Ennerdale, Cumbria's Quiet Valley
Solitude is to be Found in the Lake District's Most Westerly Valley
Jan 15, 2009
Should the effort be made to negotiate the narrow, twisting approach roads, then the visitor will be again frustrated, for progress by motor vehicle is forbidden beyond the craggy outcrop of Bowness Knott, and further explorations must be carried out on foot. Yet beneath the atmosphere of brooding loneliness lies the valley that many consider to be the most beautiful in the Lake District.
The Upper Reaches
From the summit of Great Gable, the hub from which radiate all the major Lakeland valleys, the appearance of Ennerdale gives testimony to the forces that carved the scenery. High, steep walls fall from the mountain tops to curve smoothly across the floor, giving the broad U-shape that is characteristic of glaciation. Below Gable, the head waters of the River Liza trickle through drumlins, dropped by the glaciers, and gather reinforcements from hillside tributaries, so that the lake, six miles farther is continually renewed.
Not two miles from the summit of Gable, a small Youth Hostel peeps from behind the drumlins, and watches silently over the track that runs from Wasdale Head to Buttermere, over the passes of Black Sail and Scarth Gap. A few yards beyond this begins the conifer forest of Gillerthwaite, which dominates all views of the valley.
Viking Legacy
This modern forest stands on ground once colonised by ancient trees, which were cleared by Viking settlers, who must have found, in Ennerdale's rugged splendour, a perfect antidote to any longings they may have had for the fjords of Scandinavia. Carving out a livelihood, they left their mark in the strong dialect of the people, and in the names of the "thwaites", or clearings in which they set their dwellings, and the fells, pikes, ghylls and seats where they grazed their sheep.
Their descendents also left something of their individuality, in the many sheep pens and dry stone walls, which appear in the most unlikely places. The most enduring of these is the nine-mile-long wall which rises from the southern shore of the lake, then threads its way over the wild summits of Iron Crag and Caw Fell, up the precarious ledges of Little Gowder Crag and across Haycock and Scoat Fell, before turning away toward Wasdale.
Pillar Rock
Even the apparently inaccessible battlements, which drop vertically from the mountain ridges have become media of artistic and physical expression. Sticking like a thumb from the side of Pillar Mountain is Pillar Rock, "a vast building made of many crags," which was chosen by Wordsworth as the setting for the climax of "The Brothers". A twentieth century work, Auden's and Isherwood's verse drama, "The Ascent of F6", uses its, narrow summit for the opening scene.
This latter piece reflects the modern use of the mountains as an arena in which the youth of the nation can test its skill and courage. Crags like Pillar Rock appear fearsome, but to the climber they are covered by a spider's web of rock routes, of difficulty ranging from staircase ease to near impossibility. It was in such places that British mountaineers cut their teeth, before moving on to climb the highest mountains in the world.
Upward of 100 000 visitors use the car park at Bowness Knott, each year, yet somehow, they disappear from the view, particularly if one moves more than fifty yards from the road. For most of the time, Ennerdale remains a place where one can avoid even the crowds of a Lake District high summer.
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