Lake District: Place Fell & Ullswater

Date: Friday 18^th April 2014

Route: Place Fell and Ullswater Circular from Patterdale

Distance: 8.5 miles

For our last full day walk in the Lakes, we chose to move away from Derwent Water, which had dominated the week’s walking and tried a more challenging walk we hadn’t done before, overlooking the equally lovely Ullswater for most of the route.

Like the majority of our walks this week, this route is detailed in the Pathfinder Lake District Walks Guide, which quotes the final section, above the lake shore, as having been described as “the loveliest walk in the Lake District.” Wisely, the authors don’t comment on whether they agree with this or not, as there must be lots of suitable candidates for this description!

Once you have left the car park at Patterdale (get there early!) and Side Farm behind, the climb begins. Luckily the vast majority of sustained uphill walking on this walk comes right at the beginning and is never too dauntingly steep. It doesn’t take long until the snowy, sharp ridges of Helvellyn and the blue waters of Brothers Water come into view in different directions, then there is a bit more of a climb and scramble to Round How and onward and upward to the summit of Place Fell, with great views over the hillsides in multiple directions and down across Ullswater.

The path – and essentially there is only really one path, so it’s very difficult to go astray – continues down from the summit of Place Fell across a few grassy hilltops before descending steeply towards the hamlet of Sandwick (whose few inhabitants seem to be missing out on an ice-cream selling opportunity!).

From Sandwick the route takes the popular “one of the most beautiful paths in the Lake District” path back to Patterdale, above and alongside Ullswater, with lots of outstanding views and a couple of pretty bays. This path definitely deserves the praise – but it does still have a few ups and downs, so it’s best not to expect an easy, flat section (thankfully that comes when the path emerges at Side Farm again).

An absolutely beautiful walk that merits its challenging tag, but is absolutely worth the effort.