Parlick fell, Fairsnape fell & Saddle fell Circular Walk

Difficulty: medium

Distance: 6.38 miles

Time : 3.5 hours

We started the walk on a bit of roadside parking on Startifants Lane Chipping PR3 2NP.

Head to the top of the road at fell foot and go through the gate at the farm, from here we took the better gravel path to the left and started the steady climb up to the summit of Parlick, the actual summit is just off the track to your righthand side, we headed on as the weather was horrendous, the wind was blowing at 40mph according to the weather app, and the rain was coming in sideways and given that the temperature was only 3 degrees it wasn’t a day to hang around. Continue up the trail following the wall and eventually you arrive at Paddy’s pole sticking out from a large cairn, which we could hardly see  for the weather, I have no idea where the name came from or what the pole actually is and no one I’ve asked including google seem to know either. We carried on to the actual ordinance survey trig point pillar on the summit of Fairsnape fell. There is a stone structure with 2 benches so its a good place for a spot of lunch, but we didn’t have that option as the rain was really coming down now.

On a clear day apparently you can see the entire coastal plain of Lancashire, the central summits of the Pennines and the southern Lakeland Fells across Morecambe Bay. Not today however.

Almost adjacent to the shelter is a bit of a non descript path in an easterly direction, now from here the walk was incredibly boggy due to the heavy downpour and I could hardly see the Garmin for the rain and the steam on my glasses, there is a path of sorts but large sections of it were under shin depth pools of black peat bog, thankfully I had put my seal skin socks on in the morning! Eventually you should come to 2 stiles over a wall almost together, one before and one after a fence, take the 1st stile as this is the better of the two paths, after a few hundred yards you can cross the wall again and onto a much better obvious gravel track, which is your route over and down saddle fell. After a couple of miles of steady downhill walking turn right at Saddle end farm and continue about half a mile and you will go past Wolfen hall and back onto Fell foot at the start of your walk.

We picked such a bad day for this walk that it is on my list to walk again to try and do it justice on a fairer day hopefully.