The Lakeland Passes: Hardknott, Honister and Kirkstone in Three Nights

Editor's note

Eskdale National Trust Campsite stands at Boot in the valley bottom, one night, with the day's ground three or four kilometres off. The drive in is fifteen kilometres and under twenty minutes, so the afternoon stays whole. Above the valley the Romans built Mediobogdum on the shoulder of Hardknott: its walls, a bath house with a rare circular sweating room, and a parade ground reckoned the finest surviving in England. Down at the coast, Ravenglass is the only coastal village in the national park and holds the Roman bath house called Walls Castle, with the fifteen-inch-gauge railway running seven miles up to Dalegarth and Muncaster Castle in its woods above the estuary. The Ravenglass day is spring to autumn.

Editor's note

Chapel House Farm sits in Borrowdale outside Keswick, one night, about eight kilometres from the day's ground. The leg from Eskdale is fifty-five kilometres and an hour. The B5289 crosses Honister Pass at 356m between Seatoller in Borrowdale and Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere, with gradients of up to one in four and a working slate mine at the summit that takes visitors underground. Buttermere is a small lake ringed by fells with a level path all the way round, about four and a half miles, and it passes through a rock tunnel under Hassness. Pass and circuit are a year-round outing.

Editor's note

Sykeside Camping Park is at Brothers Water in Hartsop, one night, a kilometre and a half from the day's ground and sixty-seven kilometres from Borrowdale, just under the hour. The A592 crosses Kirkstone at 454m, the highest pass in the Lake District with a road over it; the Kirkstone Pass Inn stands near the summit, and the steep climb up from Ambleside that joins it there is called The Struggle. From the top the view drops north into Patterdale. Below that, Ullswater runs seven miles: take the Steamer from Glenridding to Howtown, walk the shore path back, and go up to Aira Force, where the beck falls 20m into a wooded ravine. Daffodils line that shore in spring.