With the tail end of Storm Callum behind us here in the North West of England we are left licking our wounds no more so than Cumbria which experienced wide scale flooding closing roads and railways, thankfully however, flood defences held and so the clean up began. Storm Callum had spread eastwards all day Saturday and Sunday's forecast after a wet start looked decent enough for a walk, so after holding out until the last minute checking various conflicting forecasts in the end Rod and I emailed each other confirming we'd still be walking based on the fact that we'd already packed our packs.

Saturday evening came and through various social sites I was able to see first hand the flooding that had been left behind by the storm which left a number of roads closed one of which was the A591 at Grasmere. This of course would have had an impact on todays walk as we planned to meet a mile or so north of the village at Mill Bridge from where this walk officially starts. So after a lengthy detour to Penrith I dropped in on the A591 via the outskirts of Keswick, this after encountering a second road closure at the Stanah side of the B5322 where a flood damaged car had come to rest in the middle of the road. It was here I flagged down Rod before we drove south towards Grasmere coming to a stop at Mill Bridge around twenty minutes later than planned.

Parking is strict at Mill Bridge allowing only two cars besides the Mouray Cottage, we were lucky finding the spaces empty. I'm not sure about Rod but I was happy to get out my car after detouring twice and after the usual greeting with a handshake I let out a mammoth stretch at the rear of my car, without haste we both started to boot up noting that traffic was travelling north along the A591 which left me wondering was the road now open which conflicted with the matrix signs on the M6 which stated that the A591 was closed, either way it was all forgot about rather quickly.

With our cars locked we crossed the road and found ourselves looking down on Tongue Gill which was pretty deafening to say the least but her banks held firmly to the comfort of Tongue Gill cottage just feet away. We're at the official starting point to todays walk where we will collect four Birkett summits starting first with Seat Sandal via its steep south ridge, from the summit we descend steeply crossing Grisedale Hause onto Fairfield before going on to summit Great Rigg from where a simple descent will lead us on to Stone Arthur, the twist in todays walk lies with the descent back to Tongue Gill via Brackenwife Knotts which I was really looking forward to.

We followed the footpath which started to rise steadily as Tongue Gill fell steeply to our flank below, no matter the distance we were away from the rapids they were never far from earshot sighting the white squall through the tree branches from fifty feet above. Continuing we rise further along the stone track until a second gate is reached, the first only allowing access onto a private field. After passing through the gate we looked steeply up the nose of the south ridge "that doesn't look so steep"

Said no one ever.

We hadn't seen anyone except for the walker we spied standing on the summit of Dollywagon Pike but we were soon joined by groups of fell runners making their ascent on Seat Sandal from Grisedale Hause one of whom had a dog with them as I glance over at Rod

"Paul, the dog is not lost" I'm never gonna hear the end of that am I !!

I'd been looking forward to this last section of the walk which took us back to Tongue Gill from the top of Brackenwife Knotts. It's not a popular route making it a steep pathless descent all the while the view is captured by the dominance of Steel Fell, Seat Sandal and the Greenburn valley.

From Brackenwife Knotts the ridge is not so apparent so we descend grassy shoulder over grassy shoulder until we spotted the wall seen in the lower left of this picture, spotting the wall meant we were in line with the ridge which we had surveyed from the lower slopes of Seat Sandal earlier, however the line of descent we had decided on required us to sway right towards a second wall seen lower right, this would drop us almost on top of the footbridge over Tongue Gill seen close to the Ford seen on the 1:25 000 map

Having peered down at the falls from the footbridge over Tongue Gill all that was left was to cross the Ford which too, was in spate, taking no chances we used the footbridge then followed the stone footpath as Tongue Gill fell steeply, this time to our left flank as Grasmere slowly sank below the tree line then out of sight. The traffic from the A591 brought us back to reality which before crossing we took a second look from the road bridge from which we had stood at just over four hours earlier.

Crossing the road took minutes rather than seconds as we waited for the traffic to pass soon arriving at our cars where we took off our packs and removed our muddied boots.

... happen I'll chance it through Grasmere on my way home.