Explore with Amie

After a very hot week in the Lake District, the weather was supposed to hold on for the weekend. Now, that doesn’t happen very often! With the hot weather comes a wealth of people heading to the Lakes, which is great for bringing money into the local area, but less great for people like us who tend to have a bit of a lie-in and then struggle to get parked up! For that reason, throughout the summer months, we tend to pick more out-of-the-way places to avoid the central Lakes, especially the road between Windermere and Ambleside.

The walk begins at Hardknott Forest. We were quite lucky as, although we arrived fairly late in the morning, we managed to get the last space at the side of the road just up from Birks Bridge car park. The car park should be the aim though and it’s completely free to park here, too.

Hardknott Forest is an over 630 hectares conifer plantation that is currently under restoration by Forestry England in collaboration with the University of Leeds. The first part of the walk utilises the forest tracks and is on very easy to follow gravel. You should ignore any deviations from this path for just over 2km. Soon, the path meets a T-junction and you should turn left here, leaving the woodland behind. Shortly after the left, the path crosses a small stream and it is here that you want to take the path on the right which then opens out into grassy moorland.

We were actually very lucky that the weather had been nice recently as if not, I think this would have been a bit of a mud bath. The ground was already fairly saturated to say that we’d had little rain over the last week. If you’re going to do this in the wintertime, make sure it’s cold enough that the ground is hard! I wouldn’t recommend this route when it’s been heavily raining for that reason. The path is a little harder to follow here as it’s grassy for most of the way but, keep an eye out for it over the horizon and you’ll be fine.

From there, it’s a real gradual climb towards the rocky outcrop of Green Crag. As I said, this is a rather unassuming mountain at 489m, ranking 176th of the 214 wainwrights. Towards the peak, there is a little bit of hands on scrambling, but nothing too difficult and for a very short period. Think something similar to Pen-y-Ghent but much shorter. You could also avoid this, should you wish to. It’s a great summit to sit down and admire the view despite it’s stature not being as grand as some of the other surrounding it. For that reason though, the views of Scafell Pike, Black Combe and towards Morecambe Bay are fantastic.

The route then descends Green Crag towards the path in the dip between Green Crag and Crook Crag. The latter isn’t a wainwright and is slightly shorter than it’s neighbour at 469m. Should you wish to, you could also head up here too to extend the walk a little bit. We didn’t do this and instead took the grassy path back down the valley. Again, the path soon became rather boggy before meeting the edge of the forest. We climbed over the stile and then headed through the gate on the right into Hardknott Forest. Another option is to continue straight up towards Harter Fell, rather than turning right into the forest. Harter Fell is 653 metres and is classed as a wainwright however, we had already bagged this one and, given how muggy and hot it was, didn’t fancy doing it again. If you opt for this additional wainwright, you’re looking at around 11km for the full route which you can see on Map Pedometer.

If you’re opting to take the same route as us, the track you’ve taken through the gate rejoins the T-junction from earlier in the walk. Instead of turning left to retrace the track back to the car park, continue straight. You’ll be on the same path you’ve already walked for around 400 metres but, instead of turning right back towards Green Crag, continue to follow the track down the valley. The track follows alongside the river before coming to a bridge. Cross the bridge and then keep left following the track. At the next junction, we’d been chatting away and had to get the map back out to work out where we were and which way to turn. In the end, we opted to go right down the track for a short way before taking the slightly overgrown path on the left. It was great, if a little spiky from the conifers! We walked on with the sound of cuckoos nearby which is always fabulous to hear. In fact, there isn’t all that much bird life in the central Lakes so this was a lovely change.

This is also a great walk if you want to see some bluebells! Rannerdale Knott may be the most popular place to see them in the Lake District but, this is a real hidden gem, away from the crowds. After around half a km the path emerges back onto the forest track. Turn right here and follow it all the way back down to the car park! All in all, that makes it around 11km which is about the same as if you headed up Harter Fell too, just with less ascent.

I feel that I haven’t all that much to say about this walk but, if I was to describe it in one word it would be: pleasant. I had a lovely day out in the sunshine that made me appreciate the beauty of the Lake District without the height but still the same feeling of magnitude. Take a look at the route on Map Pedometer.

Have you ticked off Green Crag yet?

Amie x