During the heatwave at the start of the week, looking ahead to the weekend promised ideal walking conditions: sunny spells, not too hot, and most importantly, dry. As the week went on the weather forecast got steadily worse, until it was forecast heavy rain from 11am. I was therefore a bit on the fence about where to go for a walk, but we decided to squeeze in a Wainwright: there are a fair few that are best tackled individually and therefore can be easily managed in a brief weather window.
We settled on Wansfell (or Baystones as it is also known) and followed a linear route of 4.7 miles from Walk Lakes. One of the smaller Wainwrights, it still offers a muscle pumping excursion up a fairly direct and steady incline. We started from Ambleside rather than Troutbeck, which meant that we also got to include the stunning cascade at Stock Ghyll – I wasn’t expecting to be blown away, but these falls really are impressive, and there are a few viewing areas where you can get the best views of the waterfall.
Once out of the woods, it’s a short way along a quiet lane before crossing a low stile to begin climbing in earnest. It’s actually not that long of an ascent, but it certainly felt like we’d been climbing all morning by the time we got to the summit ridge: crossing through the gate here take you to Wansfell Pike, lower than the high point of Baystones, but generally regarded as the main summit as the view is better – it’s mainly Wainwright baggers who continue on to bag the high point, marked by a small cairn.
I can’t comment much on the view, as while we got a glimpse of Windermere from Wansfell Pike, by the time we got to Baystones we were pretty much walking through a cloud. As a silver lining, the rain did largely hold off as we retraced our steps along the summit ridge, and although we found lots of fresh cow pats we didn’t come across any cows lurking in the mist. That’s actually two silver linings, so it wasn’t too bad at all!
The walk along the ridge is up and down and pathless in places, but there’s a wall running alongside the path which helps with navigation most of the time (although the OS maps app as always was helpful for double checking our position). As we crossed back through the gate by Wansfell Pike, we dropped out of the cloud and had a bit of weak sunshine which kept the drizzle at bay. By this point it was late morning and we no longer had the hillside to ourselves: there was a steady stream of people slogging their way up the hillside (perhaps busier because it was the first day of the summer holidays). Hearing a lad of about 12 telling his parents that ‘we are 100% not going all the way to the top’ did make me feel somewhat better about how sweaty I’d found the way up!
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. Aside from the section in the woods at Stock Ghyll, which is relatively short, leads need to be on for all of this walk. Ambleside itself is busy with cars, people and other dogs, and the fell side has sheep and possibly cows knocking around too. There are two stiles to cross each way, but both of these are low enough that our dogs managed to jump over them easily on their own. I think there are probably a few streams on the fell side normally, but after the recent spell of hot weather these seemed to have mostly dried up – there is a short riverside section just as you start climbing up the hill where ours stopped for a drink on the way back down.
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