Rather than our usual linear walk over a few days, I wanted to go back to the Lakes and redo some favourite walks. As it happened, accommodation was more difficult to find than expected, so we ended up in Keswick, which was too much of a drive for us to go back over routes such as Crinkle Crags.
Keswick was a great base to access an area of the lakes we’d not visited often, however, so we planned to walk the Coledale Horseshoe and go up Skiddaw, once we’d conquered Striding Edge. In the end, the weather had other plans for us, so we only completed the Striding Edge route, so that’s why this blog post is unusual in only featuring a single walk.
But what a walk it was! Possibly the best route I’ve done in the Lakes. I called it “The Heart of The Lakes”, as you can see the big peaks all around and most of the Lakes - Ullswater, Coniston, Windermere, etc.
Patterdale, Striding Edge, Helvellyn, Fairfield and St Sunday
- Distance: 12.4 miles
- Walking time: 8 hrs
- Difficulty: Extremely tough
I’d crossed Striding Edge once before, but it was misty (and windy!) so hadn’t really seen the views, nor felt especially exposed. This time, we couldn’t have had better weather. Under blue skies, we parked near the school in Patterdale and headed up the road.
As the road bent north to head to Ullswater, we turned left along a track and then right to cross Grizedale Beck. The trail started to head up the side of the valley, steadily gaining height, until we reached Hole-in-the-Wall, beyond which Striding Edge beckons.
Striding Edge is renowned as a relatively straightforward scramble but with breathtaking views and sides that fall away precipitously. I knew from the previous crossing that it’s not especially difficult, nor scary unless you really dislike heights. Unless it was wet or icy, I think you’d have to try hard to fall off it. But, that said, it’s not something you stroll across. The rocks are sharp and jagged and it was not the day to try out your barefoot hiking boots (as one of our party had decided to do).
We’d set off relatively early, around 9am, to miss the crowds so it wasn’t too busy. As with the previous time, I tried to stay on the top as much as possible and it was exhilarating. At the end of the ridge was the only part we found problematic - a seven metre drop known as “The Chimney”. Some of our party smoothly clambered down but one or two needed a bit of guidance, as it’s not particularly easy to see where to put your feet.
Once over the ridge, there’s a fairly stiff scramble up to the top of Helvellyn. Personally, I think this is the hairiest bit as it’s quite steep and you’re tired after the ridge.
From the top of Helvellyn, you can see all around - over to Scafell Pike and Great Gable, out to Morecambe Bay and east to the far North Pennines. We rested a while and had an early lunch.
The classic Striding Edge walk involves descending Helvellyn along Swirral Edge. I’d felt that this would have been too short for a full day’s walk, so had mapped a route back via Grisedale Tarn and Fairfield. As it happened, this was quite ambitious, hence me flagging this walk as “extremely tough”.
Turning south, we set off again. The route crosses the top of High Crag and we could look back at the expanse of the side of Striding Edge and feel proud of the morning’s achievement. After a couple of miles, and after rising gently over Dollywagon Pike (presumably named after a mining thing), the path descended steeply down steps to Grisedale Tarn. When looking at the maps, I’d underestimated how much height we lost here. At the bottom, two of our party looked up at Fairfield and decided to bypass it, via a path that climbed obliquely up the side of St Sunday. The rest of us walked around the tarn and turned onto the path up the mountain.
It was a stony path and very very steep. I huffed and puffed up it and was definitely trudging by the top. I’d visited Fairfield before, when walking the horseshoe and, having eventually caught my breath and my fellow walkers, it was nice to look down to Windermere and the path taken that earlier weekend.
Similarly to Helvellyn, the summit of Fairfield is a fairly flat rocky place. Unlike Helvellyn, it was deserted. We sat in the dry stone wall shelter and had some food, watched eagerly by the largest raven on the planet.
From the path up to Striding Edge, St Sunday looks pretty benign - just a ridge along the side of the valley. To reach it we had to first scramble over Cofa Pike. This was a little unexpected and my thigh muscles were pretty unhappy with the additional effort. Onto the path along St Sunday, I discovered that it is an “entertaining” string of false summits. Nothing particularly steep, but it eventually climbs back up to 840 metres. I was pleased to finally reach the top and Ullswater came back into view.
From there the trail rolls to the end of the ridge and then drops down fairly steeply into bracken and back to the valley floor. On the way, we caught up with our friends who had skipped Fairfield. We came off the path at the Patterdale Hotel, where we had a celebratory pint. Bizarrely, the publican refuses to serve shandy, as it “gets up his pipes”, so some of the group had to self-assemble.
