Low Fell and Felbarrow are the type of hills that could be easily overlooked if they weren’t Wainwrights, that most illustrious category of fell. Perched on the western fringes of the Lake District, these small summits offer a quiet and peaceful excursion with a breath taking view of Loweswater.
There are a few different ways to approach this pair of Wainwrights, but we opted for the easy five mile stroll on the WalkLakes website. This route starts from the tiny village of Thackthwaite, where there is very limited parking for two or three cars in a lay-by on the way out of the village, and climbs (mostly gently) to reach the summit of Low Fell, which overlooks the village.
The path is grassy and slippy underfoot when it’s been wet. While grassy tracks can be indistinct and hard to navigate, this route is generally pretty easy to follow: head uphill along field edges and stick to the broad grassy channel as it zig zags its way up the hill.
In next to no time we were at the summit of Low Fell enjoying the fantastic view down over Loweswater. From here, we retraced our steps for a short way, before turning left and leaving the broad (mostly dry) track. The path immediately becomes rougher and more difficult to see, but the summit of Felbarrow is easily gained by sticking to the fence line and heading up hill.
The trig is on the other side of the fence, so I hopped over the stile to quickly ‘officially’ bag the summit, and then we began our walk down, the view from Felbarrow not being quite as impressive as that from Low Fell. Like the ascent, the descent isn’t particularly steep and is fairly gentle on your knees. The gradual gradients are probably the reason I managed to get around a five mile walk in two hours!
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. You can expect to see livestock throughout this walk (we saw sheep and ‘evidence’ of cows), so dogs should be kept on leads or under close control. There is however only a short stretch of road walking along a very quiet lane, and the only stile can be by-passed if you don’t cross to get to the trig. There is a stream to cross on the way down Felbarrow, where our dogs had a drink and a splash about. Overall a great choice for a Sunday morning dog walk to blow away the cobwebs.
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