Great Cockup (526m), Meall Fell (550m), Knott (710m), Great Calva (690m) - 24/06/2019
Distance: 14km; Ascent: 700m; Time: 6h
We seem to have chosen another murky day to take to the Northern fells (see Great Sca Fell). There is limited parking at Orthwaite Farm, with an honesty box that does not tell you the fee to pay (£3). Go back down the road a short distance to find the public bridleway. We turned left along a wall as soon as we got to the bridleway and made our way on indistinct tracks towards the summit of Great Cockup, where the tracks became more obvious. There is a descent to what is marked on the map as "Trusmadoor", and then a rise again to Meall Fell. The track up Great Sca Fell is straight on. Visibility became poor in low cloud as we approached the summit of Great Sca Fell. We turned right onto a clear track (even if it is not marked on the map) which heads straight for Knott. Visibility remained poor, but again a clear track (not marked on the map) took us towards Great Calva. As we descended the fog cleared and we got a good view of Great Calva - which is certainly the most attractive of the hills we climbed today - the others being grassy bumps without sufficient rock around to make a worthwhile summit cairn. We made a mistake in coming down from Great Calva - a much better route would have been to reascend from the plateu to Burn Tod and make for the public bridleway. However the fog descended, thicker than before, and we found ourselves following a fence line over Little Calva, from where we made for Dash Farm. Being unable to see where we were going, we descended too low and had to contour the steep slopes around Foul Gill. We discovered that the track to Dash Farm is private - but we had no difficulty in using it anyway. From here the route back to Orthwaite was easy and swift.