Borrowdale

Getting there and parking

Without a car: The nearest stations as the crow flies are Windermere (23 km away) and Drigg (24 km away); the 78 and the 77 stop at Rosthwaite, opposite Longthwaite road end, 0.6 km from here; the last bus back is 20:03 towards Keswick and 18:44 towards Keswick Bus Stn 3 Monday to Friday (Saturday and Sunday differ), signed off against the operator’s timetable on 7 September. The bus map has every stop we hold.

The valley has one road, the B5289 from Keswick, and it is single-lane in places past Grange. On a fine weekend the car parks at Rosthwaite and Seatoller fill, and once they have there is nowhere else: the verges are narrow and the road has to stay clear for the bus and the farm traffic.

The answer is the 78 Borrowdale bus. It runs from Keswick bus station up the valley to Seatoller all year, with the 77/77A Honister Rambler adding a loop over Honister to Buttermere and back in season. Every walk in this guide starts within a few minutes of a stop. The stops and the fells each one serves are on the bus map and the fells by bus collection, with times from the operator's own data; every fell and route page in the valley carries its own bus line too.

If you do drive, the car parks nearest the middle of the valley are listed below, with what they charge and who runs them. The parking map shows every option in the valley on one map.

What the weather does

Borrowdale is wet because the fells at its head are the first high ground the Atlantic weather meets. Seathwaite records about 3,500 mm a year, roughly five times London. That does not mean it rains every day; it means that when the forecast says rain, it will be real rain, and the becks will rise fast. The conditions page scores every fell around the valley for today and tomorrow, and the weather page carries the sixteen-day outlook for the Borrowdale region.

What to see

• The Borrowdale rainforest — the Atlantic oakwoods at Johnny Wood by Seatoller and along the river below Rosthwaite are a National Nature Reserve and among the best temperate rainforest in England. Moss, ferns, lichen and the river: the walk for a wet day.
• The Bowder Stone — a house-sized boulder that fell from the fellside above the Jaws of Borrowdale, with a ladder to its top. A ten-minute walk from the car park south of Grange.
• Castle Crag — the smallest Wainwright, a rocky knoll in the throat of the valley with the view in the photograph at the top of this page. An hour and a half from Rosthwaite or Grange.
• Grange bridge — the double-arched stone bridge over the Derwent at Grange, the most photographed thing in the valley.
• Lodore Falls — the waterfall below Watendlath, best after rain, which is most of the time.
• Watendlath — the hamlet and tarn up the side road from the Lodore end, with the packhorse bridge.
• Seathwaite — the wettest hamlet in England, a mile up the side valley from Seatoller, and the start of the Scafell Pike paths.

Where to stay

The valley has more beds than its size suggests, and they book out. This is what is here, from the Keswick end up:

Each is a business named for the reader's convenience, not a recommendation; check its own site for what it costs and whether it has room.

Pubs and food

The Scafell Hotel's Riverside Bar and the Royal Oak in Rosthwaite, the Langstrath in Stonethwaite and the Yew Tree in Seatoller are the valley's pubs, all of them used to wet boots. There is a small shop and a café at Rosthwaite and a café at Grange. For anything more, it is Keswick.

The walks

Borrowdale is the start of more of this site's routes than any other valley. The big days are from the head — Scafell Pike by the Corridor Route, Great Gable from Seathwaite, Glaramara from Seatoller — and the shorter ones from the middle: Castle Crag, Catbells from Grange, the river path between the villages, and the rainforest at Johnny Wood. The routes hub filters to walks that start here; the box below lists the fells nearest this point with a line about each.