The Tarns of Lakeland Vol 2 East - English Lake District walks

• Location
• Description
• Contents
• Introduction
• Sample Route
• Maps

We were sitting in a small cafe at Waterhead and it was raining. The rain was coming down in a determined sort of way, and it wasn’t going to stop. But we had planned a week tarn hunting among the Eastern Fells and it was time to start. So with heavy sacks laden with tent, sleeping bags and supplies for several days we turned our backs on the lake and headed east. Walking in the rain is always better than it seems looking out of the window, and it was good to be at last on the way. As we crossed the hillside little becks splashed silver over the rocks, the trees and fields smelt fresh and new, while all about us were the flowers. By the time we got to Kentmere we had counted ninety different species, the rain had stopped, and as we emerged onto the open fell the clouds parted. In the warmth of the evening sunshine we chose a spot by the beck and set up our tent under a blue sky mirrored in the surface of a tarn.

That was the first of the expeditions to the Eastern Fells, and there have been many others, as tarns were visited and revisited and walks planned to include them all. Sometimes we stayed at farms and cottages, while other nights throughout the year were spent in our small tent high among the fells. On spring mornings we have woken to the song of the lark, a tiny speck high in the sky, and the insistent call of new-born lambs. The long days of summer have seen lazy afternoons beside a tarn, but most memorable are winter camps, with the mountains brilliant white and the tarns frozen and still, while from camps spent on the summits the colours of sunset and dawn are unsurpassed.

Tarn hunting is full of delights and surprises, and the biggest surprise of all is when a tarn has vanished. We had come a long way to visit Scalebarrow Tarn, and had already spent a long time looking. On the almost flat expanse of fell there was grass, a few rocks, a few sheep, and nothing else. The tarn was marked clearly on the map. Heaton Cooper had found it. But we couldn’t. It was a perfectly clear day, and we could see for miles, but of Scalebarrow Tarn there was not a sign. We must be in the wrong place, we told ourselves, and began to take bearings on the surroundings, but careful measurements only confirmed our position. We were standing exactly in the middle of the tarn, and it didn’t exist.

But missing tarns were unusual. Far more often the surprises were the discoveries. Tiny flecks of blue, hardly noticeable on the map without a magnifying glass, would sometimes prove to be no more than shallow peaty pools, but others were unnamed gems. There was no way of telling in advance, we just had to go and look.

There was the vanished Podnet Tarn, mysteriously omitted by the Ordnance Survey and then restored. There was Launchy Tarn, where we were watched by shy deer on the fells above Thirlmere. Among the transitory pools of High Rigg was a lovely tarn with an island golden with lesser spearwort, while hidden on the very edge of the crags overlooking Kentmere we found Rainsborrow Tarn. No path led to it, there were no cairns, and it had even escaped the notice of Wainwright.

It is fashionable these days to say that Lakeland is crowded, and at the height of summer some of the popular routes are indeed busy, yet so few people turn aside from the path that within yards the fellside is deserted. Tucked out of sight on the climb from Far Easedale to High Raise we found Ash Crags Tarn, another secret tarn lay on the lip of the fells above Mosedale, while among the tiniest was one of the best, Satura Crag Tarn, a shy rocky pool perched on the edge of the fell high above Hayeswater.

With eyes fixed on the high fells, the countryside around Windermere had been left until last, but here too were unexpected delights. The white cliffs of Whitbarrow and Cunswick Scar are made of limestone, a paradise of flowers. In Grizedale Forest dragonflies hovered over the tarns, and red squirrels were a flash of colour among the branches, while the quiet lanes and fields of the Winster Valley seemed little changed since the days of Wordsworth.

It was late in the afternoon as we reached the tall stone column of Thornthwaite Beacon, and already below us the valleys were deep in shadow. But summer evenings on the tops are long, and out of a clear blue sky the sun still shone as we set up the tent beside the stone wall. There was hardly a breath of wind, and the view was sharp and clear right across Lakeland. Everyone had gone down long ago, and save the sheep nothing moved in the wide sweep of the Kentmere Fells and the long ridge of High Street. Slowly long shadows stretched out across the fell until, as the sun dipped towards the distant blue-grey fells, the air grew chill and we sat in the tent doorway with our sleeping bags pulled up around us. Gradually the light grew orange, and the sky a deeper blue until at last a thin line of cloud on the horizon swallowed the disc of the sun. Overhead one by one the stars were coming out.

It was the final expedition. We had reached the end of a long journey, for after nearly four years spent visiting the tarns our explorations were complete. And how many are there in the Lake District? We make it 335, but even a lifetime is too short to know every corner of Lakeland, and round the next rock may yet be an undiscovered tarn. The exact number is not important, for the fun of tarn hunting is the joy of walking in the Lake District, and someone who is tired of the Lakes is tired of life.