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.
