Explore with Amie

Whilst Black Combe isn’t classed as a Wainwright, it is acknowledged as one of the outlying fells. It is located in the South-West corner of the Lake District, not too far from the coastal towns of Barrow-in-Furness and Millom. As this fell is so close to the coast and has a prominent height of 600m, it is well worth adding into your hit list despite not being another tick on the Wainwright list.

After walking up Sheffield Pike, Raise and a couple of other wainwrights the day before, we thought Black Combe would be a quick and easy walk for our Sunday afternoon. We were right…for the most part. Black Combe is a gradual climb that is a little steeper at the start but then, it’s a moderately gentle climb to the peak. It was interesting to see the mix of people on this walk. It was a glorious day and there were quite a few people tackling the route however, they were prepared to varying degrees. This isn’t a technically challenging walk and could be done in a pair of trainers but there were lots of people wearing all-black despite the heat and a couple doing the walk in ankle boots. Now, I don’t want to judge but, I think they could have made the walk a lot easier for themselves with some more appropriate footwear and breathable clothes.

That aside, I do recommend saving this route for a nice weather day if you can. As I mentioned, this is a hill not too far from the coast and so, on a clear day, you can see across to the Isle of Man which is pretty cool. We couldn’t see that far unfortunately as despite the clear skies, it was quite hazy. We were specifically saving Black Combe for a nice day and it certainly didn’t disappoint, despite the haze. You do get phenomenal views across the Lake District too. We haven’t done a coastal walk since we lived down in Devon and walked the South West Coast Path and it made me miss that area of the country a hell of a lot. I’d love to go back down and do some more of the coast path at some point!

Another thing to note is that parking is by donation at a small church so, there are limited spaces. However, given that this is an outlying fell and not a wainwright, you’re more likely to come across locals than tourists, in my opinion.

Things get a little bit more complicated when trying to make Black Combe a circular route. There are no paths on OS that make a nice circular route and, we found that MapsMe had lots of incomplete pathways that seemed to just end. We assumed that they would join together and, found that there were quite a few well defined paths at the peak. And so, off we went to attempt a circular route. However, when we reached the main road, we realised that there wasn’t any footpaths that would take us back to the car park. This is a main road with no pavements and with a 3km walk left, we weren’t looking forward to walking along it. Baring in mind, this is the edge of the Lake District so this is a winding, national speed limit road. Instead, we opted to climb off the road, head through a field and join what we thought was a footpath.

We were right again…to a certain extent. With a small bit of stress and climbing over walls and old fences (which I absolutely do not recommend but, we were getting a little desperate), we rejoined a path. In true this walk fashion, the path soon just disappeared and we trudged our way through a fair bit of bog and uneven ground to then rejoin a major path back down to where we started. How these two paths joined together, I’m not quite sure and it was altogether quite baffling how so many paths seemed to go nowhere. To make things a little more exciting, we also passed through a field of sheep who must have thought it was dinner time because they proceeded to follow us for quite a while. Alex for some unknown reason (and as if he has never seen any farm show on TV ever) called “Here, girls” and so we were followed by basically every sheep in the field which was incredibly disconcerting. Eventually, they realised we were not in fact going to feed them and we all went on our merry way. Herding sheep was not something I thought I’d be doing on this day….

So, what route do I recommend? I think there are two options here:

1. Walk up Black Combe and back the way you came. This is around a 7km walk and is up easy, well navigated paths. You can’t really go wrong with this option.
2. Or, you can make this into a 13 circular route in which you turn right at the peak and had a long route down to Whitbeck before heading to the car park. This is a circular route that I’m not sure would be a very exciting descent. I can’t comment on this though as we didn’t walk the route.

I’m going to include maps here of both options so that you can choose for yourself:

So, if you would like to walk there and back:

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

Or, you could try the circular route:

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

You may be wondering why I am sharing this when our route didn’t go exactly to plan but, I want to share what an underrated walk Black Combe is. It’s not technically challenging but, it is a fabulous walk for great views on a clear day. It gives you that coastal feeling that you won’t get anywhere else in the Lake District. I highly recommend adding this to your list. Or, if you’ve already completed the wainwrights and are moving onto tackling the outlying fells, this is a nice and easy one to tick off.

I also wanted to share my recommendations for routes based on our own mistakes. It was all fine in the end and we had a great day regardless, albeit desperate for a drink of water and some shade by the time we got to the car. My main piece of advice with this one: don’t think the paths are going to join up because…. they don’t.

On that note, I’m going to leave it there.

Have you walked up Black Combe? Which route did you choose? I’d really love to know how other people approached this fell!

Amie x