England's highest mountain at 978m. If you are camping at the southern end of Windermere, here is what the day actually costs you.
The three routes
There are three sensible trailheads from a base near Newby Bridge, and the interesting thing is that the shortest walk has the longest drive, so they very nearly cancel out.
Wasdale Head. 5.2 miles round trip, 915m of ascent. Three to four hours round trip if you are fit, four to six at a steady family pace. Steep, direct and very rocky. Roughly an hour and a half to drive.
Seathwaite in Borrowdale. 9.3km, 1026m, via the Corridor Route. Four to five hours to the summit alone, so seven to nine round trip. More scenic. About an hour twenty to drive.
Langdale. The closest trailhead at around fifty minutes, but five to six hours up via Rossett Ghyll, Angle Tarn and Esk Hause. A full day on foot.
We went with Wasdale. Shortest time on the hill, and for a group with mixed fitness that matters more than scenery.
Where I got it wrong
My first version of this plan had Wasdale at ten to eleven hours door to door, and I nearly talked the group out of it.
Two mistakes. I had read "three to four hours" as the ascent when it is the round trip, which doubled the walk in my head. And I estimated the drive at nearly two hours when Google puts it at an hour and a half. Corrected, it is an eight hour day, not eleven.
Worth checking your own numbers before you rule something out.
The worked timetable
- 07:00 leave camp
- 08:35 arrive Wasdale
- 09:00 actually start walking
- 11:15 summit
- 13:45 back at the car
- 15:20 back at camp
That twenty-five minute gap between arriving and walking is the bit nobody plans for. Boots, toilets, faffing with bags, waiting for the last car. It is real and it happens every time.
Parking is the reason for the early start
Not the walk. The Lake Head car park at Wasdale is the largest in the valley, has a toilet block, and costs nine pounds for the day — free if you are a National Trust member. It fills on summer weekends.
If it is full you are driving back down the valley looking for space and losing an hour. Do not park on the verges around the village; the valley is small and it causes genuine problems for people who live there.
Which way to drive
Google offers a shorter inland route through the Duddon valley and a longer one on the A595 down the coast. The inland option is narrow and twisty. The difference is about six minutes.
If you are travelling in more than one car, take the A-road. Staying in convoy on single track lanes is more trouble than the six minutes is worth. Either way the last stretch from Gosforth in to Wasdale Head is a narrow lane along Wast Water with passing places, and it is one of the great views in England, so there is no reason to hurry it.
Things worth saying out loud
There is no phone signal on the mountain or at Wasdale Head. Agree a check-in time with whoever is staying behind, and agree what they should do if it passes, before anyone leaves camp.
A group moves at the pace of its slowest member and regroup stops compound. If fitness is genuinely mixed, budget eight and a half hours rather than seven.
The descent is where people struggle, not the climb. It is relentlessly rocky and hard on the knees. Poles help more than you would think.
Check the Mountain Weather Information Service forecast that morning rather than the night before. If the summit is in cloud the navigation off the top is genuinely difficult, and turning back is a perfectly good outcome.