When day tripping to the Lakes, it pays to have a Plan B (or even a Plan C) up your sleeve incase you can’t get parked at Plan A. This is a methodology we had religiously followed for years, until we decided to pop over on a cold January day to bag Grey Crag and Tarn Crag. Being January, a quieter part of the Lakes and being on schedule to arrive for 9am, we didn’t think we’d need a Plan B – and therefore we were very sorry when we arrived just as a car (who I’d annoyingly, graciously let out of a give way about ten minutes before) pulled into the last space.
Not wanting to park inconsiderately, we turned around to head back to the main road and to come up with a Plan B on the fly. We decided to head for Troutbeck and to do a walk up Troutbeck Tongue – the smallest Wainwright we had left to bag – if we could get parked!
Happily, we managed to park for free on the roadside by the church in Troutbeck. Sam had found a route on OS maps while we were driving over, and we finally set off into the beautifully sunny, crisp morning. We soon arrived at an eerily quiet holiday park, which we passed through before picking up a long, flat track which would take us all the way to the bottom of the hill.
The climb up the hill was steep but very short – and we saw several families out with children (including one in toddler reigns) out to conquer the fell too. There was no breeze at all and I quickly found myself stripping off layers, despite the brevity of the ascent!
There’s no trig point at the top, just a small cairn of stones, and unbelievably a tiny cloud of midges! There really is no escaping them. With more ramblers rapidly approaching behind us, we moved on to let them enjoy the summit and began the (much more gradual) descent along Troutbeck Park.
The return is mostly along another low level track, before following a quiet lane for just over a mile – we didn’t see any traffic here. We then picked up another footpath which took us back to the outskirts of Troutbeck: all in all a lovely outing on a beautiful January day, bringing our Wainwrights total so far up to 108/214.
Dog friendly rating – 3.5/5. For a fell walk, this is pretty dog friendly – no stiles, no steep drops, limited road walking and the chance to have a paddle in a stream just before the start of the ascent. There are however sheep throughout, so dogs should be kept on leads, and we also got surrounded by about 6 collies when passing through a farmyard which set Coal off a bit. I will add, they didn’t do more than bark a bit and the farmer was also there and called them back immediately – so no harm at all.
If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog today, subscribe below so that you never miss a post:
