Best of 2010 Part 6: Wansfell from Ambleside

the lower falls at Stockghyll

This was a nice short walk  from Ambleside up Wansfell via Stockghyll Force, which served a number of purposes apart from being a great ramble:

• It was a perfect "day off in between longer walks"

• It bagged us another Wainwright fell

• We only had half a day spare

I could think of a ton more reasons, the most obvious being "it was there begging to be climbed", so thats what we did. It also marked my first foray into Wainwright's Far Eastern Fells, so well worth checking out.

The walk started off in Ambleside town centre, heading up along the road leading to Stockghyll Force. The pictures of the falls were taken on another walk I did with Claire in the Autumn.

After missing the blindingly obvious path past the falls, crag rat Rainer and myself soon found ourselves at the bottom of Wansfell, and looking up it didn't seem to far.

looking up at Wansfell Pike

The walk up the fell was quite a slog, albeit a short one.  But that's where the Wainwright geek in us took over and we just stopped for a short while at Wansfell Pike.

the path from Wansfell Pike to Wansfell

Instead of following the tourist route to Troutbeck we headed north-eastwards, following the undulating wall over to the summit of Wansfell proper. We had some fantastic views from here over the Kirkstone Pass to Red Screes and the fells beyond

Wansfell summit

Despite the crowds that were on Wansfell Pike we had the summit of Wansfell to ourselves - as well as the natives of course as pictured here.

We picked another route back down which took us right to the shores of Lake Windermere, the best picnic spot of last Summer in my opinion.

Coniston fells in the distance over Lake Windermere