Take in the views (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Take in the views

10:12am Friday 14th March 2008

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Patterdale village lies at the head of Ullswater and throughout this walk you have many splendid glimpses of the lovely lake. Its serpentine shape results from the varying hardness of the rock, resisting in different amounts on a retreating Ice-Age glacier. Overlooking the village, and this walk, is Place Fell, a huge mass sheltering both from the weather coming from the east. As you head south-west, Birks and St Sunday Crag dominate the scene and in winter shorten the hours of sunlight that illuminate pleasing Grisedale.

Park in the public section of the parking area opposite the Patterdale Hotel, grid ref 396159, on the A592 Kirkstone Pass road, from Penrith to Windermere. The access track, marked with a P', is potholed and rough. It costs £3.50 to park and if the metre is not in use (when the weather is cold) you have to cross the road to the hotel reception to pay your fee and then return to put the ticket on your windscreen. Mind how you cross the road.

1/ Turn left out of the parking area and choose a safe place to cross the narrow, twisty road. Walk on to turn right into a track beyond the newspaper shop. Go past the excellent loos (on the left) and carry on until you are directed left through scrub by a small footpath sign. Soon join a wider path where you turn left again to go through the gate ahead. Follow the wide track out on to the open fell. The path winds right, keeping roughly parallel with a wall on the right. Pass through a kissing gate and go with the path as it drifts a little right. After the next gate you walk beside lofty beech. The track then descends to the side of shallow Hag Beck, which you can cross by large stepping stones.

2/ Beyond, continue on the track from where there are wonderful views of Ullswater, silvery and dark grey among the louring hills. Walk on to pass through the next gate and pause to enjoy the pleasing walling stretching away from you, down the slope, and then providing a boundary for two sections of a stone sheepfold. Descend gently to climb a stile in the boundary wall by the first section of the sheepfold. This gives access to a rather rough short path that descends the fellside to the narrow lane that leads into Grisedale.

3 Walk right and in a few steps, left, along a concrete track to reach the low bridge over Grisedale Beck, a place to pause and look up the wide tranquil valley, where sheep graze. Carry on uphill and where the track winds right, go ahead through a gate and climb, quite steeply, a grassy trod to a gate ahead, below a fine stand of Scots pine and larch. Once through the gate, ignore the right turn and the immediate left. Instead join the higher left turn commonly known as the hole-in-the-wall' path, used by walkers on their way to Striding Edge, on Helvellyn.

4/ Stroll this steadily-rising easy path as it traverses the ever steepening slopes. Carry on for just under a mile to reach a large cairn beside the path. This denotes your right turn. The path is very faint at first, just a slight narrow depression in the grass. But as you ascend, quite steeply, the path becomes a little wider and continues on up, below the craggy side of Birkhouse Moor and brings you to a stone-step stile over a fine wall.

5/ Beyond, walk ahead for a few steps to join a wider grassy path and turn right to dawdle along the glorious high-level roller-coaster path. Keep parallel with the wall, over the wide grassy ridge, with spectacular views down to Glenridding and Ullswater beyond. Watch as you go for the moment when Lanty's Tarn, edged on two sides by conifers, comes into view. Stroll on, ignore a little path right dropping down to a gate, and carry on along the ridge path for another 300 yards until you can take a gate in the wall on your right.

• 6/ Descend the on-going path across the pasture to join the track coming down from Lanty's Tarn. Turn right and walk to a gate. Beyond, turn left to pass through the gate taken earlier. Go down the steepish path to join the concrete road. Cross the beck and carry on to the lane and turn left.

7/ After just over a quarter-of-a-mile, take the second signposted turn on the right. Walk along the track, with Home Farm to the right and a well arrowed narrow path leading left to a gate. Climb up the slope and follow the waymarks directing you over the brow, where there are more waymarks and the path becomes clearer. This leads you to easy-to-miss stone steps over the wall on your right. Beyond, turn left and wind left to go through the gate. Walk ahead for a few steps, turn right and then right again to reach the road through Patterdale. Turn left and walk on until you can cross and turn right into the car park.

Information

Distance: 5.5 miles.

Time: 3 hours.

Terrain: Good paths and tracks, some of which can be muddy after rain. A short road walk. Two steepish climbs, one up and one down Map: OS Explorer OL5 NB: Restrictions on space mean that this article provides a general summary of the route. It is advisable for anyone who plans to follow the walk to take a copy of the relevant Ordnance Survey map.

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