Walk Summary
Fairly easy route with good views over Loughrigg Tarn to Coniston and the Langdales. Visit High Close Arboretum with its 41.5 metre high Coastal Redwood. Pleasant road walking back alongside the River Rothay to Ambleside.
Date: 08/12/2021
Length: 8.13 miles
Height Gain: 296 m
Terrain: Boggy paths, grass paths, stony paths, woodland, trails, lightly used roads
Navigation: Good, Good signage.
Start: Rydal Road Car Park, Ambleside
Route: Ambleside, Loughrigg Tarn, High Close Arboretum, Little Loughrigg, Skelwith Bridge, Skelwith Fold, Clappersgate.
Map: OL7 The English Lakes South Eastern Area
Weather: Grey, drizzly
Walkers: Nun, Mo and Calse
Gallery
The Google Gallery may have more photos (it will be displayed in a new Tab)
Ambleside Church Yard
Captain's Log
Arwen And Barra
Storm Barra hit the Lake District yesterday. The BBC online weather forecast gave around an 80% chance of rain for Ambleside throughout the day. Even so, we thought it was still worth chancing it, so we set off on a low level walk.
In Rothay Park contractors were still sawing up the fallen trees and so we decided to go over the Rothay Bridge footbridge instead. We then found that the path through the churchyard was blocked by a fallen tree. We ended up following the road around the pitch-and-putt. Our walk along Under Loughrigg Lane was accompanied by the sounds of chainsaws. The River Rothay was very high, obviously due to the Storm Barra rain that came down yesterday.
Loughrigg Tarn
We made up our way past Miller Brow. The views opened up and we could see the high peaks were covered in snow. The tops were also covered in cloud. At Loughrigg Tarn we sat on a bench and admired the view. As we drank coffee a couple with a large hairy dog walked past us. The man held the dog's collar saying that the dog might take an interest in our snap. Once they were gone, I wondered about the type of dog. 'It's a Labradoodle', Calse said. This sounded a bit dubious to me, and I told her I thought it was a wind-up. She was adamant that it was true. I Googled it after the walk and sure enough it was a Labradoodle. It's a cross between a Labrador Retriever and a Miniature or Standard Poodle. I apologised to Calse, of course.
Loughrigg Tarn
High Close Coastal Redwood
Coastal Redwood
After Loughrigg Tarn we headed off into the National Trust's High Close Arboretum. It contains some trails that make very pleasant woodland walking. Some of the trees have information plaques. The trail delivered us to a massive tree. Looking at its plaque it said it was a 41.5 metre tall Coastal Redwood. It is the tallest living species of tree on Earth. It looked massive; we couldn't see the top. The tallest Coastal Redwood recorded is 115.85 metres and so this Lakeland tree is a minnow in comparison. I found it hard to believe that a tree could be around three times bigger than the one we were looking at. We did a bit of tree hugging but it didn't really do much for me. The bark seemed to have a fibrous texture to it. When we exited the woods we looked back and saw that the Coastal Redwood towered over everything else. An impressive find for the day.
Skelwith Bridge
We descended to Skelwith Bridge through the cabin park at Neaum Crag. One of the wood cabins was up for sale and we all had a guess at its selling price. We looked it up when we got back from the walk. We all had grossly underestimated the price; it was a cool £220,000. And that was without the annual site fees. We decided not to pool our resources to buy one.
We crossed Skelwith Bridge and headed off up the single track road to Skelwith Fold. There only seems to be a few houses at the village. It was only when I looked at the Google Map of the place, I saw that there is a huge caravan park there. It is well covered by the trees. We continued down Bog Lane. The River Brathay had overflowed and so the name Bog Lane is probably apt. Some power contractors were in the area and a cottage had a portable generator throbbing beside it. A tree had fallen across the river at Clappersgate but given the current volume of flow it would have been a brave person to cross it.
As we got back to Ambleside we could see a huge black cloud approaching from the west. We'd only had a sprinkle of rain at Loughrigg Tarn. Nothing like the 80% chance that the BBC forecast. I guess we'd been lucky.
Langdales