Car to lake: 0.3 miles - from the car park at Bleach Green
Round the lake: 6.80 miles
Time taken: 3 hours (including stops for refreshments and to take photos!)
Despite yesterday's sunny skies having reverted to a uniform grey, today's walk around the lake I'm most familiar with, was its usual pleasure. Ennerdale Water is almost unique amongst the larger lakes of Cumbria in that it does not have a paved road running alongside any of its shoreline. From Bowness Knott to the head of the Lake, a little over a mile, there's a gravel road but it's open only to those visiting the Youth Hostel, farmers and forestry workers - so there's little more than the occasional car to disturb the hiker. Walking around Ennerdale Water is guaranteed to be a relatively quiet experience if not always a solitary one.
There are two points at which you can get close to the lake by car; Bleach Green where the River Ehen begins and Bowness Knott further along the northern side of the lake. A third possibility is the site of the old Anglers Hotel half way between the other two but it is not signposted and access, down a very rough gated road, isn't encouraged. I started today at Bleach Green which involves driving through Ennerdale Bridge towards Croasdale and taking a right turn after about a mile. Both Bleach Green and Bowness Knott car parks are signposted at this point.
From this starting point, I would always choose to go anti clockwise; not only because I think the views are generally better anyway but because it gets the roughest part of the walk out of the way before the legs begin to tire. The rough, stony path goes along the bottom of Crag Fell, almost at water level, and around the rocky outcrop of Angling Crag. It's here that the path is at its roughest and at one or two points a degree of minor scrambling may be required. However, it really isn't so bad and although care is required, and you wouldn't take your disabled Granny, only the most timid will find it at all daunting.
Round the lake: 6.80 miles
Time taken: 3 hours (including stops for refreshments and to take photos!)
Despite yesterday's sunny skies having reverted to a uniform grey, today's walk around the lake I'm most familiar with, was its usual pleasure. Ennerdale Water is almost unique amongst the larger lakes of Cumbria in that it does not have a paved road running alongside any of its shoreline. From Bowness Knott to the head of the Lake, a little over a mile, there's a gravel road but it's open only to those visiting the Youth Hostel, farmers and forestry workers - so there's little more than the occasional car to disturb the hiker. Walking around Ennerdale Water is guaranteed to be a relatively quiet experience if not always a solitary one.
There are two points at which you can get close to the lake by car; Bleach Green where the River Ehen begins and Bowness Knott further along the northern side of the lake. A third possibility is the site of the old Anglers Hotel half way between the other two but it is not signposted and access, down a very rough gated road, isn't encouraged. I started today at Bleach Green which involves driving through Ennerdale Bridge towards Croasdale and taking a right turn after about a mile. Both Bleach Green and Bowness Knott car parks are signposted at this point.
From this starting point, I would always choose to go anti clockwise; not only because I think the views are generally better anyway but because it gets the roughest part of the walk out of the way before the legs begin to tire. The rough, stony path goes along the bottom of Crag Fell, almost at water level, and around the rocky outcrop of Angling Crag. It's here that the path is at its roughest and at one or two points a degree of minor scrambling may be required. However, it really isn't so bad and although care is required, and you wouldn't take your disabled Granny, only the most timid will find it at all daunting.
 |
| The lakeside path at the beginning of my walk. Herdus and Bowness Knott lie ahead, across the lake, while Angling Crag is to the right. Once round Angling Crag, a more dramatic view opens up as the upper portion of the lake leads the eye towards the dominating presence of Pillar on the right and the Red Pike, High Stile ridge on the left. Rather than walking around the Crag, however, if you are feeling energetic, a worthwhile detour can be taken by branching to the right a little further into the picture above and climbing up to the top of Angling Crag. On a clear, calm, day the views from the top are spectacular and the grassy summit is a perfect place to sit and ponder or just let your mind go blank and enjoy the beauty of it all. A quick trot down the other side allows you to rejoin the path along the lake shore. 
The short but steep climb up onto Angling Crag is well worth it as this picture from April 2010 illustrates. Be honest, can you imagine a nicer place to eat your sandwiches, or just to sit and feel smug at your good fortune in being here?
The path continues along the lakeside eventually entering a very old natural forest before re-emerging a few yards short of the head of the lake. The land immediately at the top of the lake, where the River Liza enters, is low lying and boggy looking but it soon rises rather suddenly, as if up a man made embankment to become pastureland grazed by herdwick sheep. If you cut diagonally across here to the left, you can pretty soon reach, across a short boggy stretch, the bank of the river. Follow it upstream until you reach the "Irish Bridge" (don't ask me what's Irish about it - perhaps it's called Dermot) which you can cross and join the forest road to begin the return journey along the northern side of the lake. |
 |
| Towards the top of the lake the path goes through ancient woodland. At this point today, Pillar was shrouded in wispy clouds which disguised the fact that it had donned its winter coat of white. The upper part of Ennerdale valley extends for another five or six miles to Black Sail youth hostel, and the source of the River Liza and the foot of Great Gable. Much of the valley has been given over to forestry since the second world war but, as the trees are being removed, the land is left to its own devices. The Wild Ennerdale project is behind all this and, as a result, the valley beyond the lake is becoming more natural and inviting, enhancing its unique isolated feel. In my opinion, one of the very best places in the Lake District. Click here to go to their website Wild Ennerdale My wife says "it's just like Canada". Well, it's not on the scale of British Columbia, but I sort of know what she means! 
Crag Fell and Angling Crag from the forest road
My walk continued along the river Liza and eventually along the lakeside towards Bowness Knott. Just as the road begins to climb and veer away from the lake, I kept to the left and followed a rough path which climbed slightly above the water and skirted the rocky outcrop which separates the car park from the lake. There then follows a more level path which keeps to the lakeside, all the way along as the Lake again widens out into the broad section at its western end. (I think I've seen references to Ennerdale Water once being known as Broad Water - but can't remember where!). Along the whole northern shore, and particularly this section, it pays to stop and look at the view behind you. Bowness Knott from this side looks quite dramatic and, in the right light, is a gift to any landscape photographer.
After a while the farmland on the right gives way to a flat area among trees where, a keen observer would suspect, a building once stood. By the lakeside are the remains of a concrete ramp from which boats were once launched. This is the site of the Angler's Hotel, demolished in the late 1960's to make way for a rise in the level of the lake which never took place. How Ennerdale would be if this Hotel had survived we can only guess; it seems certain however, given the splendid view above, that it would have been a very popular place.
The Anglers Hotel, not long before its demolition.
One of the pleasures of a round the lake walk is that you do tend to meet other people doing the same thing. Usually there's someone you meet twice; someone doing your walk the other way round, and there are others you overtake and are then overtaken by, perhaps when you stop for a breather.
Today this happened two or three times with the same couple; I overtook them early in the walk, they passed me while I was taking pictures and I caught up to them again as they rejoined the lake path after being temporarily lost. I last saw them sitting on a concrete block admiring the view once admired by Angler's hotel guests.
The remainder of the route continues along the lakeside path and eventually crosses the river Ehen just below the weir. It's then but a two or three minute stroll, retracing your steps from the beginning of the walk, back to the car.
A really great walk among some of the best scenery in England!
|
 |
For sheer beauty, Ennerdale takes beating! In late spring of 1973, former president of the USA Bill Clinton visited. In his biography "My Life" he described the Lake District as "beautiful and romantic" and, somewhere on the shores of Ennerdale water, he proposed to Hilary.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment