Start point: High Nibthwaite (SD 294 897)
Brock Barrow (OF) from High Nibthwaite
Weather: Sunny. 20C.
Dougal came of age today being exactly 13 weeks old – what that means in young puppy terms is that you are allowed out into the big wide world, confident that you will not pick up any strange illnesses. For a short and easy walk to tire the young chap out, I decided to climb Brock Barrow at the foot of Coniston Water. It is funny how certain fells bring back memories and this holds more than its fair share for me. It was the fell that Angus got lost on one time and also the last fell he climbed before he hung up his boots (barring the Lance Armstrong style comeback for a crack at climbing Gummer’s How), so it was fitting that this should be Dougal’s first. Unsurprisingly, he carried the walk off with aplomb – he’s going to be a good ‘un that lad, I can tell that for sure.

Heading for Brock Barrow. The climb to it is not as bad as it looks and I think Wainwright gave a poor route to get up to it in his Top o' Selside walk in The Outlying Fells. In those days, it was a nameless summit 748' and the route he describes is a steep scree climb straight up this face of it along the visible groove. However, if you carry on along the path to the east (to the right of this photo), the climb is much gentler before it cuts back to the north west to reach the top. The main obstacle on this route at the moment is the bracken.

The Coniston fells from the cairn on Brock Barrow. The views were superb today with a light breeze blowing on the top making it a classic English summer day.

We stayed here for a good while, having a lie in the grass and enjoying the sun giving Dougal plenty of recovery time.

I descended directly to the track running across the centre of this photo. The path was often lost in the head height bracken and old Dougally Doo required a bit of a carry here, after all some of you may remember what happened to Angus a couple of years ago when the bracken was a similar height - he disappeared!