Trawling back through my photo archives, I found several walks which I’d never gotten around to posting on here. As well as our walks up Great Hangman and Worcester Beacon (among many others), I came across a stack of photos from a walk up Birkhouse Moor and Catstye Cam all the way back in Summer 2022. I think it got lost in the mass of blogs I was churning through at that point, with more walks than I could keep up with writing, and so it’s stayed hidden in my archives.
The good thing is that countryside walks rarely change hugely, and so I hope my recollections of the hike will still be relevant and useful for some people (not to mention the fact that the route is maintained separately). We followed an 8 mile circular route from the WalkLakes website, which is one of my go-tos for all things Lake District.
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Parking is plentiful in the large pay & display car park in Glenridding. After a brief stretch along the road the path heads into woodland and runs above the beck, before turning to climb fairly steeply up through the woods to emerge by Lanty’s Tarn: a green and pretty spot. The route passes around the tarn before a clear stony track heads steadily uphill, with excellent views back down over Glenridding should you need to catch your breath. We arrived at the summit of Birkhouse Moor in what felt like surprisingly little time, and without much in the way of steep uphill walking.
Surprisingly, we had the top pretty much to ourselves. Surprising because the main track we’d followed up to this point had been fairly busy. It’s one of the main routes up Helvellyn though, so that’s possibly where everyone else was going! Birkhouse Moor is a smaller neighbour but still gives a very decent view from the top, looking down over Ullswater and across to Catstye Cam.
It was simply a case of retracing our steps back down to the main path and then continuing on in the direction of Catstye Cam, which is a clear objective with its rather pointy top singling it out from the surrounding hills. Catstye Cam just about makes it into the top 10 highest Wainwrights with a height of 890m: it actually doesn’t feel like a huge climb up there though and we didn’t realise how big it was until we’d finished the walk and I was jotting down my thoughts in my Wainwrights log book.
Approaching the final climb to the summit was initially a little daunting, as Catstye Cam bookends the opposite end of Swirral Edge from Helvellyn. I was worried that we’d have to navigate part of Swirral Edge to get there, but the path steers well clear of the technical sections of scrambling and it’s simply a short steeper climb to gain the summit, which again has nice views over Ullswater and the surrounding fells. You also get a good view of Swirral Edge if you fancy watching the people scrambling up Helvellyn for a while!
Other than the initial steep descent directly off the summit, it’s a fairly long and gradual walk back down to Glenridding: just about gentle enough to keep the end of hike jelly legs at bay. We did pass a steady stream of people walking in the opposite direction (Helvellyn bound no doubt), but overall it didn’t feel as busy as other walks in the Lakes can do, and with the lovely view of Glenridding and Ullswater to see us back it was altogether a very pleasant descent.
Dog friendly rating: 3/5. This is a stile free route and shouldn’t pose any technical difficulties for dogs. As with nearly all fell walks in the Lake District, you should expect to come across livestock throughout. There is no water once you’re up on the fells so you should carry extra for your dog, although the beck at the start is accessible for a short time for any dogs who like to paddle.
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