But for most of us enough is as good as a feast; and Weatherlam deserves a day to itself, and respectful approach by Tilberthwaite Gill. This walk leads from the village past Far End up Yewdale, turning to left at the sign post, and up between Raven Crag, opposite, and Yewdale Crag. At the next sign post turn up the path to the left, passing Pennyrigg Quarries, and then keep the path down into the Gill. The bridges, put up by Mr. Marshall, and kept in repair by the Lake District Association, lead through the ravine to the force at its head. Thence Weatherlam can be ascended either by Steel Edge, the ridge to the left, or breasting the steep slope from the hollow of the cove.
From the top of the Old Man we have choice of many descents. By Levers Hause we can scramble down—it looks perilous but is easy to a wary walker,—to Leverswater; and thence by a stony road to the copper mines and civilization.
By Gaits Hause, a little to the west of the Old Man, we can reach Gaits Water, and so across Banniside Moor to the village: or we can take the grassy ridge and conquer Dow Crags with a cheap victory, which the ardent climber will scorn. He will attack the crags from below, finding his own way up the great screes that border the tarn, and attack the couloirs,—those great chasms that furrow the precipice. Only, he should not go alone. Here and there the chimney is barred by boulders wedged into its narrow gorge: which to surmount needs either a "leg up," or risky scrambling and some nasty jumps to evade them. These chimneys are described with due detail in the books on rock-climbing, but should not be rashly attempted by inexperienced tourists.
The simplest way down is along Little Arrow Edge. The route can be found, even if clouds blot out bearings and landmarks, thus. In the cairn on the top of the Old Man there is a kind of doorway. You leave that doorway square behind you, and walk as straight as you can forward into the fog—not rapidly enough to go over the edge by mistake, but confidently. Your natural instincts will make you trend a trifle to the left, which is right and proper. It you have a compass, steer south south-east. In five minutes by the watch you will be well on the grass-grown arête, thinly set with slate-slabs, but affording easy walking. Keep the grass on a slightly increasing downward slope; do not go down steep places either to right or to left, and in ten minutes more you will strike a ledge or shelf which runs all across the breast of the Old Man mountain, with a boggy stream running through it—not straight down the mountain, but across it. If you strike this shelf at its highest point, where there is no definite stream but only a narrow bit of bog from which the stream flows, you are right. If you find the stream flowing to your right hand, bear more to the left after crossing it. Five minutes more of jolting down over grass, among rough rocks which can easily be avoided, and you see Bursting Stone Quarry—into which there is no fear of falling if you keep your eyes open and note the time. By the watch you should be twenty minutes—a little more if you have hesitated or rested—from the top. Long before this the ordinary cloud-cap has been left aloft, and you see your way, even by moonlight, without the least difficulty towards the village; but though mist may settle down, from this quarry a distinct though disused road leads you safe home.
In ten minutes from the quarry the road brings you to Booth Tarn, through some extremely picturesque broken ground, from which under an ordinary sunset the views of the nearer hills are fine, with grand foreground. Booth Crag itself stands over the tarn, probably named from a little bield or shelter in ruins in a nook beneath it; and where the quarry road comes out upon Banniside Moss, the Coniston limestone appears, easily recognisable with its pitted and curved bands, contrasting with the bulkier volcanic breccia just above.
Beyond the tarn to the right are the volunteers' rifle-butts with their flagstaff. Take the path to the left, and in five minutes reach the gate of the intake, with lovely sunset and moonlight views of the Bell and the Scrow to the left, and Yewdale beyond; Red Screes and Ill Bell in the distance. Hence the road is plain, and twenty minutes more bring you past the Railway Station to Coniston village.
To give a good idea of the lie of the land there is nothing like a raised map. A careful and detailed coloured model of the neighbourhood (six inches to the mile, with the same vertical scale, so that the slopes and heights are not exaggerated, but true to nature) was made in 1882 under the direction of Professor Ruskin, who presented it to the Coniston Institute, where it has been placed in the Museum.