Baystones
Walk date – 5th June 2026
Distance – 4.5 miles
Weather – overcast with a cool breeze, occasional sun
After a very unsettled week of weather, overcast skies, lots of rain and cool blustery winds, we managed to get out for a short afternoon walk today. Tuesday was OK but no much use to us as its J’s volunteering day, so we waited until today (Friday) when a more settled spell was forecast. We read recently that the Westmorland & Furness Council is hoping to have the Kirkstone Pass section of the A592 open before the school holidays begin in late July. Of course whether the road will be open by then is down to the weather and the workmen dealing with it. Anyway, we decided to take advantage of the present road closure, park up opposite the Kirkstone Inn and explore the area around Baystones, the summit of Wansfell, using the path from the Kirkstone end of the A592. We’ve walked over to Baystones from Wansfell Pike several times over the years, but we hadn’t walked this particular path up to it before so it would be a new experience for us. Long distance views were very misty and indistinct so there aren’t as many photos as usual.
Route
Car park (Kirkstone Inn) – A592 – Idle Hill – Baystones – A592 – car park (Kirkstone Inn)
We waited until late morning before driving over to Kirkstone as the more settled weather was supposed to turn up around lunchtime.. Having parked the car in the car park opposite the Kirkstone Inn we began walking down the traffic free A592. It was quite unusual not to be looking over one’s shoulder or peering around the next bend in case traffic was approaching but eventually we became accustomed to walking along the empty road. The only section which is closed to pedestrians and cyclists is the part where the workmen are actually repairing the landslip although even that section is avoidable. Our route map shows a path going off to the right on the Troutbeck side, marked by a line of red dashes, starting below the landslip section and emerging back on the A592 well above it. The above photo, of Wansfell, was taken as we walked down the A592 to the gated stile …..
….. which gives us access to the path across the fields. Apart from J, the stile, the wall and part of the A592 the shot also shows the mass of Wansfell. Its one of those stand alone fells overlooking the valleys of Troutbeck and Stock Ghyll and can be approached from either Ambleside or Troutbeck village. The sky looks ominous, the breeze is lively and on the cool side so we are both wearing jackets with mid-layers underneath them. I’ve even got my gloves on!
The walk across the flat field to the next stile, shown above, was mostly wet and spongy, although there were some drier sections. The conditions underfoot made it difficult to maintain any sort of rhythm and no sooner had you got good going over a dry patch then the next wet bit appeared. Although we’ve had a good amount of rain recently I suspect that this area retains its bogginess even after a dry spell.
The view back towards the stile as the path begins to climb up Idle Hill. On the skyline, L to R, are Red Screes, Broad End, part of Caudale Moor and a section of the fells above Woundale. Even with some patches of blue sky around there was so much heavy cloud around that the fells were covered by a patchwork of light and shade most of the time.
We could see the beacon on Thornthwaite Crag, on the left of the skyline, and the views of Froswick, Ill Bell and Yoke which followed on from it weren’t too bad either, despite the cloud filled sky. They even looked as though they had a glimmer of sun on them.
Another dappled skyline view, this time starting with Stony Cove Pike, on the left, which drops down to Threshthwaite Crag. On the right hand side is Thornthwaite Crag and its beacon. Below them in the dappled sunlight is the long arm of the hills and crags above Woundale.
We’ve reached the third stile crossing where the stiles became rather more elaborate. In addition to the steps inserted into the wall there was a ‘grab post’ with deer fencing attached and …..
….. on the other side was a gate and fence arrangement also with deer fencing The green notice on the fence to the left asked walkers to close the gate, presumably to prevent any deer using the stile as a jumping off point.
We plodded on uphill to a fourth stile and slightly less elaborate than the previous one. This was the last one we had to climb as by now we were almost on Baystones. We followed the path around from the stile, climbed a few humps and bumps and from the last of these we headed over to Baystones where we had seen three other walkers who were already on the summit.
From one of the humps and bumps I took a shot of the very indistinct Coniston fells beyond Ambleside …..
….. followed by, from another one of the humps and bumps, a shot of the skyline on the opposite side of the Coniston fells. A very murky view of all the fells between Pike O’Blisco and Great End, you probably know what they are by now.
Over on the far right of the skyline in this shot is the little ‘pimple’ of Sergeant Man, where we had our last walk, backed by High Raise.
Looking from Baystones summit cairn, where it became even breezier, towards Wansfell Pike and Windermere. We didn’t go over to Wansfell Pike today though, we’ve been several times before and the long distance views weren’t great for photography either.
We could see Sour Howes and Sallows reasonably clearly though so I took a shot of them before we moved on, it was too draughty to linger.
We dropped down from Baystones summit area for a view of Dod Hill. It sits below the long slope between Sour Howes and Yoke and looked like an interesting top to visit on a better day than we had today. Despite looking carefully we couldn’t see any gates/stiles in its surrounding walls so we decided to put a visit to Dod Hill on the ‘pending list’ for another time.
The view back up to Baystones summit area where a family of three were taking a snack break just below it. These were the three people we had seen already on the summit as we approached it and we exchanged greetings with them on both occasions.
We decided to use the path beside the wall as our descent route and from it I took this shot. Just above the tarn are the Langdale Pikes although it will need a zoom in to identify them as they have merged into the fells behind them.
The path alongside the wall is grassy and is clear to see so it is obviously used by walkers even though it might only be infrequently. It does however save walkers from the boredom of using the same return path as was used on the outward leg. As can be seen it doesn’t save walkers from …..
….. experiencing the roller coaster nature of the fell side where, at the top of one of the ‘ups’ I took this shot looking back towards Wansfell Pike.
Back at the fourth stile we crossed on our outward leg where we turned off to our left (right as you look at the photo) for the climb up to Baystones summit. There is a small white notice propped up against the wall on this side of the stile which reads …..
….. which we had noticed on our outward leg and which we remembered to use on our return leg.
Here’s what the notice looks like ‘in situ” with Red Screes in the background.
Well on our way back down at this point, the sky is still full of cloud and although some fells have been in sunlight it has never lasted long or landed on us.
Further along a gap in the cloud allowed sunlight to peer through and light up the old slate quarry on The Struggle side of Red Screes ….
….. and the sunny spell even extended along the slopes of Red Screes between Ambleside and the summit.
We suddenly felt the sun’s warmth enveloping us as we approached the step stile, a sunny spell which extended as far as Broad Crag just ahead of us. We climbed over the stile and then I took a look back …..
….. where, as usual, the end of our walk coincided with the arrival of blue skies and sunshine. Typical! So much for the forecast saying the better weather would appear around lunchtime.
Still in the sunshine we made our way across the squishy lowland to the …..
….. stile in the wall beside the A592. After the wet and mushy walk across it was something of a relief to stand on the hard tarmac in the full knowledge that no water was about to creep up to your ankles unless you did something about it quickly.
We sat on the wall for five minutes just to enjoy the sunshine, the view and the empty road then we headed back up the A592 and the car park.
From the A592 a view of Red Screes together with just the top of ‘The Struggle’ road (bottom right corner) where it joins with the unrestricted part of the Kirkstone Pass before dropping down to Brothers Water and Patterdale. The two roads converge just below the Kirkstone Inn which we had already decided to call in and have a cup of coffee. After ordering the coffees the girl behind the bar held out a card machine for J to pay. When told that he would pay by cash she informed us that the pub didn’t usually accept cash. When J asked her ‘Why not, what’s wrong with cash?’ a man appeared behind the bar and said, rather aggressively I thought, that it was because the pub was remote and they might get robbed. Now, there has been some sort of an inn at this spot since the 1400’s, and there is a sign outside that proudly boasts the fact. As far as I know none of the previous landlords of the ‘remote’ inn have ever reported being robbed of their takings or anything else, and as for being ‘remote’ both Ambleside and Patterdale are only a couple of miles away so that hardly counts as ‘remote’. I thought it was a spurious excuse for not accepting cash but rather than lose our custom they accepted cash in the end. When the coffees arrived my black coffee was only half full, J’s was half full of milky foam sitting on top of milky coffee and neither his nor mine were particularly hot. “I won’t be coming in here again,” said J as we walked across the road to the car.