#moss force

[pauls70projects]

CYCLING CLIMB 37 Newlands from Derwent Bank 22/10/2025

Second accent of Newlands to complete the pair

Summary and full list of Borrowdale/Buttermere climbs

Moss Force from the top of the Pass

Route: Portinscale, Derwent Bank, NEWLANDS HAUSE, Buttermere, Honister, Portinscale

This Climb

OS Map Link:

This was my second ascent of Newlands, this time from the Derwent Water side completing the pair. (Previously from the Buttermere Side here) 

Imho the climb from the other side is a superior experience with its short but steady climb rather than the roller coaster up up down a bit of this side, although both the fenced and open roads do provide some pleasant vistas on the lower slopes and the mountainscape higher up with the impressive peak of Robinson to the left from which tumbles the equally impressive Moss Force (pic at top) of which Samual Coleridge wrote:

“It is so near a perpendicular that it would have appeared to fall--but it is indeed so fearfully savage, & black, & jagged, that it tears the flood to pieces--and one great black Outjutment divides the water, & overbrows & keeps uncovered a long slip of jagged black Rock beneath, which gives a marked character to the whole force. What a sight it is to look down on such a Cataract!--the wheels, that circumvolve in it--the leaping up & plunging forward of that infinity of Pearls & Glass Bulbs--the continual change of the Matter, the perpetual Sameness of the Form-it is an awful Image & Shadow of God & the World.”

Knott Rigg from Keskadale

Robinson

[pauls70projects]

CYCLING CLIMB 17: NEWLANDS via Mill Beck. 19/12/2024

Great climb up a classic route

Summary and full list of Borrowdale/Buttermere climbs

Not Carrock Fell, but look carefully for the very separate peaks of Knott Rigg on the right and the higher and more distant Sail on the left.

Route: Braithwaite, Whinlatter Pass, Lorton, Buttermere, Newlands Hause, Braithwaite.

Also includes Climb 16

Note: 16 and 17 were somehow not logged at the time, must have been impending Christmas, hence the late post on these. I had to renumber the others to stay in some sort of # vs date order.

This Climb

OS Map Link:

After enjoying an excellent pie at the Syke Farm Tea Rooms the climb began immediately, with a short sharp  shock to get onto the Newlands road proper.

Indeed the climb comprising little at less than 8% and occasionally exceeding 20% demanded TOUR mode (setting 2/4, ebike settings link) to be selected and left alone allowing a bit of a rest on the middle 2% section which opens up the vista of the full route with Knott Rigg and Sail dominating the skyline.

Sale Beck to the left slides down this tight V valley flanked by Whiteless Pike to the left, and High Snockrigg on the right which eventually gives way to the impressive peak of Robinson. 

The final steepest section again demands a low gear and hard work culminating in a couple of very brief 22% sections, and although the profile graph, with its limited sample rate, shows the first of these to be worse, my legs said the second, perched on a sharp bend, was indeed the more taxing. 

Points of Interest

Not a lot really, a sinister intrigue about Buttermere lake on the post for Climb 27 that may be of interest.

Moss Force is an impressive waterfall visible on the left just as the decent back towards Newlands valley starts.

Moss Force courtesy of Google.