A winter walk in the Newlands valley, with some easy scrambling on the way.
View the route on plotaroute.com
7 1/2 miles, 760 metres of ascent
There was a light dusting of snow at the end of January this year (2024) and perfect weather for a mountain walk. A route up Hindscarth, a hill I had never been up before. The path is easy to follow all the way but rough in places with easy rocky steps. Thankfully these didn't have any ice on them, the freeze starting a little higher up. Views were spectacular from quite low down and the summit panorama tremendous.
Descent from Dale Head towards the tarn and col that leads down to the valley wasn't as straight-forward as I expected. You can see the tarn and the terrain so I decided to leave the path and walk down the grassy slopes until I could bend leftwards towards the col, hoping to pick up the valley path there. This worked well. As I got to the col I could see people walking what I presumed was the "correct" path direct to the tarn and this seemed very steep and rough and they went very slowly, so perhaps I chose well. The route after that was steep to start but easy to follow.
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