Eagle eyed readers who’ve been following my blog for a few years might recognise the photo below from my blog 5 Undiscovered Lake District Walks. I’ve not actually recycled the photo: we visited the Lakes over the Easter bank holiday and took advantage of the glorious weather to re-visit one of our favourite Lake District walks, the High Stile Ridge. The photo below is quite possibly my favourite ever Lake District view – quite an accolade! The original plan had been to do a half day circular bagging Great Borne and Starling Dodd, but after summiting the second and being well stocked with food and water, we decided to make the most of the glorious hiking weather and continue along the ridge.
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The route we ultimately followed was the fabulous twelve and a half mile circular from our Cicerone guide, starting and finishing at the free car park at Bowness Knott by Ennerdale Water. This is a fairly large car park, but we still only just managed to nab one of the last spaces when we rolled up at half past nine on a sunny Saturday morning! Perhaps Ennerdale is less undiscovered than it was when I wrote my blog a few years ago.
Setting off from the car park, you briefly walk along the road before turning onto a footpath to begin your ascent of Great Borne. This was steeper than I remembered (or maybe I’m not as fit as I was five years ago), climbing fairly relentlessly for a good hour or so. There is a very brief scrambly section where you need to use your hands to haul yourself up, but this isn’t anything major and even I, with my rather well developed fear of heights, wasn’t bothered by this.
The trig point of Great Borne isn’t quite on the main path, so you’ll have to pick up a faint trail running off to the left if you want to bag the summit. There is a wind shelter here with far reaching views across to the coast – a great spot to stop for a snack or a hot drink. Starling Dodd was in our sights from the summit, so we didn’t hang around but instead set off with a spring in our step for Wainwright number two of the day.
In-between Great Borne and Starling Dodd we came across the only patch of bog we experienced – which of course I managed to walk straight into! Happily not much went over the top of my boot before I realised my mistake and threw myself into reverse. The ascent of Starling Dodd uses a grassy track, which feels like harder work than it probably actually is, but is over fairly quickly. There is a pile of stones marking the summit of the fell, and a fantastic view across to your next Wainwright: Red Pike.
Confusingly, there are actually two Wainwrights called Red Pike: Red Pike (Wasdale) and Red Pike (Buttermere). This is Red Pike (Buttermere). It can be approached from Buttermere itself, but this approach looked horribly scree-y and steep when we walked past it on our previous walk (albeit a fantastic, dramatic view), and it seems like a much nicer route to walk across from Starling Dodd. That’s not to say it’s not steep: as I neared the summit I could feel the blister forming on my left heel getting bigger with every laborious step I took.
It was on the summit of Red Pike that we really noticed that it was a lot busier than the last time we did this walk. Admittedly, it was Easter weekend and beautiful weather, but the last time we did this walk was also beautiful weather and during school summer holidays. Nevertheless, a few more people didn’t make the views any less impressive.
We stopped off for lunch in a quiet spot between Red Pike and Wainwright number four, High Stile. High Stile is the highest point of the day and has an incredible view back over the nose of Red Pike, and it’s well worth climbing up to the summit just to see this vista. From here, it’s not far to the summit of the fifth and final Wainwright of the day, High Crag: again with spectacular views, this time to the right across Ennerdale to Great Gable. You can see down the Ennerdale valley all the way to Ennerdale Water in the distance – try not to worry about the fact that your car is parked next to the lake, and you now need to walk all the way back.
It’s easy to forget at this point in the day, when all the Wainwrights have been bagged, that you still have to climb down the mountain. The descent from High Crag is fairly brutal at times, on steep, zig-zagging scree, swiftly followed by many steps. You might think, once the steps are behind you, that the worst is over. Don’t be fooled, as you still need to climb another small hill (Seat) in order to descend again before dropping gradually down the Scarth Gap Pass to reach the valley floor. The lovely view of Great Gable remains mostly visible to keep you going though.
For me, the return along the valley was actually the toughest part of the day, despite being relatively flat and on an excellent track. It’s just so long – six miles of relatively unchanging walking through the trees. I started out fairly upbeat but by the last mile I was just focussing on the patch of trail directly in front of me! If you can muster the energy to care by this point, there is a lovely view across Ennerdale Water just before you get back to the car park. No picture of this I’m afraid though as while I did have the energy to admire the view, I didn’t have the energy to get my camera out of my bag to take a photo.
Dog friendly rating: 2/5. This is a big day out and should only be undertaken if your dog has a good fitness level – they may also need to do some scrambling or be lifted, although on the plus side there are no stiles. Water is scarce on the tops, although there are a few streams to cross on the way up Great Borne, and we passed plenty of puddles and streams on the walk back down the valley. You will need to be aware of drops and edges: while you don’t have to walk particularly close to them, they are there, and you may come across sheep at any point during the walk. We did see quite a few dogs off lead, but ours stayed on leads for nearly all of the day. Even in the valley at the end of the day we came across a few sheep!
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