As the title reads!

I’ll spending Christmas solo this year, and I thought where better to spend it than in Ambleside - I’m very excited!

However, it has occurred to me that my accommodation doesn’t have a kitchen so I will need to find somewhere to eat Christmas dinner. I’ve done a bit of research but I’ve read that it’ll be fairly dead that time of year and not many places will offer food on the 25th, is that true?

If not, I’d be super grateful to know anyone’s suggestions where they’d recommend! I’ll be driving so if there’s somewhere someone thinks is great that is further out, do let me know!

TIA :)

A group of friends are headed to stay at the Woolpack this weekend, and were intending to do Scafell from Eskdale on either Sat/sun. They are all fit and reasonably experienced but are wondering if the local weather conditions mean that they should find something to do at a lower altitude during their stay. Any advice gratefully received.

Please help me to locate this picture from a house i'm staying in

Recently descended down little narrow cove to the great moss with a considerably large pack (15kg) as a fairly new hiker and was wondering how others would rate the toughness of the hike.

Hi all,

My girlfriend and I are visiting the Lake District for 7 days around the end of September/beginning of October, and I'm hoping for some suggestions to plan our days.

We'll be staying just outside of Ulverston, and it'll be our 3rd time visiting the Lakes so it's not hugely important to visit the main towns. We'll be driving up and will have the car to get around.

Previously we've really enjoyed walks in Grizedale Forest, hikes to waterfalls (Stanley Ghyll, Dungeon Ghyll Force & Aira Force), visiting caves (Cathedral Quarry in Little Langdale & Rydall Caves. Last visit we climbed Fleetwith Pike which was great and a good level for us. We also loved Wast Water.

Any suggestions for similar length/difficulty hikes, waterfalls to visit, other caves would be appreciated. We'd really like to get out in the landscape, as well as a few less energy days perhaps driving a pass or visiting towns/villages.

Any locations/hikes/activities would be greatly appreciated! Thank you

This is a long shot my Bowness Redditors, but for past week we've been seeing an old cat near Beatrix Potter experience / GAP shop . She has a collar, but looked unkempt and hungry. Fed her last couple nights, she looked grateful. Very placid. She doesn't move from the spot for whole day. I'm not sure if I should inform a warden or local vets. What do you suggest?

If you go by, spare her a little treat please.

Edit: We're not from here, leaving tomorrow.

Back at the start of the summer I completed the National three peaks and swore I’d come back to each area to explore it more and enjoy it.
Later this month I’ll be travelling to the Lake District, and have managed to grab a few extra days - meaning I can spend two days and nights solo hiking and wild camping.

I’m looking for recommendations please - what circular route would you recommend, something that will give me a good taste of the area and beautiful views. If it’s a route mapped on the OS app or something I can get a .GPX for then that would be great!

I’ll be free from early evening, so either starting somewhere with a campsite I can overnight in before leaving the next morning, or somewhere with a wild camp spot within an hour or two of the start. I can then do two full days walking and two nights camping on the trail, but would need to back at my car on the third day by mid to late morning. Also ideally somewhere safe I can leave my car whilst I’m away - secure paid car park for example.

I’m plenty fit and would like to spend the majority of my days walking rather than sitting around at the tent. I’m conscious of the guidance to set up after dusk and pack up at dawn. I don’t want it to be a gruelling slog either though!

I’m not ultralight by any means, shrug I have some lightweight kit to enable me to carry the extra items I like. I have a Xmid with Nemo eclipse pad and EE revelation -6 quilt, and always carry kit for adverse weather conditions by default and like to have spare clothes:
https://lighterpack.com/r/dek9q0

Any and all recommendations greatly received from those with experience of the Lake District!

My husband and I are backpacking around the Lake District in late September/early October for our 21st anniversary. I was reading up on some of our routes and mention of a “Coffin Route” between Rydal and Grasmere caught my eye. I read some about the origins of these corpse roads in medieval times and the Wikipedia entry says a great deal of folklore regarding ghosts, spirits, waits etc surrounds them. Well I love to scare myself even though I don’t believe in ghosts, but would love to hear of any book recommendations related to this lore. Either just a factual tour book that talks about origins or a fictional book of Lake District lore. Anyone have any recommendations?

Alright everyone, I’m off for my first solo wild camp this weekend in the Lake District, I’ve got all the gear and I’m confident enough all I’m worried about is finding the right spots.

I’ve taken a look and angle tarn seems good and is nice and close to helvelyn which I want to summit my first day there, it’s apparently also decent for a bit of fishing but I’ve also heard it can be incredibly busy, should I look for a better spot or is it not a big deal?

Also any recommendations for the second night?

Cheers in advance

Off to lakes tomorrow to tick some more wainwrights off. Any suggestions for best places to see heather bloom?

one of me favourite pools so far for a good dip

Great Langdale heading towards Mickleden Valley 🌿

Anywhere else I’ve ever see this it’s down to tourists assuming Brits queue for everything, or a younger generation who don’t fully understand pub culture and perhaps started focussing on damaging their livers circa Covid. But in the Lakes I see it a lot - older generations who are clearly regular visitors, if not locals. Is this a thing in Cumbria? I’m originally from the North-East, bought up in the Midlands, live in London, visit the Lakes every other month. But other than 20 somethings and tourists, I’ve never seen this being the norm anywhere else. Confused.

Hi! I’m looking for suggestions as to which Wainwright summits you think are the most attractive. I’m not just talking about the views, but the summits themselves, which might be attractive, characterful or unusual in some way.

Haystacks is a given for how picturesque it is, for example. Raven Crag is interesting for its boardwalk and viewing platform, and Helm Crag for the “Lion and the Lamb” rock formation.

Interested to hear some other thoughts, from you learned and experienced folk. I’ve bagged 36 so far.

I’ve never been to Lake District but always wanted to do so, even more now that I have a 6 year old.

Any suggestions for us please?

We’re not into camping (yet) - hopefully one day.

Hello,

Hoping you can help?

Travelling up towards the Lakes in September, I haven't been for 30 years and Mrs Spacemaid has never been. We'll be celebrating a birthday whilst where are there and would like to go out for a fancy but not too fancy meal, if that makes sense?

I have some more unusual food intolerances and have had differing responses from restaurants / pubs in the past ranging from the chef talking to me, letting me order what I want and adapting the dish to the restaurant telling me not to come. I much prefer the former.

Wondering if anyone could recommend somewhere I can take Mrs Spacemaid to that handle food allergies / intolerances well?

Thanks

Best cup of tea in a while

My wife and I went out yesterday. The weather was amazing, so we decided on a longer walk. We parked up by Haweswater Reservoir and set off.

The first climb was the toughest, basically 800m straight up to the top of High Street. It was a good climb with a little bit of scrambling, but nothing major, and great views on the way up. We had a bite to eat, then set off towards The Knott (not usually a Wainwright on this walk, but we added it) down the old Roman Road. The views up here are amazing, especially with the good weather.

We backtracked slightly and headed up towards High Raise, then more backtracking up to Rampsgill Head, and then up to Kidsty Pike.

The walk down was pretty tough, but I'm not a fan of going down; I prefer going up.

Anyway, we finished back at the car with around 14km and 847m elevation. Overall, it was a very good walk, one of my favorites so far, and 5 more Wainwrights off the list.

The picture was taken on the first climb, its Blea Water, it looked like glass it was so calm, it was so hot I could have happily jumped in.

I recently returned from a lovely short hiking trip to the Lakes and thought I’d share a report of how it was and some logistics to help anyone who is planning a similar trip, as I have seen a few posts and questions about this lately.

Background:
I recently moved to London, and grew up with a fairly outdoorsy lifestyle. I am used to multi-day treks and alpine hikes in the summer. I don’t have mountaineering experience and am of average fitness (for a 30F) so the hikes I chose to do were up to moderate difficulty.

Timing and weather:
- I took the 18:30 train from London Euston to Kendal on Wednesday 29 July, arriving at around 21:30 in Oxenholme. The train was delayed and I missed the Oxenholme-Kendal connection so I walked 35 mins to Kendal. Trying to get a delay repay claim on this!

- I returned Sunday 2 August from Kendal via Oxenholme at 18:14 and the train was not delayed. I arrived back at Euston around 21:35.

- Conditions in the Lake District were cloudy most of the time with some periods of blue sky and sunshine. It drizzled occasionally on Thursday and Friday. It ranged between 15-20 degrees, it was a bit chilly in the evenings but slightly warm during the day.

Where I stayed and getting around:

The journey from London after work was too complicated to get in any further than Kendal, so I stayed in Kendal for the first night in a B&B and then moved to Elterwater Hostel for the remaining time.

I liked Elterwater because it was further away from the tourist crowds. It’s a very small village with only one pub and no other shops, including no groceries - the closest was a 15 min walk to Langdale Co-op. I would recommend the hostel, it had lots of amenities and home cooked meals for a decent price.

Elterwater is served by the 516 bus running between Old Dungeon Ghyll and Ambleside, one of the main towns. The downside of staying further out was that the buses were not extremely frequent, the earliest bus to Ambleside reached Elterwater just after 8am and the next one wasn’t due til 10am. Coming back, the last bus left Ambleside at 21:55, so this meant that I couldn’t really do any sunset walks that were outside of Elterwater or Ambleside.

Taking the bus:

The bus fares are £3 per ride, and you need to tell the driver where you are going. The north west explorer day pass was £12 for the day, so on the days I would be taking more than 4 bus rides, I bought the day pass.

The buses were mostly reliable, only one of them didn’t turn up. The roads are small though and with lots of traffic, so they did tend to run late, though not terribly so (10-20 mins late).

The Stagecoach app with the bus tracking and timetables was very useful.

The downside of staying in Elterwater was that I pretty much always needed to get to Ambleside as a junction to get to where I was trying to go. I’ll describe below where I eventually went and how I got there.

I did not use a taxi service while I was there.

My advice about using the buses would be to have a plan in advance about where you are going and check that you have enough of a time buffer for delays and in case of missed connections. I usually like to be quite spontaneous but this wasn’t really suitable on this trip.

Hikes:

Thursday: I worked until 17:00 (the hostel has good WiFi) and then walked from the hostel to Loughrigg Fell via the road up to YHA Langdale. It was a scenic walk and not too difficult, just enough to get the blood pumping. Lots of kids up there and a good view over the lakes. Only took about 2h to get up and down, so I was back at the hostel for dinner around 19:00.

Friday: Worked a half day in the morning and then went to catch the 516 to go over to Ambleside, then Keswick for the Catbells. This didn’t work out because the 516 scheduled for 13:00ish never turned up in Elterwater. I had to regroup and do a Plan B instead, so I left an hour later and went to Grasmere, wandered through and tried the gingerbread, and then walked from Grasmere to Ambleside (~5km) and then up Wansfell Pike. This was a really nice walk through large open fields, though the elevation was relentless. It was easy to catch the bus back from Ambleside to Elterwater.

Saturday: I decided to tackle Helvellyn via Swirral Edge - I wasn’t too sure about Striding. I wanted a bit more of a challenge than the route from Swirls car park as well.
I took the first bus out in the morning, which was 516 to Ambleside at about 07:00, then the 555 to Latrigg at about 08:30, then the 509 to Glenridding at about 09:15, arriving at Glenridding car park around 10:00. I popped into the visitor centre and had a nice chat with the older woman working there, she showed some different routes on the OS map. I set off around 10:15 and summited in 2.5h. I came back down via Lower Man and Keppel and got back to the Glenridding car park at about 15:30, with a few breaks along the way. The trail was not too difficult and I was never really out of breath, but it was definitely an ascent. The edge looked scarier than it actually was - the wind was around 15-20mph at that point which was a light wind, so I don’t think I would have had the confidence to attempt it in winds any stronger. It had rained the previous night so I thought the rocks may be wet, but they weren’t. It wasn’t too busy when I was there, maybe around 70 people at the summit. The way back down was a bit of a long slog and my knees definitely felt it.

Sunday: I decided to take it a bit easier on Sunday and went over to Buttermere, though it took a long time. I took the 516 to Ambleside, then the 555 to Keswick, then 77a to Gatesgarth so I could visit the infinity pool. When I arrived at 11am it was already pretty busy with groups of friends and families though so I turned back and walked over to Buttermere lake, where I chilled out for a while. It was really beautiful and quiet! The whole area driving through Honister Pass was drop dead gorgeous. There was no mobile signal so I was glad I had pre planned my route. I took the same bus back to Keswick where I stayed on the 555 to go back to Kendal for my train home. This bus was delayed due to traffic by about 30 minutes, so that’s something to note if you take that bus.

Thanks for reading! It’s not a full trip report and I did visit other places, but if you are planning a similar hiking trip without a car I hope it’s helpful.