Wasdale

Getting there and parking

Without a car: The nearest stations as the crow flies are Ravenglass (15 km away) and Drigg (15 km away). The bus map has every stop we hold.

Wasdale is a long way round from everywhere. There is one road in, from the A595 on the coast by Gosforth or Santon Bridge, past Nether Wasdale and along the lake shore to Wasdale Head, and no road out over the fells. From Keswick or Ambleside it is over an hour's drive by Cockermouth or by the passes. On a fine weekend the National Trust car park at Wasdale Head fills before ten, and once it and Lake Head have, the lakeshore road is the only alternative, which is a poor one.

In summer there is a bus. The Wasdale Explorer runs from Ravenglass on the Cumbrian Coast railway up the valley to Wasdale Head on weekends and bank holiday Mondays, in season only, and the National Park's own survey of its passengers found that most of them had a car available that day and took the bus instead. It reaches Wasdale Head in time for a full day on the fell and leaves it in the early evening; the days it runs and the times are on the bus map, and the operator's page carries the current timetable.

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

What to see

• Wast Water — three miles long, 79 metres deep, England's deepest lake, with the Screes dropping 600 metres into it on the far shore. The view up the lake to Great Gable is the National Park's emblem.
• Wasdale Head — the hamlet at the top: the inn, the packhorse bridge behind it, the drystone walls that are among the thickest in the country because there was nowhere else to put the stones.
• St Olaf's church — in the fields below the inn, among yews, one of the smallest churches in England, with the climbers' graves in its yard.
• Ritson's Force — the waterfall in the gorge behind the inn, named for Will Ritson, its first landlord and the original World's Biggest Liar.
• The Screes — the scree slopes of Illgill Head and Whin Rigg falling into the lake, best seen from the lakeshore road and walked along from Nether Wasdale.
• Nether Wasdale — the green and the two inns at the foot of the valley, the quiet end.
• The Emerald Pool — the turquoise pool under two small falls on Lingmell Beck, about half an hour's walk up the beck from Wasdale Head, known online as the Emerald or Fairy Pool and busy on a hot day. Cold-water care applies as it does everywhere here: it is fell water, and there is nobody to pull you out.

Where to stay

Beds in Wasdale are few and they go early. This is what is here, from the top down:

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 Wasdale Head Inn at the top and the Strands Inn and Screes Inn at Nether Wasdale are the valley's pubs. There is no shop anywhere in the valley; the nearest is at Gosforth, and the last petrol before Wasdale is a page of its own for a reason.

The walks

Wasdale Head is the start of the biggest days on this site. Scafell Pike by Lingmell is the direct way up England's highest mountain; Great Gable and Kirk Fell takes the two that stand over the inn; the Mosedale Horseshoe goes round Pillar, Scoat Fell, Steeple and Red Pike; and the very long day out links Yewbarrow to the Mosedale tops. From the foot of the lake, Whin Rigg, Illgill Head and the Screes walks the top of the Screes from Nether Wasdale, Middle Fell, Haycock, Seatallan and Buckbarrow takes the quiet fells on the north side from Greendale, and the lake shore to the Screes view is the walk for a day when the tops are in cloud. The full list is below, with the fells each one climbs.