Old Woman of Lydney conquers Old Man of Coniston

I sought advice and the advisers were unanimous; "If your going to climb The Old Man of Coniston, take the footpath from Little Arrow. The other route is boring."

Little Arrow sounded rather like Indian Country to me, but turned out to be a hamlet 2 miles from Coniston, with friendly natives and a nice little AirBnB cottage which I promptly booked.

The path climbs gently away from the main road, then follows Torver Beck. Soon we had our first clear view of The Old Man. It's the peak on the left; the one on the right looks high from this angle but it's only a baby at 870 feet high and isn't even named on my OS map.

Almost level walking now.  Oh, this is easy!  To add to my joy, the sky was getting more blue by the minute, promising fabulous views from the summit.

Here's where Torver Beck flows into an old quarry. Again, it's not named on the OS maps but a photo on Google Earth declares it to Banishead Falls, so presumably this is Banishead Quarry.

A short, steep clamber over rocks brought us to Goat's Water – a good place to sit on a rock, have a thirst-quenching drink and contemplate the next part of the walk, straight up to the ridge at the far side of the Water.

Up... up... up... At times like these I realise that I'm not as young, nor probably as fit, as I once was. I was about half way up when I took this photo, looking back to Goat's Water and in need of a short rest.

At we approached the summit, billows of low cloud rolled in from the north, threatening to blot out the views. Thankfully they began to clear as quickly as they had arrived, though were still lying low when I took this photo, looking towards Coniston Water. Windermere is just visible in the distance. The popular ('boring') route to the summit can be seen in the centre of this photo.

Some people calmly approach the summit, whilst others feel the need to show off a bit. I make no apology; this was literally the 'high point' of the holiday.

Without doubt, the best thing to do at the top of a Lakeland mountain is simply to sit, eat lunch and admire the magnificent view. On a clear day it's possible to see the Isle of Man and Blackpool Tower from here, though sadly not on this occasion.

By the time we tore ourselves away from the summit, the misty clouds had gone, the sun was shining and Windermere was now clearly visible beyond Coniston. The sheep, however, seemed unimpressed. They'd seen it all before.

In hindsight, I think we should have taken the popular path down. There's a highly acclaimed longer one via Swirl How, but your scatty bloggist had spotted another path, half way along the ridgeway at Levers Hawse, that would take us straight down to Levers Water.  "Can we try that one, please?"
"O, all right then."

It wasn't long before my choice lost its appeal. The map contours were very close together but the steepness was hard to fully appreciate until we were too far down to change our minds. To add to the fun, much of the path was covered in scree (loose stones). I've marked our descent to the water's edge in red.

Thankfully, spirits soon rose as the path became a gentle descent, and I was forgiven for not wanting to take that Swirl Edge path. It was time to head back to Little Arrow and leave the mountainside to the sheep.