Helvellyn has been voted ‘Britain’s favourite walk’ by multiple different forums and is a popular target for many people visiting the Lake District: whether it’s their first visit or their fiftieth. England’s third highest summit, the view from the trig is (on a clear day) panoramic. Being ones to generally avoid crowds, Helvellyn has never really been a mountain we’ve prioritised, instead preferring quieter destinations like the High Stile Ridge or Dodd. However, a Wainwright it is and the Wainwrights we are bagging, and therefore to Helvellyn we had to (eventually) go.
You may or may not have gathered from reading various posts on this blog that I am not a fan of exposed ridges or edges. Simply looking at photos of Striding Edge and Swirral Edge makes me feel a bit wobbly and spaced out, so approaching via either of these scrambles was definitely out. Even without the dogs there is no way you could drag me up there! Instead, we opted for a less scary route from the Thirlmere side of the fell, following a 9.7 mile circular route from the OS maps app which would also bag two additional Wainwrights, Dollywaggon Pike and Nethermost Pike.
You can park at either Swirls or Wythburn car parks to set out directly on the route. We chose to park at Wythburn (pay and display, £8 for up to 9 hours, cash only), leaving a nice flat end to the route rather than finishing up with the knee crunching descent along Helvellyn Gill. Setting out from the car park, we walked along a mostly flat, surfaced track which eventually became a grassy path. This trail then fords a stream before turning left to climb steadily up towards Grisedale Tarn. While by no means gradual, the climb isn’t horrendously steep and at a steady pace took us about an hour.
The path temporarily flattens out when the tarn comes into sight, but soon turns left and zig zags more steeply to reach Dollywaggon Pike. You’ll need to detour away from the OS route to bag the summit, which is marked by a small cairn and which has good views out over the valley. At this point the wind really started to pick up and I was glad I’d brought my waterproof for a bit of respite – even in July it’s always a good idea to have it in your bag just incase!
From Dollywaggon Pike it’s a fairly quick march across to Nethermost Pike, although there is still a bit of ascent to be gained. We ate our lunch on the go as the wind chill was bloody freezing and we didn’t fancy sitting around to turn into blocks of ice. After a short climb, we came to a rocky plateau, where you’ll find the summit of Nethermost Pike. You get more of the same view that you got from Dollywaggon Pike, with a side-on view of Striding Edge thrown in as well. We could see the people approaching this way in the distance – they were ant sized! I have to say hats off to them as I’m pretty sure I’d have been a sobbing wreck if I was on that ridge in that wind.
After Nethermost Pike, our next stop was Helvellyn itself. I couldn’t believe how easy the final stretch of uphill was: I’d even go so far as to say it was gradual! I suppose there are only 60 metres or so separating Helvellyn and Nethermost Pike in height, so spread out over the distance it certainly felt much easier going than our climbs earlier on.
There was a tiny little queue at the trig point for a photo, and a good view back over the edges and tarn below. We didn’t hang about but carried on to begin our descent back down to Thirlmere. The path is deceptively gradual to begin with, which made me think we were in for a lovely easy stroll back down to the bottom. I was disillusioned of this fairly quickly as the path steepened and many, many steps appeared. I have to say I was glad we were going down and not up, as although there were no scary edges it was very steep! We both had jelly legs by about half way down, around about the same time that we passed a group of lads having a group nap at the side of the path. This was also when I worked out that I could gauge roughly how far we had left to descend by how red and sweaty the people coming in the opposite direction looked.
We both smiled at the sign at the bottom of the track which says ‘Helvellyn 2 miles’, and wondered how many people it had deceived into thinking they weren’t far at all from the top. Passing through Swirls car park (which has a free toilet), we picked up the Thirlmere reservoir circular route which we would follow back to our starting point. It’s a very well surfaced track lined by trees, intermittently shady (mostly not shaded though) and also intermittently undulating – the steepest part was a tiny little incline right before the turn off to our car park. Sam found it hilarious that my heart rate increased more on this non-hill than at any other point on the walk! Clearly my body had checked out of the walk a few miles beforehand.
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. This is a long walk and you should only take fit adult dogs, or be prepared to carry your dog some of the way (we came across a man with a border terrier who had quite clearly had enough, and who was being carried after refusing to carry on – and he was only doing the Thirlmere loop). While there is water at the start and end, in the middle there is nothing, so carry some extra for your dog. On the plus side, there are no stiles or road walking, and the final section along the Thirlmere circular at the end was livestock free. We did pass a few happy off-lead dogs here, but ours stayed on, just in case the RAF jets we’d seen throughout the morning reappeared and spooked them.
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