Tag: Wainwright

Loughrigg Fell Circular from Ambleside | Birkett LAN 2 | Graham’s Guides

This walk gives a lot of views for just 300m of ascent across a little over 6 miles.

Graham’s Walks📌
Distance6.3 miles/10.1km
Ascent1391ft/423m
DifficultyModerate
Map🗺️
GPX📁
Graham’s CafeParking is in Ambleside where there are several cafe options.
ClassificationBirketts LAN 2

The Area

Loughrigg Fell sits as a viewing platform at the junction of several valleys giving it views across much of the southern Lake District. On a good visibility day the walk starts with views of Windermere, Coniston, Coniston Old Man, and the Lancashire Fells to the south. As you ascend the vista opens out to the Langdales, Loughrigg Tarn and Elterwater. Nearer the top the panorama adds in Grasmere and the surrounding hills including Helm Crag and Fairfield. If you are really fortunate you can view some of the northern lakeland fells through Dunmail Raise with the Helvellyn massif standing alongside. The later stages of the walk add in Rydal and Nab Scar.

There are so many hills visible on this route that it can be difficult to distinguish all of them; an App I find particularly useful for this is PeakFinder which allows you to point at a panorama and see the hill names above each peak.

Loughrigg Fell has been heavily quarried over many years making it pitted and potholed especially at the top. This has removed any straightforward ridge to the top, near to the top the available paths can feel a bit like a maze, up and down. Bill Birkett notes: “A proliferation of paths makes route finding rather tricky along the top.”

This walk follows quite closely the route described in Bill Birkett’s Complete Lakeland Fells as LAN 2. Loughrigg Fell is also a Wainwright.

The Walk

This walk starts from the main carpark in Ambleside, the one on Rydal Road near to Bridge House. There’s a Public Toilet in the car park.

The route starts with a little bit of navigation. Head back to Rydal Road and head to the left out of Ambleside past the Fire Station. Just beyond the Fire Station head left down Storey Lane. At the end of the lane is a paved path that leads alongside Stock Ghyll as it flows towards its confluence with the Rothay. There’s a stone footbridge over the River Rothay onto Under Loughrigg road.

Turn right over the bridge and after a short while left onto a paved lane that heads up the hill. There’s currently a post at the end of the lane indicating it’s a public bridleway. The lane heads pretty much straight up until it turns to the left and then switches back to the right. At the right-hand switch there’s a footpath off the bridleway to the left. There’s a small wooden footbridge at this point. There’s also a gate before you get to the tarn.

Beyond this point the path winds its way up to Lily Tarn where it’s worth a bit of an explore. There are some glorious views from the various hillocks that surround it. Lily Tarn is apparently good for a swim, but quite shallow.

With the tarn on your left follow the path up the hill towards the sheepfold.

The path is well defined at this point and continues until it intersects the path from Skelwith Bridge. Continue uphill on the other side as the path fringes Loughrigg Fell to the top. The top is defined by a stone built trig-point.

There are several path away from the top, picking the right one can be a challenge. The one you want is directly opposite the one you walked in on. You should be able to see Grasmere, where you are heading, which will help you get your bearings.

The path down is well used and in the latter stages becomes stepped until it reaches Loughrigg Terrace above Grasmere. Turn right onto the path along the terrace with the mere on your left.

The walk here is the popular walk to Rydal Caves which you will reach by following the contour around. On most days you’ll be able to see the path without any problems as it will be dotted with people.

At Rydal Caves take the path down until it reaches the lane that leads down to Pelter Bridge past the small car park. Before the bridge take Under Loughrigg which is the road to the right. This road will take you alongside the River Rothay all the way back to the footbridge and the path alongside Stocks Ghyll, Rydal Road and into Ambleside.

Alternatives and Extensions

It’s difficult to know where to start on the alternative routes for this one, there are many. I’ll give a few.

On your way back from Grasmere you can choose to take the lakeside route back along Grasmere, via the river Rothay alongside Rydal. That’s straightforward enough.

From the top you can miss out Grasmere and head straight across the top to the caves. It’s probably quicker, but misses out several views.

There are a set of stepping stones part way along Under Loughrigh which, given the right conditions, would allow you to cross over to the A591 a little earlier. It’s fun, but not with the payback of walking down the busy A591. There are several places where you can cross to the A591 if the need arises.

You can take a swim in Grasmere or Rydal joining someone most days. There’s also the option of descending to Loughrigg Tarn before reascending to the summit. Loughrigg Tarn is one of the best swimming spots in the lakes, but it’s a lot of down and then back up. Probably better to plan that for another day.

Parking at the main carpark in Ambleside can get busy. There are various options in Ambleside itself probably the best alternative is Miller Bridge Car Park which is only just the other side of Rothay Park. Also, it’s not too much further to walk from Waterhead via the Rothay Bridge and onto Under Loughrigg from the other end. Another alternative is to use the Rydal car parks, but they are often busier than the ones in Ambleside.

Although it might look like it can be done, please don’t expect to be able to drive the length on Under Loughrigg it’s closed part way along.

The Bridge Across the Rothay
Under Loughrigg
The Footbridge on the way to Lily Tarn
There’s a gate on the way to Lily Tarn
This is Lily Tarn
The view across Windermere from near to Lily Tarn
Loughrigg Tarn and Elterwater beyond
The top is in sight
The view from the top toward Grasmere
On the way down to Loughrigg Terrace
Along Loughrigg Terrace
Looking back towards Rydal
The stepping stones

Wainwright’s 214 and the end of a Subplot

This story has two beginnings.

One beginning is no longer recoverable from my memory, lost in time and masked by other memories. This beginning is on a family holiday in my early childhood with parents of three children determined to enjoy the countryside.

The other beginning is in a small room with a group of young men talking about life. I am supposed to be the experienced one in the room, but the truth is that I’m learning just as much as they are. We are looking at a book with the title Storyline. The basic thought of this book is that many stories follow a pattern, and if you consider your life as a set of stories you can decide where in that pattern each of your stories are. What is more, you can choose the stories that you want to participate in and consciously write your own life stories.

One of the stories that I wanted to write was around my fitness and sustaining a lifestyle that would enable me to be healthy.  I don’t play a sport, and I’m not really a fan of the gym even though I attended one at the time. I’ve always enjoyed hiking making it the obvious choice for my fitness story, but what would the aim be? How would the story go?

Many great stories have a climactic event near the end where a target is met or a goal achieved. Sometimes it’s easier to build the story from that event backwards, which is what I did? I needed a hiking goal that would give me something to aim for over an extended period, which was also interesting enough for me to keep going.

Not far from where I live is the Lake District National Park and within its confines are a set of mountains, some that I have walked many times, others I would never choose to visit. The paths and peaks of this area where described in a set of guidebooks written by A. Wainwright known as Pictorial Guides of the Lakeland Fells. There are 214 hills described and climbing each of them has become a goal for many, and seemed like the obvious aspiration for me. Goal set.

There were a couple of options for the climactic event, I hadn’t climbed the highest of the 214, the highest in England, Scafell Pike. I wanted the big day to be a social occasion and leaving a big one to be that hill would exclude several people including family members. The alternative was obvious, a smaller hill in a prominent place which many could climb, even the smallest amongst us. The most northerly hill of the 214, Binsey, is number 191 in size and sits on its own. It’s not naturally part of another walk, you walk it on its own and I’d never walked it, so it seemed like the natural choice. Binsey would be the final walk with family and friends, a climactic event to look forward to, an occasion to celebrate.

(I kept Scafell Pike to for my penultimate walk. My penultimate hill was Great End which seemed fitting)

There was also the challenge of when this event would take place and several years back it seemed sensible that I should be able to do this walk by my fiftieth birthday. A goal with a date.

Working back through the other phases of the story was just as important though, and one of the phases in every good story is the time of struggle. There aren’t many great stories that where everything goes according to plan, struggle is normal, and the Storyline approach encourages you to recognize what those struggles might be and to prepare for them. The primary constraint was always going to be time, I have responsibilities and people that are important to me who are always going to be higher on the priority list. My preparation for this struggle was simple, I was going to hold the target of my fiftieth birthday lightly and keep a good record of my progress to stop myself becoming dispirited. As it happened my fiftieth birthday came and went without my climactic event, but I am proud of the priority choices that I made instead, important people and family situations that needed my time.

Intermittent goals were also important. It seems like a lifetime ago that I was stood part way around the Fairfield Horseshoe with two close friends taking selfies as we reached a third of the hills climbed (which is, of course, part way between 71 and 72). I reached the halfway mark on Great Mell Fell where my celebration was a picture on social media and great encouragement from family and friends:

Every story needs a beginning, a reason to start. Most of the time these beginnings occur when something happens unexpectedly and the only response is to start out on the journey. It doesn’t have to be an unexpected beginning though, there are parts of our lives were we get to write the story, we choose the beginning and the journey, we even design the ending.

Completing the Wainwrights has been a story that I wrote, I didn’t write every detail of it, that would have been dull, but I did create the plot and saw it come to fruition. The journey was an adventure and completing it with friends and family was one of those life occasions that will stay with me. An extra special treat was that I got spend it with my Grandson for whom it was his first Wainwright, hopefully the first of many.

The questions I’ve been asked more than any other is “what are you going to do next?” What’s the next climactic event? I haven’t decided yet. I love hiking and will continue to do that. There are many of the hills that I didn’t see the top of because of the weather, perhaps I’ll revisit those. There are other routes up many of the hills, perhaps that will be the goal. I counted all of the hills that I climbed in my childhood and prior to starting the story, perhaps I’ll revisit those. Some suggested swimming all of the lakes in the Lake District, but I’ve nearly done that already, for the permissible ones that is. No, I won’t be aiming to complete the Munros. All I can be sure of is that I will be writing a new plot. Thank you to everyone who has joined me on this one, whether it’s been in person or online.

Heading Image: This is Jimmy and Grandad who have accompanied me on many of my walks. When I started taking them with me I had no idea that I would become a Grandpa before I completed this subplot. The best stories all contain something unexpected.