24/12/06 A temperature inversion, looking ENE to High Raise from Dove Crag. The air was so warm on the mountain tops, trapping the freezing air in the valleys. An indescribably beautiful day. Call it a Christmas pesent a day early.
04/11/06 High Raise Bronze Age cairn, looking SE. Harter Fell in the background. What a peaceful place, as I always find it. So different from Helvellyn across the valley.
04/11/06 High Raise Bronze Age cairn, looking south on a windy day. High Street lies behind, and the R*man road skirts the summit of High Raise a few yards to the west. Lonely, and lovely.
25-02-06 High Raise from Helvellyn, looking E. High Raise is part of the long R*man road of High Street. High street summit is the high point to the right of High Raise.
It’s a gratuitous photo, but what the Hell. What a day it was. Red Tarn is the inky pool on the lower left, with the arete of Striding Edge on the right. On the day I witnessed a near-death, as a walker slid down the icy slopes towards Thirlmere. The snow was iron-hard. Thankfully he got away with his life. Always take an ice-axe and crampons on the fells when snow is about – they were essential on this day, especially on the edges. The mountains can be unforgiving.
“A Bronze Age round cairn; a flat-topped oval mound of stones up to 0.8 high with maximum dimensions of 9m by 8m. There is a modern walkers’ cairn on the northern edge of the cairn.” ADH.
Just a few yards to the east of the route of the High Street R*man road, this cairn on the summit of High Raise is rarely visited. To the ENE the grassy ridge descends to the Bronze Age cairn on Low Raise.
The High Raise cairn is set on a rocky outcrop on a grassy ridge, the outcrops providing the building materials. On the E side a shelter has been constructed by wind-beaten travellers on the fells.
I’ve been here many times, and it always feels a special place of tranquility, even in times of storm, of which there are many.
