then it eased off. We walked past the small village shop then up the lane to the SW and up onto the fell side. The path was short grass and a delight to walk on. Further up it changed to a well-engineered track with an almost constant gradient. It was a steady easy walk all the way up and over Sail. The rain held off but many other areas were in sunshine, but not us. Fortunately the cloud base was higher than most of the mountains and we had good views. Higher up it became quite windy but as we traversed the ridge towards Crag Hill we found an amazingly sheltered spot behind some rocks, so decided to stop for a coffee.
The next part of the route is called 'The Scar' and follows a steep scree edge up to the summit of Crag Hill. It was quite straightforward and not a problem; even in the windy conditions we were experiencing. 

Eric just below Crag Hill summit, behind is Keswick in the sun! The black cloud above is the one that followed us around the walk.

 

 Eric and Boyd by the
Crag Hill trig point at 839m (2,753ft)
In the distance is  Grasmoor.
At the Crag Hill summit trig point we had a magnificent view across the Solway towards Scotland. The coast was bathed in sunshine.
We carried on over the summit and descended to the west to pick up the path down to Coledale Hause. On the way we met a back-packer coming up. I noticed he had a Vango tbs 100 tent strapped to the top of his rucksack and commented how good I thought it was as I had one. He agreed and we compared notes for a while. He carried on up and we went down to try and find some shelter to have our sandwiches. It was still quite windy with some rain but once we'd found some rocks to shelter behind we had a pleasant lunch stop. But a short heavy rain squall made our sandwiches a bit soggy.
Looking down Coledale Beck we could Keswick in the distance, still in sunshine. From now on it was an easy descent to the Force Crag Mine buildings and then a very pedestrian walk along the old miners track back to the car park.