Three of my favourite winter walks in the Lake District
All under 10km and featuring plenty of cake and pub recommendations
When I first started writing this, the idea was to share some of my favourite autumn routes. But while the shoulder season isn’t officially over yet, there’s snow falling all over the UK right now and yesterday I wore four pairs of socks to go for a walk and then slept in head to toe fleece (sexy), so I’m going to say that I’ve missed the boat on that one.
Instead, I’m rebranding it as my favourite winter walks. The ingredients are basically the same: fairly low-level so good for changeable conditions, not too boggy, not too long, somewhere to stop for a hot chocolate halfway and, ideally, a nice cosy pub with a fire at the end to warm up beside afterwards. The three routes below deliver on all fronts.
I find autumn and winter a little harder to love than the summer. Fewer daylight hours to squeeze adventures into, all the extra kit you need to carry, the admin of constantly having to dry your walking boots. On the flip side, it’s a relief to not have to constantly reapply SPF, nothing quite beats the quality of the light on a cold, crisp winters’ day and you get to see a lot more sunrises and sunsets without being completely nocturnal. Peaks and troughs, as always.
So if you’re looking to get some fresh air over the next few months, here are some of my most well trodden loops in Cumbria. Hopefully they’ll make your hasty retreat back to the sofa to hide under a blanket even more enjoyable.
#1 Rydal Water and Grasmere
via Loughrigg Terrace and the Coffin Route
Distance: 9km/5.6 miles
Elevation: 180m/590ft
Start point: Grasmere Village (various buses including the 555 will take you there, or there are several car parks)
Find the route on Komoot here.
My Dad always says that this is the route he’d take somebody who didn’t like walking on, if he was trying to convince them about the outdoors. Given that we did it on my first ever trip to Cumbria back in 2014 (a trade off for him driving me to a job interview in Newcastle afterwards) and I’ve since permanently relocated there, I think we have to conclude his theory has some merit. That escalated.