A walk to Haystacks

This walk takes you into the heart of the Lakeland hills. After crossing Warnscale Bottom and ascending the old packhorse route between Buttermere and Wasdale, known as Scarth Gap, a partly pitched path takes you up to the two cairned serrated craggy summit of Haystacks. The route continues past two lovely tarns set in a rocky wilderness. The return descent is by a path once used by miners to bring down slate to the valley bottom.

1. From the car park, turn left and, in a few steps, take the signposted bridleway on the left just past Gatesgarth Cottages to walk beside the beck. Continue along the path, parallel with Buttermere, across the valley bottom to cross Peggy’s bridge. Beyond, go through a gate and turn right for a short way and then bear sharp left to climb a stony rising path beside a small plantation. Continue on up the long pitched path up Scarth Gap Pass to reach Scarth Gap.
2. At the large cairn on the brow of the Pass, look for the partly pitched rocky path that climbs up, left, towards the western face of Haystacks. Near the top, scramble up some small crags to the summit, with a cairn at either end of a small ridge and a small nameless tarn, where you will want to pause.
   
   
3. Continue over the delightful top, heather-clad and with outcrops, to reach Innominate Tarn, Alfred Wainwright’s favourite and where his ashes were scattered. Another pause here might reveal reflections of Great Gable and Pillar Rock. Go on along a ‘passage’ between rocks to cross the outflow from Blackbeck Tarn. Follow the cairned path as it takes you right of Green Crag. Once beyond a path, going off right, look for a path descending left.
4. Take the steepish cairned way. Go past old buildings of the disused Green Crag quarry. Here slate was ‘mined’ and as it was deeply embedded these workings were known as ‘closehead’ workings, where slaters toiled by candlelight and in difficult conditions. Then look, left, for a breach in the skyline through which descends Black Beck, crossed earlier. Follow the old quarry path as it descends in a series of zig-zags below the forbidding north face of Haystacks.
5. Just after a waterfall the path takes a sharp turn, left, and goes down to a footbridge over the Warnscale Beck. Carry on along the often wet trod to join the main track descending more sedately from the slopes above and bear left along it for 1.4km to return to the road and then left to car park.
   

Practicals

• Start/finish: Small pay-and-display car park opposite Gatesgarth Farm at east end of Buttermere, grid ref 195149
• Map: OS Explorer OL4
• Distance: 5km/3 miles
• Time: 2-3 hours
• Height gain: 495m/1635ft
• Terrain: Paths pitched for most of Scarth Gap Pass and partly for ascent of Haystacks. Some scrambling towards summit.
• Refreshments: The Fish, the Bridge Hotel and a good walkers café, all at Buttermere village
• Public toilets: Behind The Fish, Buttermere
• Public transport: Traveline for info 0871 200 22 33

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For more photos, see "A walk to Haystacks" on Flickr.

If you enjoyed this blog post, find more walks by Mary Welsh either by clicking through to take a look at A list of walks in the Lake District or use the search bar in the top left hand of your screen.

Please read Mary Welsh's Golden Rules for good, safe walking before setting out.