Explore with Amie

Skiddaw is a wainwright that we have been meaning to bag for a long time but, for some reason, always prioritised others. Skiddaw is the fourth highest wainwright in the Lake District National Park and is a firm favourite of visitors to the area because of its relatively easy and well marked pathway. However, it was slightly less clear on this occasion because of the weather! Our experience up Skiddaw was made so much better by the incredible views and the snow.

It was on the walk back up that we realised why….the lane was a sheet of ice and there was no chance of cars getting all the way up to the car park. I recommend keeping an eye out for ice if there has been a cold spell!

So, off we went up the lane and then joined the path to Skiddaw. I can see why this route is so popular as it appeared that it was a wide gravel path basically all the way to the peak. The snow had actually frozen because of the minus temperatures we’d been having all week which made it more difficult than if it was fresh as the compression from peoples footsteps had made it incredibly slippy. Ironically, this meant that it got easier towards the peak as the snow becomes deeper and less slippy.

Usually, when people head up Skiddaw, they also bag Little Man which is nearby and at 865 metres, is another tall wainwright. We had originally planned to head up here too but, because of the slower progress than expected due to the slippy conditions, we decided to miss it out. It was a case of shaving off some time so we could complete the circular route we had planned. This turned out to be correct decision as we arrived back to the car just as it was turning dark and the extra 20 minutes it may have taken to reach Little Man and go on to Skiddaw, would have tipped us over to darkness on the descent. Who knows, maybe we would have been quicker going up their than we thought but, better to be safe than sorry.

The alternative route to Skiddaw curves around Little Man and is therefore flatter and our progress became much quicker here before the final climb to Skiddaw. There was patches of incredibly deep snow here, including a gate that was almost fully submerged. The snow and ice had also frozen onto the fences in such an interesting way. Almost extending the fences in 3D! The pictures explain more here – that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

From the peak, we headed down the slope to Carl Side. Here we made a slight mistake as we missed the path down from Skiddaw and instead of retracing our steps, attempted to take a secondary path that was shown on Maps.Me and was a dotted line on our OS map. In normal conditions, this would have been fine but the deep snow here made it slightly more tricky. With a combination of digging our heels into the snow and walking down (and a little bum sliding on my part), we made it down safely. There was no sign of Carl Side tarn in the snow – it must have been frozen and buried deep!

From Carl Side, we continued straight towards White Stones. You also have the option of a small extension over Longside Edge to Ullock which is another wainwright. This would perhaps be a good edition for a summers day when you have the light for longer. Instead, we reached White Stones and took the path downs towards Millbeck.

Going downhill. turned out to be lots of fun. The snow was a little softer here but was also very slippy underneath so we did a lot of sliding down here – controlled sliding, we called it. It results in both of us falling down a couple of times but it was all in good fun and neither of us were injured. It is of course, important to make sure you’re taking care whilst in conditions like this and we were conscious of the news stories that had been coming out all week of people getting into difficulty. We had fun but, we behaved sensibly.

We rejoined the road at Millbeck and walked back to the car. We hadn’t actually stopped for lunch either and it was getting towards 5pm at this point so we ate as we walked along the road with our head torch so that oncoming cars could see us more clearly. Just as it was turning fully dark, we made it to the car and became the drive home. A great day out in the lake all in all! In snow or shine, this would be a great route with fabulous views across Derment Water. I highly recommend you give it a go.

Your browser does not support iframes. View this route at Map Pedometer

If you can’t see the map above due to your browser settings, visit mappedometer to see the route for yourself.

Start Point: Underskiddaw Car Park

1. Head over the stile at the end of the car park and keep right.
2. Follow the path, keeping left at the fork with the boundary wall on your right.
3. Pass through the gate and continue along the path.
4. At the 2km, the path turns slightly to the left – ignore all route off this main path.
5. The path to Skiddaw Little Man is on the left. To miss this out, pass over the stile and continue around Little Man.
6. Pass through another gate (hopefully not buried in snow!)
7. Follow the path to Skiddaw South Top and onto Skiddaw peak.
8. Retrace your steps to Skiddaw South Top and take the path on the right for a steep descent to Carl Side.
9. Once you’ve reached Carl Side, continue straight, heading downhill.
10. You should reach a rocky outcrop. At White Stones, take the left hand fork and follow the edge of the valley.
11. Zig-zag down the slopes towards Millbeck.
12. Once you reach the road, turn left and keep left, follow the road until you reach the lane you drove up to the car park, signposted Skiddaw.
13. Here, turn left and return to the car park.

End Point: Underskiddaw Car Park

Have you bagged Skiddaw?

Amie x