⛰️Yewbarrow – One for the Memory Books

bootsandbanter
Oct 1
6 min read

Updated: Oct 2

Steep slopes, scrambles, and a surprise descent in my favourite valley.

Date: September 27, 2025

📍 Route: Wasdale – Yewbarrow Nose → Great Door → Summit → North Top → Stirrup Crag descent → Overbeck Path return

📏 Distance: 12.8 km

⬆️ Ascent: 703 m

⛰️ Wainwright #211

Weather: Cool air, no sunshine, dry underfoot, despite a forecast for rain.

Mood: Calm, steady, and quietly happy to be back in Wasdale, smiling from the start.

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✨ Trip #8 of the Year

This was my eight trip to the Lakes in 2025, and somehow the excitement still feels as fresh as the first. Every time I drive back into these valleys it feels like coming home.

I’ve already climbed 65 new Wainwrights this year (72 including repeats) — more than any other year. And what makes it even more special is that every single one of these trips has been solo, and each has felt mighty in its own way — bigger, braver, and more demanding than anything I’ve done in previous years.

But in the end, it’s not really about the numbers. It’s about that spark I still feel each time I put my shoes on 👟, knowing another adventure is waiting just for me.

🚗 The Drive & A Different Start

The drive on the morning after I ‘ve arrived at Gosforth was short (only 20 odd minutes), but it was 20 minutes of roads I don’t like. I ended up parking 2.5 km away from the Wasdale car park after taking an unfamiliar route.

There are only two roads to get into the valley and I decided to take the one I have never driven! So at the first opportunity I immediately stopped at the lake side 🌊. This meant a longer hike, which secretly made me happy — 6 km alone just doesn’t count as a hike in my book.

🥰 Walking In – My Favourite Valley

The approach along Wastwater was pure joy. Half an hour of strolling, grinning like an idiot 😁, staring at Yewbarrow the whole way in.

Wasdale is my favourite valley in the Lakes, and being back always feels like coming home. While walking the road (the same one I hate driving), I was already scanning Yewbarrow’s line: straight up the nose, rocky scrambly bits to the left. Excitement building.

🌄 Yewbarrow Has It All

Her steep south ridge dominates the Wasdale valley — in my opinion, even more so than the Scafells, which are tucked away behind. Yewbarrow just owns the view, a great tilted slab of grass and rock rising straight from the lake.

What struck me most was the colour palette 🎨 — the fading rust tones of the bracken against the fresh green slopes, streaks of grey rock cutting through, all softened by the shifting light. It looked less like a mountain and more like a painting hung above Wastwater.

⛰️ Up the Nose

Most people say this part is horrible. I found it… enjoyable. Steep grassy slog, out of breath, legs working hard, heartbeats felt in my chest ❤️‍🔥— and I liked it. Why am I like this? Maybe because uphill suffering has somehow become my love language 💌. Before I knew it, I was on the rocky zigzags leading to the scramble.

🧗 The Scramble & Great Door

Cool air, dry rock, no rain despite the forecast. I went up in a vest👚, all the way to Great Door. On the scramble section I stopped to let two men descend — naturally, we compared Wainwright counts (classic Boots & Banter moment).

I found no awkwardness there on the scramble; in fact, I enjoyed the hands-on moves. From Great Door across the ridge to Yewbarrow summit and on to North Top, it was easy grassy ground.

There were two people a little behind me from the start of the scramble up towards the peak. And then, suddenly, they were gone. I did wonder what happened to them… but more on that later.

😳 Stirrup Crag – The Surprise

And then came Stirrup Crag. From above, it looked fine — I even filmed a video saying so 🎥. The video lies.

I knew the name Stirrup Crag, but no more than that. I never researched what the route actually involved. On my new app, Outdooractive, it was marked as T5 — “traces of path.” I did remember seeing that, but I didn’t think much of it at the time, and I certainly didn’t look into it further.

The first downclimb was short but committing: facing the rock, precarious foothold, all concentration.

When I first stood above the second downclimb, my immediate thought was: “This can’t be the way down.” I even stepped a couple of metres to the side to check — and discovered it was just pure air 🌬️. Turns out my “alternative route” was really just a shortcut to the afterlife 💀. So yes, the bit that looked impossible actually was the way. It involved a bulgy rock you had to hug and edge around, airy with no room for mistakes. I was solo, no one to guide me, but somehow stayed calm. Only afterwards did I look back up making videos and taking pictures and think, “That looks impossible. How did I do that?”

Later, Googling it at place I was staying at, I discovered this is the very section people warn about. Proper scary, apparently. Classic Mira: do first, research and panic later. And when I say research, I mean I went down the rabbit hole reading advice threads and all sorts. One suggestion I found genuinely good was lowering your backpack with a paracord — because honestly, what worried me most at the time was the bag getting in the way.

Now I’m left wondering… should I start carrying paracord in my backpack just in case? Or is that just one more thing to obsess over? Realistically, I probably will — because knowing the places I end up at, I might actually need it one day.

🐐 Encounters & Banter

At the bottom I stopped for photos and videos and bumped into a man from the valley.

Our conversation started with me saying, “I came down that and I can’t quite believe it.”

He looked surprised… and for some reason I started explaining where the tricky sections were. I don’t know why — as if I was giving him a guided tour of my own madness🤦‍♀️. He just laughed and said, “Hats off, you’re braver than I am. I am taking the bypass path!”

Truth? I hadn’t planned to be brave. I just didn’t know what I was getting into until I was already on it.

I also realised I was more worried about boggy ground than the scramble — my first words to him, after proudly announcing where I’d come from, were actually: “You look a bit wet, was there bogginess?” Truth is, I should probably stop watching videos of people sinking in UK bogs 🌧️😂.

🚶 The Easy Return

The Overbeck Path back was a breeze — no bogs, no drama, just an easy walk. Meanwhile, the couple I’d seen earlier on the ascent reappeared near Dorehead, clearly having chosen the “sensible” alternative route, unlike me. No wonder they gave me a look when I emerged from Stirrup Crag’s direction 👀.

🌅 Closing Moments

I ended the day by the lake, looking back at Yewbarrow, Great Gable, and Kirk Fell. The Scafells never appeared, sulking in the cloud, but I didn’t mind. The massive screes plunging into Wastwater stole the show.

It was a calm, beautiful ending to a day that mixed fun, surprise, and a touch of WTF — exactly the kind of memory that sticks.

When it really counts, I do manage to stay calm. I don’t often give myself credit for that, but I suppose it comes from the experience I’ve quietly built up on steep ground.

I also have a lot of respect for the mountains — I know that if something ever felt beyond me, I could have turn back and came down the way I came up.

Maybe that’s just part of my Boots & Banter DNA — the Boots 🥾, i.e. action in the mountains, and then the reflection (and endless chattiness) afterwards, calm in the moment but analysing it all later in detail… and that’s exactly what makes the memories stick.

🤯 WTF+ Rating – Stirrup Crag Descent