ACROSS LAKELAND - A Northern Coast to Coast Walk: From St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay - page 34

possibilities here present themselves: one to take a path climbing left, via
Little Tongue Gill, the other opting for a path going right, across Tongue
Gill.
Ascending by Tongue Gill
The green path of Little Tongue Gill is a route by which Victorian visitors
would travel on ponies to the summit of Helvellyn. This climbs rather tedi-
ously until it levels to cross the flank of Seat Sandal. The ascent by Tongue
Gill, generally regarded as the line of the Coast to Coast Walk, is much
more entertaining - it crosses Little Tongue Gill first, by a footbridge or
a ford, and then Tongue Gill itself, rising then in easy stages. Gradually
the path approaches the waterfalls near the head of the gill and arrives
at a rock step, climbed by a series of ledges and a rough path. Throughout
much of this ascent there is an ever-improving retrospective view to Crinkle Crags and
the Langdale Pikes, Wetherlam and the Old Man of Coniston.
Cross the stream ahead, and climb a constructed pathway across rough
ground to a false col, beyond which lies a shallow hollow that probably
once held a lake. Continue rockily around its left edge and climb easily to
Grisedale Hause.
GRISEDALE HAUSE
At Grisedale Hause a vastly different prospect opens up. Hitherto the views have all
been retrospective, but now it is time to look forward across the great bowl that houses
Grisedale Tarn to what lies ahead, as we slowly (there is no hurry just yet!) start to
leave behind the great rugged heights of central Lakeland and head for the sublime
traverse of limestone country and the dales of Yorkshire.
Grisedale Tarn is an ideal place for a pause, deep set beneath the fellsides of Dolly-
waggon Pike, Fairfield and Seat Sandal, a setting wild and grand, with a true mountain