Start Point: Grasmere (NY 336 073)
Grasmere – Allan Bank – Silver How – Kelbarrow – Grasmere
| Distance: | 5.1 km |
| Total Ascent: | 329 m |
| Time Taken: | 1 hour 30 minutes |
| Start Time: | 09:40 |
| Weather: | Snow showers. 1ºC |
| Finlay’s Wainwright Count: | 19/214 (1 new this walk) |
The weather has been poor everywhere for the last few weeks with seemingly incessant rain. Although this made actually going out for walks less attractive, I have not been idle; the walking downtime gave me a chance to get to grips with the website.
You may have noticed that the “look” of the site has changed, but in the background, the whole architecture of the site has changed as well, bringing it bang up to date. I have also migrated to a different hosting service, which involved moving over 1,600 individual walks—a process that was (obviously!) fraught with difficulties along the way! Hopefully, the site is now future-proofed and fully accessible from mobile or tablet (although the best way to view the photos is still on a desktop).
I have certainly been burning the midnight oil for the last couple of weeks or so, and the observant viewer may have noticed things constantly changing. As with any move of this size, there may be a few gremlins left in the system. If you spot any errors, broken links, or missing photos, please do let me know by leaving a comment below.
The older pages will be updated in time, and the fell pages—especially the Wainwrights—will be refreshed as we go through them once more with Finlay. Finally, thanks to everyone who views, comments, and messages. I’d love to hear what you think of the new look, so please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the post! Onwards and upwards!
The walk: finally the weather was supposed to improve this weekend with snow widely forecast. When I left home, I was unsure where to head and was initially thinking Keswick area for some of the smaller fells up that way (Finlay is nearly 11 months now so we will start increasing duration, length and height of walks soon enough) but when I reached Torver I could see the Coniston fells had a decent dump of snow down to a low level so thought about Grasmere and Silver How. That turned out to be a wise choice I thought as there were certainly plenty of snow showers blowing down from the north and they were visible looking along Dunmail Raise. On the whole it was a lovely walk with hardly a soul about and it gave Finlay a lesson in coping with freezing cold winds and snow showers blowing in. Brrr!
🛠 Spotted a Gremlin?
Since I have just moved the entire architecture of the site and over 1,600 individual walks, there may be a few lingering issues. If you find a broken link, a missing photo, or something that just doesn’t look right, please let me know!
You can leave a comment below with the name of the walk or a quick description of the problem. Alternatively, if you prefer, you can reach me via the Contact Page. Your help in getting the site back to 100% is greatly appreciated!
Great set of photos (with explanation for those who are new to the area). Dale End Farm was our family holiday campsite from the early 1950s, with those wonderful views across Grasmere Lake and to the surrounding fells. We used to take the ferry from Fleetwood to Knott End, then a bus to Garstang and another bus to Grasmere, followed by a walk from the village round to the camping field. Dad with a big rucsac, Mum with a medium one, me with a small one and little brother making up the quartet! The few car owners had to leave their vehicles at the top of the sloping field or get fellow campers to help push cars back to hard ground. Not many private cars on the roads back in those days. Many happy memories of the easy ascent up Loughrigg, or the slightly harder walk up Helm Crag – followed by a cold dip in the lake!
Of course the public campsite is long gone, private cars now clog the roads – but the views are still there, along with your photos and comments to jog the memory of this 80 year old who hasn’t set foot on the fells yet this year! Of course I’ve walked all the fells multiple times, I’m just waiting for some better weather to get me up on the tops again. No partner any more, so I need to find days suitable for a slow old guy, and preferably a like-minded companion!
Keep posting, Sean!
Happy days by the sound of it John 🙂 It will soon be summer and you will be back on the fells as well with luck!
Best Wishes
Sean
Aw, what a cute photo of ‘windblown Finlay’ up on Silver How.
On Friday we were supposed to get some sunny spells but they obviously didn’t appear during your walk, and we had no sunny spells in the Eden Valley either. Better weather on Saturday and snow everywhere, pity that a thin veil of cloud appeared and slowly dimmed the sunshine when we took a walk over Longlands and Brae Fell.
We’ve been checking the website every week since your last walk so it was a big surprise to suddenly see that things had changed quite a bit since the previous walk to Arnside Knott. We can’t remember exactly when we noticed it, probably the week before last, and to begin with we thought we had gone to another site by mistake! It is so different from your previous one but we are getting used to it and the photo at the top of the Home page is stunningly beautiful.
Not had time to check much but here’s a few results we got from the Links section:
David Hall Lake District Walks – nothing about walk routes is mentioned, seems mostly concerned with areas within Cumbria and the various bodies of water within it
English Lake District – couldn’t see what the site contained because we were blocked from entering
Gateway2thelakes.com – DNS could not be found
Lake District Walks – this name seems to be up for sale
Lizlemal’s Homepage – DNS could not be found
My Wainwrights – only managed to see the Home page but no entries since 2017, all other tabs resulted in URL not being found
Summiteer – no posts since May 2023
The Lakeland Fells – Andrew Leaney’s site is now called ‘fellwandering’ but no walks entered since March 2023
All the others listed in the Links section were working OK.
It’ll be interesting to see if anyone else has the same results with the links mentioned.
Best wishes,
John and Brenda
Hi John and Brenda, thanks for your comments and report on the links. I have changed those now to reflect the actual plus added your great site wainwrightwalking.co.uk as well. Beautiful photos from your Brae Fell walk, I enjoyed reading about your adventures.
Best Wishes,
Sean
Hi Sean, as you know I walk with David Hall every now and again and with Paul Sharkey (Sharkeys Dream website) as well. David end his website a few years ago due to annoying comments he was received questioning why he was walk there instead of there, why was he walking low level, etc. He’d removed his email from the website but some people knew it and in the end the website came tom an end, which was a shame as it really was a Lake District walking encyclopaedia but we understood david’s reasoning. He still has his ‘intranet’ version going and it’s more encyclopaedic than ever.
Thanks Rod, shame David’s site disappeared – it was a brilliant resource but I know all too well the work (and extraneous noise) that goes with it! Sean
Cracking walk Sean, although I tend to walk it the opposite way, and perfect for young Finlay. I walked Arnison Crag – Birks – St Sunday Crag – Deepdale Haues – Grisedale Tarn & Grisedale from Patterdale on Saturday with a pal from over my neck of the woods and there was a lot of snow about, particularly on the walk down to Grisedale Tarn, where I went knee-deep into snow on more than one occasion. Great fun though!
Thanks Rod, as you say a good one for the pupster. Knee deep snow is always tough going! Sean