Ambleside to Wansfell and Wansfell pike

About trip

1. The walk starts outside the Tourist Information centre at the top of the town centre outside which you will find a stone pillar on a three stepped octagonal base with 1651 carved into the top of it. Head south east following the one way system and as the road swings around to the right continue forward down a narrow lane signposted "toilets".

As you reach the toilets a sign on the wall in front of you declares "To the Waterfalls", pointing left, and a sign on the wall to your left says "Stockghyll" and "Wansfell Pike". Bear left to follow the lane up the hill and then round to the right. Stockghyll is now on your left.

In 500m (550 yards) bear left for the entrance to Stockghyll Woods.

2.Follow the rough path through the woods. Bear right, keeping the beck on your left, and follow the red arrow marker posts. There are a few precarious viewing places protected by fencing. Nearing the top, before the bridge, bear right at the picnic bench and sign to the revolving gate.

Go through the gate and out onto the road. Turn left and carry on up the hill. Cross the cattle grid.

In 250m (275 yards) climb up the stone steps on your right to the stile, with dog gate, it is signposted "Footpath to Troutbeck via Wansfell Pike". Follow the path beyond up beside the beck to the gate at the top of the field. Go through and bear left to the bottom of the stone pitch path climbing the fellside.

3. Go through the gate and bear left onto the stone pitched path. It zigzags steeply at times up the bracken covered hillside.

Cross the beck by the wooden footbridge.

Once the few trees are left behind the views are unimpeded across Ambleside to the Coniston fells, the Langdale Pikes, and closer in is much of the Fairfield Horseshoe.

4. Continue following the stone pitched path, go through the gap in the wall, to the large cairn at the junction below the Pike.

Bear left to continue on the path.

Reaching what appears to the rocky top go through the gate in the fence to the actual top of Wansfell Pike. There is no cairn here.

5. To continue to Wansfell, marked as Baystones on the OS maps, bear left from the gate and follow a narrow path with the wall to your left.

Continue along the the undulating ridge heading north-east.

Reaching the cross wall climb the stone step stile.

In a further 250m (275 yards) the ridge veers slightly more northerly, and shortly after the path gradually bears away, right, from the wall to approach the small cairn of Baystones, or Wainwright's Wansfell.

(If you're a bagger then Birkett's Wansfell, which we didn't visit, is to the north east of you on the other side of the wall.)

6. Return to the Pike by retracing your steps back to the wall and following it along the ridge, keeping it now on your right.

Reaching the gate go back through and bear right to locate the top of the path descending all the way back down to the stile and Stockghyll Lane.

Turn left and continue back into Ambleside.