High Street from The Kirkstone Pass Inn

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High Street from The Kirkstone Pass Inn Details

An approach to the summit of High Street from the West. It has the advantage of starting off high, and in less than half an hour you’ll be on top of the first summit – St Ravens Edge. The disadvantage is that is doesn’t’ end at the Kirkstone Pass Inn.

The route starts on the same side of the road as the Kirkstone Pass Inn, on the Patterdale side. It’s an easy to follow path, following the wall and becoming slightly steep and scrambly, ensuring you’ll be on top of St Ravens Edge with it’s huge cairn in no time. From here, there’s a wall that can be followed all the way to Cauldale Moor and Stony Cove Pike, with little in the way of features and an easy gradient that makes you wonder if you’re climbing at all.

The descent to Threshthwaite Mouth is steep, slightly scrambly, and straightforward enough to follow. Unfortunately, the ascent up Thornthwaite Crag is not so easy, being a steep scree path that only remits once you reach the summit. It was the one advantage of the thick mist that I couldn’t see this earlier or I might well have bailed out at the col.

There’s a huge obelisk on Thornthwaite Crag that made navigation on a misty day like today a bit easier. Not that you need to worry about that once you’re on the High Street roman road, which is as easy a path as you’ll find. You need to veer off and follow the wall that leads to the summit at some point, which is easiest if you do so as soon as possible as you’ve got the wall to aid navigation, as well as a path that makes the route obvious. The summit isn’t much, and being on a plateau isn’t the best viewpoint either. A moot point in the driving rain this evening. The last time I was here, the trig was deep in snow, a marked contrast.

From here, I returned to Thornthwaite Crag and down the shiny new path that leads to the col. To make a day of it, you’d best return over the Ill Bell ridge (route in reverse here – Ill Bell and High Street from Troutbeck), but I decided to descend as the rain turned horizontal in the wind and I didn’t fancy wasting time up here if it started to get dark. I’d lose some serious drinking time that way.

Instead, I set off right to find the High Street Roman road. There are earthworks which you need to follow which don’t lead to an obvious decent at first. However, you soon hit a clear path and this is generally easy and grassy all the way down. It has begun to erode badly in places however, with one bad muddy step to tackle, but takes you steadily down into the valley below and across to an easy track.

This track continues towards Town Head and then a lane into Troutbeck if you want a quick return, but a better route is to follow the track as far as NY425 064 where a well-kept barn marks where you need to cross to the far side of the valley. There’s a bridleway that starts off as a grassy path before widening into an easy farm track, past Long Green Head Farm and onwards until you can turn right into the caravan park, Limefitt Park, enjoy a pint in the public bar there, and on to the main road. There’s a permissive footpath through the fields to the right of the main road that leads to Troutbeck (via minor road at NY413 034 to the Mortal Man)

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Dave Roberts

Dave Roberts founded Walk Eryri in 2004, with the aim of providing routes that are off the beaten track. Walk Eryri is now part of Mud and Routes which continues to provide more off beat routes and walks in Snowdonia and beyond. Dave has been exploring the hills of Eryri for over thirty years, and is a qualified Mountain Leader.
Dave also established Walk up Snowdon, Walk up Scafell Pike and Walk up Ben Nevis just to mention a few.

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