A Leisurely Stroll, Not
It was our second full day of the holiday, having arrived on Sunday. I can’t remember what we did on Monday, but it probably involved shopping for food and mucking about in Ambleside. Back at the plot, the weather looked reasonable rather than great, so we decided to go for a walk in the afternoon. There was no real plan (and that cost us ultimately) but we picked a wander up onto Loughrigg, starting from central Ambleside.
The Lay of the Land
Loughrigg is a big lump of rockiness to the north and west of Ambleside. It’s not very high. It’s only 335m, and is the 211th highest of the 214 Wainwrights. However it’s quite prominent, so you have to climb all of it. And it’s spread over a big area.
It’s accessible over a footpath that leaves Rothay Park in the middle of Ambleside, and that’s the route we took. This takes you onto and extended “lobe” at the south-east corner. The main summit of the fell is a mile or so onwards and upwards from here.
Walking Up
It took us a while to get to the top. I was doing a few geocaches while we climbed, and the kids were enjoying the open space and the multiple “secret” nooks and crannies on the fell top. So we weren’t hurrying and we made plenty of rest-breaks for snacks ands drinks.
When we did reach the top, we were rewarded with some good views. The fell is high enough to get above the confusion of the valley floor, and you can see a much clearer view of the surrounding hils.
Down we go
Let’s go down the other side! And how bad can it possibly be? Words that should, by now, be universally answered with negative responses. But at this point we didn’t answer in this way.
So we descended the north side of Loughrigg and found ourselves on the flat path in between Grasmere and Rydal Water. So we were back down at a reasonable height, but what we’d forgoteen (or not realised) is that it’s a 3-4km walk around the roads to get back to central Ambleside from here. We were out of drinks and running out of energy.
I think there was an ice cream van in the car park at Rydal, which offered some respite, but it was quite a long walk round. the kids were about beaten, to be honest, and that made for slow and painful progress. Thankfully we made it without too many bad effects, and were able to recharge the batteries a bit once back into Ambleside, but we’d managed to turn a small hill into an epic walk.
Still, tick a Wainwright off the list. It’s a small and friendly one though, so I can envisage going there again.
