Nether Wasdale

There’s almost nothing better than striding along a ridge in blazing sunshine with the Lake District stretching out as far as the eye can see in all directions. Given the typically inclement weather in the Lakes, there are only a handful of days which fall into this ‘perfect fell walking weather’ category, with the majority of the rest falling somewhere on the scale between ‘nice enough’ and ‘truly awful’. We had a trip to the Lakes last winter where the whole long weekend fell into the ‘truly awful’ category, with gale force winds, low cloud and torrential rain non-stop for the whole four days we were there. Safe to say that we didn’t manage to bag many Wainwrights (a measly two over 4 days), but it did give us a rare opportunity to explore some lower level walks.

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Trying to bag all of the Wainwrights in a given time period, even one as long as four years, has meant that we’ve ended up mostly by-passing the easier walks in the Lakes. Therefore it was actually a bit of a treat that the weather gave us an excuse to do a relatively flat walk!

Despite generally being flatter and easier than your average fell walk, there are some outstandingly beautiful low level walks in the Lakes. With the rain hammering on the windows of our holiday cottage and the wind quite literally howling down the chimney, we decided that plan A, to bag Green Crag, probably wasn’t a go-er, and to pick an alternative walk where navigation in low cloud would be less of an issue.

Referring to our handy Pocket Mountains guide, we settled on a very easy four kilometre route from the hamlet of Nether Wasdale (slightly longer route on AllTrails). We parked in one of the road side parking spaces close to the cattle grid on the road alongside Wastwater (extremely limited and best to avoid in summer, or arrive very early). From here, we set off down a quiet enclosed lane, before crossing through a few large fields to Woodhow Farm.

The first half of the walk was a little soggy and uninspiring given the heavy cloud, however, even in the rain the second half of the walk was beautiful. The route takes you through Low Wood on the shores of Wastwater, with a dramatic view of the Wastwater Screes. Then, you walk around a corner to suddenly be presented with that view, the classic panorama of the Wasdale fells rising majestically out of the lake, which is so iconic that it was chosen by the Lake District National Park to be their logo (admittedly we could only see the bottom quarter of the fells in question, but it was still a great view).

Mostly navigation on the walk was pretty straight forward, especially on the enclosed lanes where you’re following a surfaced track. We did come across a field of cows early on in the walk but they were more interested in hunkering down to stay warm than they were interested in us!

Despite the weather the views on this walk were lovely: autumn was in full swing and the trees put on a cracking display which brought some much needed colour to a very grey day. I was also feeling very happy that we weren’t up on the tops where the weather would certainly have been a hundred times worse. All in all this is a fab little walk which should be manageable for anyone looking to do a walk in the Lake District.

Dog friendly rating – 3.5/5. While we always keep our dogs on their leads in fields and around farms, the section in Low Wood gave us the opportunity to let them have a run, and for water loving dogs there are plenty of opportunities to have a paddle in Wastwater. There were a few stiles, but when we did this walk they could all be avoided using a gate nearby.

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