A panoramic landscape shot of a vast, rolling moorland in the Northern Fells of the Lake District. The foreground features a cluster of moss-covered rocks, amidst a patchwork of golden-brown rushes. The background presents a series of distant heather-covered hills, their slopes softened by a blanket of low-hanging clouds. Centre, across the valley, is a cottage, surrounded by trees and by an enclosed area of brown grasses.

The Bleak Back o’ Skiddaw

It‘s been a wet and windy day in the Lakes, so naturally very little was accomplished. Instead, here is a photo from yesterday. The “back o’ Skiddaw” offers little to marvel at—a few sheepfolds dot an otherwise featureless landscape. Any rock that dares to stand out gets christened and turned into a boundary marker. This one, the Cloven Stone, is so named because it happens to be split like a cloved hoof.

The “back o’ Skiddaw” does not get much love, and I can see why. It is a stark contrast to the rest of the Lake District. Gone are the dramatic peaks, crags, and lush valleys. Instead, we are treated to Skiddaw Forest—a “forest” devoid of trees but brimming with bleakness. It is a wild, some may say dreary expanse of brown heather and moorland, occasionally looking almost savage when the weather cooperates. It drifts up the northern slopes of Blencathra, which, unlike this wasteland, is more interesting.

Amid this barreness stands Skiddaw House, barely clinging to existence in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by battered trees, it once housed gamekeepers and shepherds. Now it serves as an independent hostel for those on the Cumbria Way or who find the bleakness somehow appealing. It even manages to look lonely in the middle of the photograph.


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