Great through walk in the Lakes
In April Clare and I made the best of the sun and headed out on a through walk in the Lakes. We left a car in Thirlmere and walked from my family home near Shap back to it over two days. Our route took us through Swindale, around Haweswater, down into Patterdale and camped in Grisedale. Day two we walked up one Helvellyn and down into Thirlmere.
The first day saw stunning weather as we set off and it held most of the day. We headed up over the Shap fells and into Swindale which is a quiet little valley and well off the normal tourist track. We love it and it has to be one of our favourite Lakeland valleys. from the valley floor we climbed up The Old Corpse Road onto the common overlooking Haweswater reservoir.
Once on the ridge line wen followed the tops of Seaside Pike and Branstree around to the path up Harterfell. From here on in the paths became more solid and planned and the route a lot less 'wild' but still enjoyable. The path from the carpark here is well made though and gets you easily over any steep ground letting you relax and enjoy the view. And what a view. If you get a clear day from the top here the sight of the Pennines in the distance overlooking the Eden Valley with Haweswater stretched out ahead of you is beautiful.
From Harter Fell our route will be very familiar to anyone who has been on a walk around Haweswater. The paths lead you around two pretty corries to the East containing small water and Blea water (if you find the right spot both are cracking wild camping spots). Coming onto the top of High Street you can see why it has been significant in the past. The relatively level top lends itself to being a route through the Lakes avoiding the ups and downs of the valleys and it has a 360' view of whats going on around. That's lucky because, except for a wall and a trig point, there really isn't that much of interest on the hill itself.
From the trig point we headed north along the wall toward Kirsty Pike and bumped into a cool guy with his dog who we stopped for a while chatting to (we may have taken the opportunity to give him a stroke...the dog that is!!). We went our separate ways as Clare and I headed off down the Patterdale path which is incidentally the coast to coast path that until this point we had avoided by taking the south side of Haweswater. This path can feel like a bit of a trudge towards the end of the day and it always feels like it is taking 5x longer than normal. It did however drop us into the village in Patterdale to refuel with an ice lolly and a much needed cold drink!
If you were doing just a one day through walk this would be a great place to leave a car (if only there was parking). There are also buses down Ulswater as there are to Shap that meet at Penrith. We opted to go on though and our route took us up into Grisedale where the quiet road quickly turns into a good path. The weather took a turn for the worse as we were looking for a camp spot as the temperature plummeted. We could see it snowing on the tops ahead of us and it looked like we had a cold night coming.
As ever the Lakes weather can be extremely changeable and it snowed over night to just above us on the fell side. This isn't unusual for April so we were happy to have had our winter kit with us. My Dad's TNF Tadpole is getting on for 15-20yr old now and has mostly been used by me for the last 5-10yr. It's a brilliant little thing and offers good warm protection in these early / late season conditions. It's a little small and I probably need to dab a bit of seam glue in a couple of places (the tent is old enough to have needed this when it was first brought by my father in the USA) but I love it and its kept me safe in some awful conditions. It's a cracking little tent and it's a shame the US brands are moving away from such designs that work well in our climate.
From our campsite by the last wall in the valley we headed up to Grisdale Tarn and then up onto Dollywagon Pike. This was mostly in the snow and was hard going with heavy packs as the fresh white stuff was rather slippy at this time of year in the warm sun. The summit ridge along to the top of Helvellyn was in full winter condition again and beautiful.
We were amazed to see just how many people were on the top this day, having naively thought that the snow would put off the fair wether walkers. But no! Many were up there dressed like it was the best day in August on a stroll around Hawkshead. On the plus side the views were brilliant again and it was great to have a completely different look to the Lakes with a layer of snow dusting the tops.
From the summit of Helvellyn it was a simple descent down the ridge to Lower Man (NW) and the path that lead to the valley bottom in Thirlmere. Our route needed a bit of alteration towards the end because of the ongoing works to repair the A591 after it was washed away but this was no real problem. Now the road is reopened there shouldn't be any bother anyhow. We had parked at Thirlspot near the Kings Head pub. There are also buses that come down Thirlmere and stop at the pub, but they link up far less well as you'll need to go via Keswick to return back towards Shap (via Penrith again)
A map of our route from plotaroute.com