Scafell Pike, England

With Little Dan and Dougal both in Europe and in and out of our flat in London, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to head off on a road trip to the Lake District and hike Scafell Pike, the tallest mountain in England. Completing this would also mean I’ve done the three tallest peaks in the UK. So we picked a weekend in July and jumped on the train to Manchester where we hired a car and spent a long weekend hiking.

We arrived into Windermere on Friday evening to our cute little cottage accommodation for the weekend before heading out for a pub dinner and then an early night in preparation for hiking Scafell Pike the next morning. We were up early on the Saturday and off to the trailhead at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. 

An 8:20am start, 6hrs, 18.9km and 1,350m of ascent got us to the top of Scafell Pike (978m) and back in a reasonable half day of hiking, The views up through the valley were stunning, with the weather cloudy but dry for us the whole day. We did an anticlockwise route up the Ravenber Way, only losing the trail in the foggy a couple of times. We picked up the pace and ran some of the more winding downwards path on the way back to the car which is always exhilarating.  

The Sunday had Dan a bit under the weather so we left him in bed to recover while Dougal and I headed out for a second hike up to the top of another nearby peak called Helvellyn (949m). We again drove to the trailhead, this time in a town called Glenridding and to another anticlockwise route up to the peak and then back down Ambleside Ale Trail. 5hrs, 19.2km and 975m ascent was another day well spent.

We spent the Monday exploring Manchester before catching a late train back to London.