UK 2022 -England’s Lake District

As a 19 year old foreign exchange student in Scotland, I made my first visit to the Lake District of England over a long weekend and immediately fell in love with the terrain and local culture. Through many other visits over the years, I took a few daylong treks and always looked with envy at the people carrying their rucksacks on more serious adventures up into the fells. “Some day…” I hoped, “I want to do that, too!”

Lakeland is England’s largest and most popular National Park, but it still amazes me how frequent London visitors never get up there (or if they do, it’s only for a quick visit to over-populated Windermere). I hope that by sharing some of my experiences, photos, and videos this month, more of you will be inspired to get out on your local trails, and set your sights on a goal worthy of your efforts.

By way of introduction to “the Lakes,” and in particular, the fells high above the lakes, here are a couple of links that explain what I’ll be doing.

A Wainright did more than any other individual to introduce the rest of us to the joys of what is termed “fell-walking,” (read: hiking up on mountains). In the 1950s and 60s, he wrote a marvelous set of hand-written and hand-drawn pictorial guidebooks describing 214 peaks and many popular trails.

Building upon Wainright’s work, Emily Woodhouse has more recently penned a great article: 5 of the Best Hikes in the Lake District. It presents some nice photos, descriptions, and stats on some of the hikes on my itinerary. With some luck and free time, I hope to add my own coverage of these and many other routes.