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4.75 km · ~179 m ascent · ~1–1.5 h · loop · 1 summit

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Hard steepnessLoopPlanned

Gummer's How & Birch Fell

4.75 km
Distance
~1–1.5 h
Typical time
~179 m
Ascent
1
Summit
Download GPX →Planned route · not yet walked

Key facts

Distance 4.75 km
Ascent ~179 m
Descent ~179 m
Time ~1–1.5 h
Type Loop
Start Gummer's How Car Park
The short pull above the foot of Windermere — 4.8 km and 179 m, one of the shortest walks here. Easy for length and exposure, and about an hour and a quarter at a steady pace.
✎️ Planned route — drawn but not personally walked or checked yet. A planned line is a suggestion, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate independently and carry a map & compass. How to use this guide.

🧭 The automated detail on this page — distance, climb, pacing and a first-pass difficulty read — is live. Hand-written field notes are being added.

Difficulty profile

LengthEasy4.75 km — a short outing.
SteepnessHardSteepest sustained pull about 29% around the 0.7 km mark.
TerrainModerateMostly good mountain path — ~28% pathless. desk assessment — not field-verified
NavigationHardCare needed in cloud — 12 path junctions near the line. desk assessment — not field-verified
ExposureNot assessedExposure (drops, scrambling, how bad a slip would be) can’t be judged from gradient data alone, so we don’t guess. A rating appears once the route is editorially assessed or walked.

Five independent axes, not one score. “Desk” ratings come from maps and guidebooks, not yet walked — treat them as a guide, not a survey.

Daylight & turnaround

Daylight is short from October to February — check today’s sunrise and sunset before you set off, and carry a head-torch and spare batteries. On short days, decide your turn-back time before you start.

Why this matters: 78% of Mountain Rescue call-outs come after midday — the day runs out on the way home, not on the way up. See also walking in bad weather and today’s conditions.

OpenTopoMap
Elevation profile, shaded by steepness
Elevation profile Rises from about 207 m to 313 m over 4.8 km, with the summits marked in order. The area beneath is shaded by sustained steepness over a 250 m window, in the same four bands as the route’s steepness rating: Easy under 15%, Moderate 15 to 25%, Hard 25 to 35%, Severe above 35%. 313 m 207 m 0 km 4.8 km 1

1 Gummer's How

Easy 85%Moderate 10%Hard 5%Severe

~179 m
Total ascent
313 m
High point
207 m
Start height

Free mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right).

This walk covers about 4.75 km with around 179 m of ascent, taking in 1 summit. The map above shows the line; the elevation profile and stage notes are below.

Access & barriers

Can a dog, a buggy or dodgy knees manage this route? A quick read from the gates and stiles mapped along the way.

Dog
Mostly gates
Buggy
Not buggy-able
Knees
Gentle descent
  • Dog: A stile of unmapped type — a dog may need lifting over.
  • Buggy: Stiles or rough going on the route.
  • Knees: No sustained steep descent — kind on the knees.

On the line: 3 gates · 2 kissing gates · 1 stile (type unmapped)

These are mapped barriers, from OpenStreetMap — coverage in the Lakes is good but not guaranteed complete. Spotted a stile or gate we’ve missed? Tell us and we’ll fix it. Barrier data as of 2026-08-08. Access data © OpenStreetMap contributors (via Overpass).

Pacing

SummitCumulativeAscentTime (fast–steady)
1Gummer's How1.0 km111 m0:23–0:31
Finish4.8 km179 m1:15–1:40

Naismith-based estimate — a fast/steady range. Your pace will vary. These use Naismith’s textbook constants (5 km/h, 600 m of ascent an hour). Measured against a pace fitted to 41 recorded Lakeland walks they run about 8% slow, and we have left them that way deliberately: a slow estimate strands nobody.

The walk, stage by stage

  1. 1

    Start → Gummer's How (1.0 km, 111 m)

    Climb of about 111 m over 1.0 km (around 11% average).

  2. Gummer's How → Finish (3.8 km, 68 m)

    Climb of about 68 m over 3.8 km (around 2% average).

Stage-by-stage field notes coming soon.

Summits bagged (1)

  1. 1Gummer's How321 mSouth Lakeland · Outlying Fell, Birkett, Synge, Marilyn

Getting there & parking

Gummer's How car park (free) — 0.0 km from the start (straight line)
Short, family-grade climb of Gummer's How above Windermere's foot.
Directions Something changed here?
Staveley Fell, north-west car park (paid) — 1.1 km from the start (straight line)
Nearest fells: Staveley Fell (1.2 km), Gummer's How (1.6 km), Finsthwaite Heights (2.0 km). Paid parking (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Staveley Fell car park (paid) — 1.1 km from the start (straight line)
Nearest fells: Staveley Fell (1.1 km), Gummer's How (1.7 km). Paid parking (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Birch Fell car park — 1.3 km from the start (straight line)
Nearest fells: Birch Fell (0.8 km), Gummer's How (0.9 km), Raven's Barrow (Cartmel Fell) (1.5 km). Fee not verified — check signage on arrival.
Directions Something changed here?
Staveley Fell, west car park (paid) — 1.4 km from the start (straight line)
Nearest fells: Staveley Fell (1.0 km). Paid parking (OSM-tagged). Grass surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?

Positions are approximate. Lakeland car parks fill before 9am on fine weekends.

Vehicles are left entirely at their owner’s risk. We list places people park; we cannot vouch for any of them. Judge it on the day: take valuables with you, leave nothing on show, and if a spot feels wrong when you get there, park somewhere else.

Every option near this start, on the parking map →

💧 No mapped drinking water or shelter on this route — that doesn’t mean there is none, and never drink untreated from a beck. (Facilities data © OpenStreetMap contributors.)

Buses

The 6 stops at Fell Foot, at Gummers How. From there it is 1.2 km and 193 m of ascent to this start — a walk in before the walk. Last bus: Monday to Friday 23:36 towards Ulverston (6); Saturday 23:36 towards Ulverston (6); Sunday 23:38 towards Ulverston (6). Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.

The 6 passes this route at 0.0 km (Fell Foot, opposite Country Park, 830 m off the line).

Stagecoach 6
Barrow-in-Furness – Dalton – Ulverston – Haverthwaite – Newby Bridge – Bowness – Windermere (some journeys on to Kendal)
Catch it from: Windermere · Barrow-in-Furness
Year-round, seven days, roughly hourly Monday to Saturday: the Furness peninsula's way into the Lakes without a car, and the bus for Gummer's How (alight at the Gummers How turn above Newby Bridge). Registered by Stagecoach as one service from Barrow through Ulverston to Windermere and Kendal; part of the council's bus improvement funding, which the National Park names in its 2025 transport review.

Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com or Traveline before travelling.

If the parking is full

There is no real plan B here. Every place we know beside this route serves the same walks and sits close together, so if one is full the others usually are too. Worth starting early, or having a different walk in mind before you set off.

  • Gummer's How car park (free)
  • Birch Fell car park

Worked out from the parking we hold within walking reach of this route and the other walks each place serves — two places that serve the same walks fill for the same reasons. We are not saying whether anywhere has spaces today, and we never will: this is what exists, not what is free.

Safety & conditions

Check live conditions in the “From the fells” panel, on MWIS and the Met Office mountain forecast before you set off.

Make it easier or harder

Easier and harder options coming soon.

Download

Download GPX

GPX track for your GPS or phone.