It would have been foolish not to link todays Bowscale Fell walk with Eycott Hill and with the blustery weather continuing into the afternoon we thought we'd do just that so after a quick lunch in the cars we headed back through Mungrisdale and located what I thought was the start of Birketts Eycott Hill walk...
In order to gain Eycott Hill a network of fields must be passed through and Birkett was meticulous on how to weave a passage through, I always tend to keep a handy alamanac edition of The Birkett Fells in my pack so just before we left I double checked todays starting point to the point where I even took a compass bearing which showed I was out by just a few degrees.
I later found out that I had set off wrongly from the Bridge over Barrow Beck and not 350 yards further north, an easy mistake to make given that both routes have signage displaying public footpaths, or that's what I'm telling myself anyway. My mistake cost us 600 yards of walking 'not on the original route' and for that mistake I held my hand up! We soon joined the path at the famous Clapper Bridge over Barrow Beck from where I made sure we stuck to Birketts original route from there on in. |