The Lakeland Loop
This is the story of the cycling trip around England's Lake District which two friends and I did in 1995. It's a challenging route, but a rewarding one. If possible, try to avoid the optional excursion to hospital which we needed to make!
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Click on the cover illustration to order the guidebook we followed (pictured left). A re-packaged version of it is available from the Mountain Bike Routes UK Web site as well. |
If you do decide to do the trip, have a great time!
Alasdair Arthur
London
January 1996.
Contents
Day 1 - Bowness-on-Windermere to Patterdale
Day 2 - Patterdale to Bassenthwaite
Day 3 - Bassenthwaite to Buttermere
Day 4 - Buttermere to Boot and Whitehaven Hospital
Day 5 - Boot to the coast and back
Day 6 - Boot to Bowness-on-Windermere
Postscript
Day 1 - Bowness-on-Windermere to Patterdale
A gentle start - A long climb - A Roman road - Exhaustion - Salvation
Skip to day top, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
It was 10:30 on a September morning and This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I were unloading our bikes from the car on the shores of Windermere in England's Lake District. We were about to set off on a six-day journey which would take us in a 150-mile (240km) loop around one of the country's most spectacular and beautiful regions. Tony had added to our feeling of keen anticipation by calculating that the circuit involved around 25,000 vertical feet - 7600m.
We were setting out to follow "The Lakeland Loop" route guide. I'd bought the book several months earlier and had done the route many times already from the comfort of an armchair. This was my first attempt at the real thing.
We spent a while attaching various bits of equipment to the bikes, adjusting straps, stuffing last-minute items into our packs, and posing for the "before" photos. At last we were ready, and bid good-bye to Peter's girlfriend Claire who was taking the car on to Scotland, and who would be meeting us at the same spot in a week's time.
The early autumn weather was fine, and the ride up the hill away from the lake soon had us warmed up. Within a couple of miles we were off the tarmac and onto a pretty gravel lane heading north. A slightly incongruous stretch (through the edge of a housing estate and up an alleyway) took us past the railway line and the main road into Windermere, and on into the Lakeland countryside.
Ahead of us was Trout Beck, a stream running along the valley from which we would soon have to climb. The guidebook's warning that this would mean carrying the bikes up for 1,400ft (427m) was not far from our thoughts, but good views were promised from the top, and in any case, it would be a challenge.
A stretch of fast switchback path led us down to a campsite in the valley where we bought some food and filled our water bottles. This turned out to be a good move, since it was to be some time before we encountered civilisation again.
The climb couldn't be put off for any longer now, so we set off up the valley. On the way we passed a couple of walkers. We exchanged pleasantries, then bid them good-bye, naïvely imagining that riding is faster than walking. They passed us not long afterwards after one of us had fallen off for no particular reason, another had to stop to do up his shoes, and we'd all stopped to take photos. This was to become a common experience, culminating some days later in our being outdistanced by an elderly couple out for a gentle stroll. My excuse was a puncture, but they'd probably have beaten us anyway.
The slope soon steepened and it was time to transfer the packs from the bikes to our backs and to start pushing. Not long after that we transferred the bikes to our backs too. Progress became slow, and conversation tailed off. After a while we stopped and decided to have a break for lunch. The walkers passed us again.
Just after we set off again, Tony said for the first time "I think we've broken the back of it now!", to which Peter replied "Yes, I think I can see the top from here." Both of these remarks soon proved to be based entirely upon wishful thinking, but the phrases were thereafter adopted as the rallying cries of the trip. From that moment onwards, the merest brush against the very beginning of a climb would be enough to cause someone to emit one of these cries.
Eventually we got to the top. The book was right about the view. We had reached High Street, the remains of a Roman road which runs right across the top of the fell - the Lakeland term for hill or moorland. The lakes and the fells were laid out spectacularly before us, and we stopped to admire it all. There is no way to get up here except to walk or ride, and having made it under our own steam added to the pleasure of being there.
From the top of High Street it was a long downhill cruise along a grassy path, interrupted briefly by a climb over the shoulder of Loadpot Hill, then on down to The Cockpit, a junction of paths above Ullswater.
By now it was late afternoon, but the route looked straightforward from there; a nice long descent to Howtown, then along a track following the lake shore to Patterdale where we hoped to stay. I had visions of the lakeside track being a gentle meander along the shoreline, just right for rounding off a hard day's riding. This happy theory was soon dashed.
As it turned out, the track ran slightly inland from the shore, and went up and over every ridge along the way. It was also boulder-strewn, which often meant walking downhill as well as up. Pretty soon we were all exhausted. I could feel that I was dehydrated, and my water bottles had long since run dry. At the next stream I refilled the bottles, past caring whether the water was safe or not.
As sometimes happens, hope triumphed over map reading and I convinced myself that we were nearing Patterdale. We stopped for another break, and Tony studied the map. And studied it. After staring disconsolately at the road on the far side of the lake, his face told the story; we were only a third of the way along. If we'd had tents we'd probably have stopped there and then, but with no camping gear we had no choice but to keep going.
The next hour or so was just a long slog. We all plodded along, lost in our own thoughts, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Even when short sections were ridable, it became almost too much effort to get onto the bike. As we neared Birk Fell (a name which was to spring to mind later in the trip) another problem started to creep up on us - it was getting dark.
Eventually we began to near the end of the lake, and the track started to become passable again. I caught up with Tony who was lying sprawled on a log waiting for Peter and me. I nearly missed him in the gloom. By the time Peter joined us the light had gone. I was the only one with lights, so we rode the last section three-abreast, sharing the single beam between us.
The lights of the little settlement of Patterdale were as welcome as any we'd ever seen. Just ahead was something even better - a pub! I am not a religious person, but I almost said a prayer as Peter staggered in to see if they had any rooms. The relief was tremendous when he emerged with thumbs up. Entering an English country pub is always a happy experience, but this bordered on a kind of exhausted ecstasy. Not only were there comfortable rooms, but good hearty food and a sympathetic barman too.
We had just enough energy to have baths, get changed and limp down to the bar. As we cradled our pints and waited for our food we all agreed that it had been the most tiring day we'd ever spent. We have often skied together, and enjoyed many black runs, off-piste routes and even Canadian heli-skiing, but none of it compared with the day we'd just had.
Day 2 - Patterdale to Bassenthwaite
Around Ullswater - The Old Coach Road - The back of Skiddaw
Skip to day top, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6
After the exertions of the day before we felt surprisingly good the next morning. A hot bath and a night's sleep had done wonders. The pub served us a good English breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausages and plenty of hot coffee. Refuelled, and with bikes loaded and water bottles full, we set off towards Dockray.
We were on the opposite shore now from the previous night's path. This side had a road, and in a few minutes we'd covered most of the distance that had taken us hours the night before.
We stopped briefly to admire the waterfall at Aira Force, then turned our backs on Ullswater and started the climb up through Dockray and on towards the Old Coach Road across Threlkeld Common.
The climb was a slow but steady one, and it didn't seem long until we reached the forest at the edge of the common. Peter and I had ridden the Old Coach Road in the other direction the previous year as part of the Sustrans coast-to-coast route, and I was looking forward to doing it again. It's a gravel road which winds across the bleak but beautiful landscape and which ends with a high-speed descent past Threlkeld Knotts into the valley on the far side. The common is a wide and open expanse, and the road meanders across it, hugging the land's undulations.
As we passed the outcrops of Threlkeld Knotts the road began to drop, and we let the speed build up. Gravel began to fly from beneath our tyres as we swept down the hill, the bikes skittering as we hit the ruts and the stones. The weight of the packs changed our balance, and there were a few tense moments, but we all reached the bottom intact. I had felt my brakes start to fade on the way down, so I checked the rims. They were too hot to touch.
We relaxed with the short stretch along the valley to the village of Threlkeld where we stopped for lunch.
From there it was back into the fells. A steep road climb took us up and away from the village, past the Blencathra Centre, and onwards up the valley towards Skiddaw in the distance. The road turned to gravel again, but the surface was fine and we made good progress.
We were soon at Skiddaw Youth Hostel, a bleak grey building which must surely be one of the loneliest in England. It was the early afternoon, so the only sign of life was a few sheep grazing on the grass outside. We stopped for a while to admire the surroundings, then free-wheeled away down the track towards the River Caldew. A short climb, and we were at the top of the winding road leading past the Whitewater Dash waterfall. That gave us our second fast gravel descent of the day, and once again we all made it unscathed, but with hearts beating faster and brakes cooked again.
We had emerged into gentle rural country at the top of Bassenthwaite Lake. Even from this relatively low vantage point the views were lovely, and we paused again to admire the scene.
A couple of miles later we were in the village of Bassenthwaite which offered us all we could ask for - a friendly B&B and a pub with Jennings beer and good food.
The day had been a good one; enough climbs to offer a challenge, some exciting downhills, and of course more of the lakeland countryside itself. We'd completely recovered from our exhaustion of the previous night; so much so that after we'd settled in at the B&B we all decided that it would make a nice change to go for a bike ride. We pedalled down to the lake and sat on the shore as the afternoon faded into evening.
Day 3 - Bassenthwaite to Buttermere
Wythop Woods - Keswick - Cat Bells - Honister Pass
Skip to day top, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6
The day dawned fine again. We were getting worried. The weather wasn't meant to be like this in autumnal England, but we weren't going to argue too much.
The morning was a gentle cruise along small lanes, gaining height most of the way until we reached the edge of Wythop Woods which cling to the slopes above the western side of Bassenthwaite Lake. A mile of downhill woodland tracks had us back to lake level.
Tony's bike needed some attention, so he headed off to Keswick Mountain Bikes while Peter and I enjoyed another woodland climb then a fast road descent, overtaking a string of little old cars containing people of a similar description.
We took the road into Keswick and met up with Tony whose bike was now restored. I fell into temptation and bought some new elastomers for my Rock Shox to soften the upcoming off-road sections. Even though it was a busy Saturday morning and we'd turned up unannounced, nothing was too much trouble for the staff at the shop, and they had the elastomers changed in no time. If you're in the area the place is worth a visit, though you may have to search for it a bit since it's tucked away on a little industrial estate on the western edge of the town.
From Keswick we rode south, heading up onto the hillside above Derwent Water to follow Allerdale Ramble past the intriguingly-named Cat Bells. It was here that we entered into our doomed attempt to outdistance two elderly ramblers who we passed at the start of the track. They caught us when we stopped for a break and paused for a chat. When we set off again we overtook them and looked set for victory as the road came into view, but a heavy bump onto a rock and a hiss of air from my rear tyre spelt disaster for our chances, and they cruised past with a wave for a last-minute win.
With a new tube installed we left Derwent Water behind us and rode up the pretty valley of Borrowdale. Ahead lay the day's big challenge, and one which is well-known to British cyclists - the Honister Pass. We paused at the bottom to gather our thoughts and our breath, then set off up the climb. The map shows first a single chevron then a double one to indicate increasing steepness, and it rapidly became a bottom gear, walking pace climb. I was determined to make it all the way up on the bike, and was soon concentrating on getting the pedals round "just one more time". Peter decided to walk the steepest bits, and Tony had an unplanned stop in order to lessen his load when his stomach decided to reject the toasted cheese and fizzy drink lunch which he'd inflicted on it not long before.
It was a long slog, but at least it gave plenty of time to admire the surroundings. I must admit that I spent a good deal of it staring at the road about six feet in front of the bike, but in the end I reached the top of the pass with a thumping heart and with a sense of achievement too.
The others soon joined me, and we sat for some time at the summit admiring the views. We felt we should get our money's worth after that climb, and we weren't disappointed.
The descent was something to savour. I was hoping to break the 50mph (80kph) barrier of the way down, but the steepest parts of the road were too twisty for that, and one or two cars got in the way at vital moments. That was probably a good thing, because a knobbly-tyred mountain bike, its balance upset by a pack on the rear carrier, is not the most stable machine at high speed on a narrow twisty road. A close encounter with a roadside stone wall helped persuade me to slow down, but it was still an exciting rush down to Buttermere.
We'd booked ahead for that night since there's not a lot of accommodation around Buttermere, so we headed straight to the Dalegarth B&B. It turned out to have a lovely situation overlooking the lake, with paths leading down through the woods to the shore. There was a drying room there too, which meant a chance to do some laundry.
That evening we walked along the pretty lakeside path to Buttermere itself for our dinner.
Day 4 - Buttermere to Boot and Whitehaven Hospital
Pushing over the passes - Scarth Gap, Black Sail, Burnmoor Tarn - Peter bites the boulder - Whitehaven Hospital
Skip to day top, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6
We awoke to another fine day and another fine breakfast to get us started. Despite the exercise we were getting, it was definitely not a slimmer's holiday.
Across the lake we could see the path which we were to take, snaking up the fellside to Scarth Gap Pass. Our guidebook suggested taking a longer route over Whiteoak Moss, but Peter and I had done that the previous year, and remembered it as untracked marshland. We were getting better at reading between the author's lines now, and phrases such as "vague single-track" and "swing right, crossing reed marsh" confirmed our view that we'd like to try the alternative route instead.
Most of the path was too steep and rocky for us to ride, but we were getting fitter now and pushing and carrying the bikes didn't seem as bad as it had on the first day. We were again passed by a walker, but at least this one was obviously young and fit.
From the top of the pass the track led steeply downhill across a boulder-strewn grassy hillside. It was tricky riding and hard on the braking fingers as we picked our way slowly down. I found a rock with my front wheel which stopped the bike dead in its tracks and pitched me straight over the bars in a graceful acrobatic curve to land upside down on the next boulder. Luckily my pack took the full impact of landing. My years of falling over on skis were proving useful training for this terrain.
At the bottom we joined the road as it emerged from Ennerdale Forest. The road only lasted a couple of hundred yards until we reached the second isolated youth hostel of the trip, Black Sail Hut. In front of us loomed Black Sail Pass, famous amongst walkers and increasingly so amongst mountain bikers too. The book described it as the "second official carry" of the trip, so we knew we'd have the bikes on our backs again before long.
Halfway up the pass the path grew steeper as it climbed an outcrop of rocks. A lone cyclist in front of us, who was using panniers rather than a pack, was having to make two trips up the outcrop, one carrying the bike, then another with the panniers. We did it in one go, but climbing rocks with a bike on one shoulder while you hold on to the rocks with the other hand was an interesting experience.
With that behind us we reached the summit, and looked back across the valley we'd just traversed. This was the most remote spot I'd ever been to in the Lake District and it lived up to the expectations I'd had for it. All around us the peaks stretched out into the distance. Below us on one side nestled the trees of Ennerdale Forest and on the other the stream of Mosedale Beck running along the floor of the valley. There were no roads or towns in sight, and it felt a million miles from the London office where I'd been a few days earlier.
We were heading for Wasdale, but first we had to negotiate the "technical walk" section down over loose boulders and scree before the path became rideable again. When it did, we found ourselves at the start of a wonderful long downhill single-track path which took us all the way to Wasdale Head. After the long haul up to the pass, it was a descent to make the most of.
Another snakebite puncture had me sidelined for a while, so Tony was well settled in at the pub by the time Peter and I joined him for lunch.
There was now just one more pass to do for the day, and this one was almost all rideable. We climbed away from Wasdale heading south. We missed the fork in the track as we approached Burnmoor Tarn, but noticed in time to get back on course. The Tarn itself had its own bleak and isolated beauty. We rode slowly along the shoreline, knowing that we had not far left to go that day.
The descent towards Boot was another great ride. The track was narrow and rocky, but still rideable with care and concentration. Having front suspension was a big help for Tony and me, but Peter was following along on his rigid bike too. After a couple of miles the little village of Boot appeared before us. We paused where the track emerged onto an open area of grass just above the village. Peter soon joined us, and mentioned how much easier the rough terrain was now that he'd got the idea of hanging his weight back behind the saddle for the steeper sections.
We set off for the final 50 yards to the road, only to hear a thump moments later as Peter lost his balance over a track-side ridge, and fell face-first onto the last boulder on the path. As he sat up it was obvious he was hurt, as the blood was already flowing from the gash above his lip. Tony was the first on the scene, thrusting a tiny pill under Peter's tongue to help ward off shock. He said it was a homoeopathic remedy - Peter and I christened it "eye of newt". I got out my more conventional first aid kit, and we used up most of the antiseptic wipes. Since then I've equipped the kit with a couple of sanitary pads which would have been just the thing for the occasion.
When Peter felt OK we made our way down to the village. We had to ask directions to the Woolpack Inn where we'd booked a room, and people looked concerned at the state of Peter's face. Having had a lifetime to get used to the look of his face, Peter was accustomed to this reaction.
When we got to the Inn the landlady was very helpful, producing antiseptics and getting on the phone to sort out a local doctor and a taxi to get us there. The local doctor decided the cut needed hospital attention, so it was on to the hospital at Whitehaven.
Callously abandoning Peter in the casualty department queue, Tony and I returned to the Woolpack just in time to get some food.
The meals were tremendous, and even the day's three passes hadn't given me a big enough appetite to defeat the huge mixed grill they served. They made us a couple of sandwiches to leave out for Peter, who finally returned hours later, sporting a large bandage plastered over his upper lip and carrying a card from the hospital to be given to us. It informed us that he'd suffered a blow to the head, and advised what to do in the event of his starting to exhibit signs of odd behaviour. Pondering upon the knotty problem of how we were meant to tell the difference between Peter's everyday peculiarities and ones induced by incipient brain damage, we retired to bed.
Day 5 - Boot to the coast and back
Towards the coast - Waberthwaite Fell - Dunnerdale
Skip to day top, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
The next day Peter sensibly decided that he'd retire from the remainder of the loop. After studying the maps Tony and I saw that we could do most of that day's intended trip anyway, since the route went out to the coast, then back inland using the next valley south from us. We could follow all but the last section and still return to Boot that night.
We left Peter to recuperate and set off down the valley following first the road, then a bridleway past farmland and over a golf course. We were leaving the hills behind us and could see the sea ahead now. The countryside was gentler and more open as we turned south onto the Cumbria Cycle Way, otherwise known as the A595, the area's major road! We weren't on that for long before we turned off to head up Fell Lane. Waberthwaite Fell rose before us, it's slopes covered in tussock grass. As the book had warned us, the path soon petered out, and we were navigating by sight and compass.
Without the track (marked on the map, but not apparent on the ground) the going was difficult through the long grass, and we did more pushing on the way up the hill.
When we reached the saddle at the top we stopped to admire the view. Behind us lay the sea, and before us the peaks of the Lakeland fells rose once again. We should have spent more time staring at our compass as it turned out, since we set off at from the top in the wrong direction. Things didn't look quite right when we got to the valley. We were in the middle of a bog that shouldn't have been there!
It was Tony who finally saw where we were, and after lifting the bikes over a stream and a fence, and struggling through more moorland grass, we got back onto the track. A fast downhill run brought us to Bigert Mire farm, then we were back onto the tarmac for an exhilarating rush down the steep hill into Millbrow.
We were now in Dunnerdale, a valley that neither of us had been to before. Its landscape seemed different to the surrounding areas, with the spectacular rock formations thrusting out of the hillsides on the road towards Seathwaite.
Just up the valley from the village was the point where we would have turned east to climb the Walna Scar Road to Coniston. Instead we carried on for another couple of miles before leaving the road and heading into the Dunnerdale Forest to climb Harter Fell. A track took us up the first part of the hill, and then we were onto smooth forestry roads.
By the time the road turned back to single-track we were near the top of the saddle. The trees in the area had been felled, so the landscape was bare, but we could see right down into the valley, with Boot nestling at our feet. We were nearly finished for the day, but we made the best of the run down the challenging track to the valley floor. I took a photo of Tony concentrating hard as he picked his way down through the rocks covering the path, tongue clenched firmly between his teeth.
The track joined the road at the bottom of Hardknott Pass. We would be riding up it the next day, and didn't fail to spot the signs warning motorists about the gradient. This afternoon though we were heading the other way, with a gentle coast back down the valley to find the Woolpack Inn bathed in afternoon sunshine, and Peter with his feet up reading the paper.
Day 6 - Boot to Bowness-on-Windermere
Hardknott Pass - Wrynose Pass - Little Langdale - Windermere - Finish
Skip to day top, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Our last day was clear and fine again, which could well be some sort of record for a British cycling holiday.
Peter was going to wait at the Woolpack to be picked up by Claire. Tony and I would take the road route to Windermere and meet them there later on. Between us and our goal lay two more passes which are notorious amongst British cyclists; Hardknott and Wrynose. They both feature some of the country's sharpest gradients, and are both narrow and twisty.
Having conquered Honister, I set off determined that I was going to make it over both these passes too without pushing the bike. We'd been able to leave our packs with Peter to await the car, so were travelling light. Even so, it was a long, slow slog up Hardknott, the pedals straining at the chain in bottom gear.
Tony's saddle was set so high, (his own special "monkey-on-a-stick" look which may yet become a new MTB fashion) and the hill was so steep, that his centre of gravity moved behind the rear axle and he couldn't keep the front wheel on the ground. Even when he got off to push he was still going as fast as I was.
The top gradually crept into view, and as it did so the gradient became less fierce. My legs and lungs were grateful for the relief. The road steepened again before the summit, but by then the goal was in sight and with a final heave I'd made it. Below us lay the River Duddon, flanked by the remains of another Roman road as it flowed down the valley from our next challenge, Wrynose Pass.
We flew down the far side of Hardknott, getting the most out of the effort we'd put into gaining the height. The bends in the road had us braking hard, and the rims were hot again by the time we reached the gate at Cockley Beck.
In a couple of miles we hit the pass, and the road started to rise again. Back to bottom gear, and into the now-familiar rhythm of slow but steady pedalling. On our way up passing motorists shouted encouragement, and when we finally reached the top we earned a round of applause from the people gathered at the summit.
We'd conquered the final big challenge of our trip, and it was time to relax and head back to our starting point of almost a week before. We rode through the lovely valley of Little Langdale and on towards Ambleside. We avoided the main road for as long as possible by going through Skelwith Fold, and soon arrived at what by now seemed like the major town of Ambleside.
Now we were back on the main A591 road. We followed it along the eastern shore of Windermere, passing the town itself and carrying on to Bowness-in-Windermere where the trip had begun. As always in England, it didn't take long to find a pub where we could settle down with a pint to wait for Peter and Claire to join us.
We had finished our Lakeland Loop.
Postscript
With the unfortunate exception of Peter's accident it was a great trip, and one which I'd recommend to anybody who wants to get out into some of England's more remote areas.
The route we took is a challenging one; very much so in some parts. We are all occasional weekend recreational riders, not racers or people who train every day, but we made it. There are several passes where we were pushing and/or carrying the bikes, which moved Peter to complain that some of the days made it seem more of a walking than a cycling holiday. I didn't mind that so much, since the struggle to get up the passes added to my sense of achievement when I got to the top, and made me feel that I'd earned the fun of the descent.
We all found the first day exhausting. We hadn't realised how long it was going to take us and should have started earlier. Even so, we really needed to be fitter before tackling it all in one go. We felt that for recreational riders it would be better to start with the much easier Day 2. That would give two days to build fitness on the road before tackling the Black Sail Pass, and would allow you to do the original Day 1 last. We'd also skip the track from The Cockpit to Patterdale and take the easy way out by riding to Pooley Bridge at the opposite end of Ullswater.
We used the trip as a chance to raise a bit of sponsorship, and ended up collecting over 400 pounds for The British Heart Foundation.
All-in-all though I'm glad we did it. It was is wonderful way to see a beautiful part of the country, and I certainly wouldn't rule out doing it again some day.
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Last updated 28 August 2000.