Helvellyn is the third highest peak both in England and in the Lake District (don’t worry, I’ll name the two higher mountains in a later post – we tried to climb those as well!). It can be reached from many directions along numerous trails, but the most famous, interesting, and exciting route is from Glenridding via Striding Edge: the knife-edged scrambling trail, or arête. (Note: Helvellyn is a big mountain – it deserves a big blog post. You have been warned.)
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UK 2022 -Fell Pony Adventures
It is common for many visitors to England’s Lake District to walk beside the lakes or hike in the fells – alone, with special companions, or in a group. What is less common is to do it alongside creatures that have been specifically bred to work in these hills. We spent a day with Tom Lloyd, owner of Fell Pony Adventures, and two of his ponies, Lucky and Prince, for a hike along the country lanes and through the woods above the villages of Lakeside and Newby Bridge on Windermere. It was a day of hiking as we’ve never had before!
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The weather gods delivered excellent conditions (cool, overcast, and dry) for us to hike up into the nearby hills, so we set our sights on Ullswater’s famous waterfall, Aira Force. Most people in Glenridding walk to and back from the waterfall along the lake, on the Ullswater Way. But to get more distance and elevation, we found a nice loop away from the water and around the peaks of Glenridding Dodd and Sheffield Pike.
We were finally fell-walking!
Continue reading “UK 2022 -Aira Force”UK 2022 -The Ullswater Way
Our drive from Bowness-on-Windermere over the Kirkstone Pass delivered us to the small village of Glenridding on Ullswater: just 16 miles away on the odometer, but with such a different atmosphere as to make us feel we had traveled hundreds of miles.
Gone were the crowds, gone were the cars, and gone was the noise.
Continue reading “UK 2022 -The Ullswater Way”UK 2022 -Getting to the Lake District
We said our heartfelt goodbyes to Iain and Janie to take a leisurely drive north from The Wirral, under the Mersey (not on the ferry this time – there’s a tunnel!), through Liverpool, and up the Lancashire coastline into Cumbria and to Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District.
Because Lakeland was our home for the following three weeks, there are a lot of photos that I’ll be sharing here in the upcoming posts. Before that, however, I have something else to show you…
Continue reading “UK 2022 -Getting to the Lake District”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!”
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