Fleetwith Pike

Comments  (1)

• 
  JeremyBAGreen Jul 22, 2020

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  Information

  Easy to follow

  Scenery

  Moderate

  An absolutely great walk. Starts with an easy steady climb and reaches a series of good stopping points with increasingly spectacular views over Buttermere, Crummock Water and beyond. We went on a clear day and could easily see across the Solway Firth into Scotland. A final section up to the peak of Haystacks is a bit rocky but not hard or long. After reaching the top of Haystacks, the walk descends into a beautiful quiet and remote bowl with a small tarn in it. The path then goes down before curving up across the saddle between Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike, with a direct view down onto the walk's starting-point far below in the valley. Going past another tarn, and over a brook with waterfalls, you see up ahead of you the grey-green of some slate mining and a small building (bothy). Turing left after that there is a steady rising slope through an expanse of heather (easy to lose the path here) before finally reaching the top of Fleetwith Pike. The view is breathtaking. The path then descends directly down the ridge very steeply - it feels like one is about to walk off the end of the ridge - with nearly sheer drops on both sides. It is not for the fainthearded! At times, looking ahead, the path just seems to disappear but as one approaches the "end" the path reappears, dipping right or left just below. This is slow going as the sometimes rocky and tightly zigzagging path needs care and handholds on the rocks. The steep section is long (feels like about two-thirds of the descent) before flattening out just a little. After the path becomes grassy and reaches a final headland, it hairpins to the right and then zigzags gently down to the road and the starting point. (If you want to avoid the very steep descent, you could choose, or retrace your steps from the top of Fleetwith Pike to, one of the Haystacks walks.

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