Fell Head is a mountain in the Howgill Fells. Geographically, it’s part of the county of Cumbria, but falls within the boundaries of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
From what I’ve seen of the Howgills, I’d describe them as a sort of rolling mass, with the dips between the high points being big enough for them to qualify as separate summits, but often allow walkers to remain quite high, allowing walkers to take in more than one in a walk. This summit can apparently be reached by extending the walk up the Calf, which I’ve previously climbed.
I didn’t do that. I only climbed this one today, going up from the other side.
Going out of Sedburgh is a road called Howgill Lane. It’s a narrow country road without many passing places, and I was going along it for some time, so I think I was quite lucky not to encounter any vehicles going the other way. I passed a number of farms, and other little roads that met this one, and eventually came over a cattlegrid, then crossed a beck. It’s called Fairmile Beck, and after crossing it, the road is shown on the map to become Fairmile Road.
I continued a little further along, until I reached a parking area on my right. It’s not massive, but there’s room for a few cars. I think quite a bit has to be added to the walk if you can’t park here.
Facing away from the road, I headed up steep, worn-in path on my left that led up to a ridge. It’s always tiring to start a walk with a steep bit like that, but this one was the vast majority of the climbing. And it’s satisfying to rise so quickly, and there were good, and quite unusual, views to reward me. Fell Head is, for a mountain, quite close to the M6 motorway, and the busy road cutting through the more traditional countryside views made for an interesting contrast.
The path did branch a little as I got higher; the two branches ran sort of parallel, and when they started moving away from each other I took the right one. But that was near the top, and I’d imagine they end up in basically the same place; I went right because I knew I was turning right once I reached the top of the ridge.
So I did that. As I said, I’d done most of the climbing, but it was a bit up and down from here. Down a little slope, then up a little one.
I sometimes still had views of the motorway on my right, but the slope was the best place for them. But on my left and ahead of me I could see the ups and downs of surround fells, including what looked like a waterfall tucked away amongst a convergence of slopes. Looking down on other fells made me feel like I was very high up.
After that initial turn right, I was basically going forwards for most of the way along the ridge, until I reached a little stone cairn at the top of one of the little slopes. Just after this I turned left, and walked down then up to another, slightly bigger cairn further away. This second one marks the summit of Fell Head.
I had a bit of a rest here and ate my lunch. There was a little bit of rain while I was up here, which worried me, but thankfully that was all I got for the rest of the walk.
To descend, I headed back to the first cairn, the continued forwards past it, and headed down the slope in front of me. This path wasn’t steep like the one I’d walked up to the ridge on, but it was a steady descent, once more with excellent views.
After a while the path started to curve a bit, turning left then right, and though I continued to descend, it did even out somewhat. It took me across a stream, then became somewhat waterlogged at points.
The wettest point was just as it brought me up to a wide gate. I went through here, then immediately through another one.
I would describe the land up to this point in the walk as moorland – I don’t know what the exact qualification for that is, but the grass was a little brownish and scrubby. Now I came into a properly green field. To my right there was a line of trees lining a little dip with a stream running through it, and as I walked down I passed some sheep and lambs.
I headed forwards down the field, and passed a farm and I think holiday buildings on my right. I admit, I’m having a little difficulty remembering the specifics of this part of the walk, and some of the parts I thought I did remember don’t seem to line up with my photos.
But at some point the field and stream came level with each other, I crossed the stream, and then came down a track to Howgill Road, right next to where the stream goes under it.
Then I turned right and walked along the road for a while, until I reached the parking area I’d started from. And then, of course, I was done.
Photos from the walk are here. Thank you for visiting my blog.
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