I don’t know about everyone else, but usually after a long drive, we like a few days to decompress and chill out at home. However, we got a surprise extra bank holiday last September a few days after our long drive back from Wester Ross, and not being the kind to look a gift horse in the mouth we decided to head over to the Lakes for the day to bag a few more Wainwrights.
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We picked a roughly 8 mile circular walk from our Walking the Wainwrights book, which starts from the free parking area by the church in Martindale (similar route on All the Gear but No Idea). When we arrived the parking area was surprisingly quiet for a bank holiday, but by the time we got back it was absolutely choc full with some extremely questionable parking! It’s probably worth arriving early if you want to park here on a peak day.
The first Wainwright of the day was Place Fell, which is a steady but long climb up from Martindale, the first half of which was through shoulder high bracken – I was extremely glad it was dry! There’s a scrambly step on the final ascent, but nothing which should present any challenges. The views from the summit are lovely, especially looking down over Patterdale, and there’s an impressive trig pillar built into a rocky crag.
As we began the descent from Place Fell towards Angletarn Pikes, we began to see a steady trickle of people who were ascending from the opposite side. I have to say I was glad we hadn’t come up this way, with the gradient being a lot steeper! It wasn’t a knee crunching descent but it was steep enough that the majority of people we passed in the opposite direction were huffing and puffing and a bit red in the face.
The walk across to Angletarn Pikes is straight forward on a good path. After dropping down a fair way, you then need to climb up again, leaving the main path for a grassy track near the summit (the OS maps app was very helpful in making sure we didn’t miss this). The view from the summit was good, but there was an enormous cloud of midges up here so we didn’t hang around for long to enjoy it.
Our final summit of the day was Beda Fell, the smallest of the three on this round. The amble over is very easy, with barely any ascent and good views in all directions. The best view of the day was the view over Ullswater when walking between Beda Fell and Beda Head. Descending back into Martindale felt a lot quicker than our initial ascent, and uses a fairly steep, narrow trail running through the bracken. This track brings you out on a quiet road where it’s a short walk back to the start.
Dog friendly rating – 3/5. Like many Lake District walks, you can expect to see sheep at any time and dogs should be kept under close control, preferably on a lead. We also saw quite a lot of deer on this walk which was a bit of a change to the usual! On the plus side, there were no stiles on this walk, and the road at the end was extremely quiet with no cars. There’s an opportunity for water loving pups to have a paddle in a small stream on the walk between Place Fell and Angletarn Pikes, but apart from this, there’s no water, so you should carry some extra for your dog.
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