Claife Heights and the West Shore of Windermere (approx. 5¼ miles)

This walk is available to download as an e book in Kindle format from Amazon - take the route description with you on your mobile device.

Maps:	OS Explorer OL7 - SE Lakes.
Start:	SD 388 960 Harrowslack Car Park (National Trust).
Route:	Mostly along well-defined paths and tracks - though some may be muddy after rain - as can be seen from the images: it was very muddy on the day we photographed the route. The final section follows a tarmac road alongside the lake. There are some great views over Windermere (especially if you walk on a better day than we did) and the return route is along the lake shore.
Links to route files:	Ordnance Survey OS Maps online (may only available to OSMaps subscribers) or .gpx (exported from OSMaps - for many handheld devices).
More info:	Claife Viewing Station and Windermere West Shore - National Trust Harrowslack Car Park - GoLakes
Refreshments:	The Café in the Courtyard is close to the start and finish of the walk.

	We may have started the walk differently if we had been better organized! We left the car, walked back along the road to the Viewing Station, Café in the Courtyard and public toilets by the ferry landing. If we had put on our boots when we left the car, we would possibly have continued up from the Viewing Station to join this route part way along. However, looking at the contours on the map - our route follows a more gentle climb! We left the car park …
	… via a small wooden gate at the far left corner of the car park and turned right to follow a path …
	… leading uphill through woodland.
	At a junction of paths turn left, continuing to climb.
	The track levels off and leads through the gate pictured. A little further along the track the path from the Viewing Station joins from the left.
	Continue ahead to where the next gateway leads out of the woodland.
	Turn right at the junction of path pictured: the sign points to Latterbarrow and Hawkshead.
	The track passes a pond on the left (though I walked around the "wrong" side of this to avoid a very wet, muddy section of track). Go through the gate pictured to re-enter woodland.
	Where the path divides, take the right fork. The marker post was lying flat in a puddle when we passed.
	We passed through an area where the forest had been cleared …
	… before coming to another junction of paths. We continued ahead, following the sign for Belle Grange...
	... and continue ahead at the next junction of paths.
	On a better day, there would have been magnificent views over the lake - unfortunately all of the time we were walking along the Heights it was misty - at times we were walking in low cloud.
	The path starts to descend …
	… to meet a stony track. Turn right …
	… following the track downhill to …
	… meet the lakeside road at Belle Grange. Turn right again.
	Continue walking south alongside the lake.
	Some of the clouds lifted for us at this point - though still covering the peaks to the north of the lake.
	The road continues, passing other small car parks, until you arrive back at Harrowslack.

Other walks near here:

All text and images ©Graham Dean, March, 2017.

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