The Blackmoss Pot Alternative

Combining the delights of Borrowdale with the rural charm of Watendlath, this Lake District walk offers some wonderful views and relatively easy walking. Route finding is generally easy although there is a steady ascent from Lodore up to Watendlath.

The YHA is a great institution and I guess most fell walkers have stayed at a hostel at some time in their lives. Funny how they were created "to help all, especially young people of limited means, to greater knowledge, love and care of the countryside, particularly by providing hostels or other simple accommodation for them on their travels". Here's a collection of routes starting or finishing at a YHA in The Lakes. Along the way, there are 4 Wainwrights and 5 tarns.

This is a walk from the Borrowdale Valley over to Easdale Valley but it's also a ridge walk with great views over Far Easedale Gill and the surrounding landscape. Helm Crag is also known as The Lion and The Lamb due to it's profile when seen from the A591. Here's a collection of routes starting or finishing at a YHA in The Lakes. Along the way, there are three Wainwrights, one lake and one pub.

The classic and well trodden ascent of Scafell Pike from Seathwaite in Borrowdale. Ascending via Grains Gill to Great End and then Esk Hause and Broad Crag. The descent is via the 'Corridor Route' to Styhead Tarn and then back to Seathwaite.

Great circular walk going to Watendlath Tarn. This valley is not really popular. Dog friendly walk.
Good navigation skills are needed during this section as the path is not visible.

A short and fairly easy, circular walk up the ever popular Cat Bells. Starting from parking on the roadside just outside the village of Grange, this walk ascends Cat Bells from the South and descends north to join paths through the parkland and woods above and beside Derwent Water.

This is a circular walk that is useful for a day, perhaps when it has been raining and then cleared up a little, but the high fells are still shrouded in cloud. There is enough changing scenery to maintain interest, with Millican Dalton's cave, farmland scenery and the summit of Castle Crag. There are also opportunities for refreshment stops along the way if needed. A nice walk for the whole family.

This is a circular walk around High Spy, Maiden Moor and Cat Bells. The scenery is good and the walk is made interesting by the old mine workings, both on the way up and also at Goldscope Mine. The return leg, through the woods above Derwent Water, is a nice contrast to the first half of the walk.
It is a useful walk when the tops are in mist and walking the ridge would give you no views or when the tops are covered in snow and you don't have ice axe and crampons to hand.