Walking in the Lakes District

The sun setting out the front of the house

I know I have only recently been to the Lakes District, but we had a long weekend in May (actually we had two), so I was back up there.  Dave hadn't visited yet, and I had loved my previous walk in the mountains. This time we decided to base ourselves in the one location, and we hired a house for the weekend in Keswick. That was definitely a good idea, it was nice to be able to come back, put the (fake) fire on and just chill out with some wine and beers after a hard slog in the mountains.

I have to say I think the walking is better in the UK (than Australia). That's a big call I know, and there is some great walking in Oz as well, the whole of Tasmania for a start, but the ease of getting to these walks, and the fact that you don't have to worry about snakes, or heat exhaustion, or sunburn, gives the UK some major pluses. That and the scenery is really spectacular, and can still be pretty tough in terms of distance and elevation gain. If you pick your walks right you can also avoid the hordes of people as well. There are a few "classic" routes that everyone wants to do (myself included), but once you get off those, or if you go a little out of season, you can have the place to yourself. Which is incredible given how small the UK is and how many people live on it.  It's a good feeling though, knowing that there is so much walking available, and so easily accessible.

The Valleys in the Lake District

We did a couple of the classics this weekend round, Helvellyn and Skiddaw, we tried for Scarfell Pike, but Dave was feeling really sick, and the driving wind and rain was getting him down, so we skipped that ascent.  Helvellyn is the third highest mountain in England (at a mighty 950m) and Skiddaw is the sixth highest (at a less significant 931m).

Helvellyn in the distance, still with snow on it

Looking back along striding edge

Helvellyn was our long day, it's a great walk along striding edge, but just incredibly popular. I guess that's the downside with having such great walks so close to London, there are going to be a lot of other people wanting to enjoy it as well. This was definitely the busiest I've ever seen walking routes. Perhaps it is best to stick to out of season in the Lakes, just because it's so popular. Though I'm not sure I would be so keen to do striding edge if it was covered in snow and ice. It really is an edge of rocks that you have to scramble over for maybe 800m. If you are nervous there is a path a little lower down which does avoid pretty much all the rock scrambling, but perhaps that isn't as fun.

There was actually a traffic jam coming off the edge of the rocks, as there was a bit of a chimney you had to scramble down. There were a surprising number of dogs with people as well, and it was too hard for the dogs to do. So that slowed things down as well, as people had to figure out how to get their dogs down the rocks as well. The view from the top was pretty nice though. And the rest of the walk along the ridgeline was also great. So definitely worth it, I wonder how busy it is in late October though.

Another view of striding edge

The walk up Skiddaw was the best of the weekend I think. We went up the route that not many people use, probably because the elevation gain at the start is brutal. You start from lower down as well, and there is definitely not much of a path. We came down the standard way, and that's almost like a road, it's incredibly broad, still very steep in parts. But the view from the top is definitely worth it, it's gotta be one of the best in this area. It looked like you could do another fine ridge walk to get to Skiddaw as well, and as a plus it looked a lot less busy than striding edge was. All in all a great weekend of walking. And as a bonus it was only 20 pounds to upgrade to first class on the way back, which meant endless sandwiches and drinks, oooh yeah!

I don't have any photos from Skiddaw disappointingly so, since I didn't take my big camera with me, just my compact. And I have a feeling that compact has reached the end of it's life in terms of taking good landscapes. I think a trip to the camera store is in order.

It was lambing season - so the cute was out in force