Troutbeck Tongue
Walk date – 29th April 2026
Distance – 7.75 miles
Weather – sunny and dry with a blustery and chilly easterly breeze
We took advantage of the dry and sunny weather again but, having taken note of the forecast for a cool and gusty east wind to predominate today, we decided on a low level walk for today’s outing. We opted for Troutbeck Tongue knowing that the Kirkstone Pass was closed but that access to Troutbeck was possible via The Struggle road down to Ambleside, and that was the route we took. The weather remained sunny and dry but the persistent chilly breeze was irritating and became even stronger as we walked across the Troutbeck Tongue ridge.
Route
Troutbeck – Limefitt Holiday Park – fellside path – Hagg Gill crossing near the barn – Troutbeck Tongue – Hagg Gill crossing below Park farm – Ing Bridge – Ing Lane – path to field crossing – Troutbeck
Parking in Troutbeck was not a problem today and all the usual spaces were available thanks to the road closure. We walked up the hill to the Limefitt Holdiay Park and then cut through it to the path in the photo above. Its not the main path along the Troutbeck valley but we joined that just a little further along. As the holiday park is on private land we were ready to ask if we could cut through but there was no-one around to speak to.
Out onto the higher and level path above the valley now and looking over the valley towards The Mortal Man pub, the white building on the left of the shot, Dod Hill and Baystones. There isn’t a cloud in the sky but we saw numerous ‘spray’ planes criss-crossing the sky trying to create some.
Troutbeck Tongue across the middle with Caudale Moor and Stony Cove Pike to the left with Thornthwaite Crag and the fells of the western section of the Kentmere Horseshoe on the right. We had hoped that the great bulk of those fells would act as a windbreak today but it didn’t work out like that. The wind seemed to blow wherever it wanted to today.
Looking in the direction of Wansfell with a small section of one of the ‘spray’ trails in the upper left hand corner of the shot. I did try to avoid them but there were so many it was difficult to steer clear of them.
The buildings below are part of the farm at Long Green Head, I think.
The view up to Yoke as we cross one of the many gills which make their way down its west facing slopes. Didn’t see anyone along the entire ridge while we were out and, despite the sunshine, I’d bet it was pretty cold up there today,
Making our way up to an old barn and in front of us is another one of Yoke’s many gills.
The white patch more or less in the centre of the shot is an indication of where the Kirkstone Pass landslip occurred. Lots of activity going on up there at the moment so the Pass is probably likely to be opened before the holiday season really gets under way. The Struggle road down to Ambleside is OK for local residents to use but not for the amount of traffic generated by holiday visitors.
A look over to Troutbeck Tongue as we passed by on the opposite path.
Still heading up the valley with the ‘cart track’ path visible on the opposite side. We’ll cross over to it eventually.
One of many patches of bluebells on the slopes of Troutbeck Tongue.
A view of the bridge crossing Hagg beck which we didn’t use today as there’s another crossing by an old barn a little further along …..
….. which we eventually reached and crossed over after waiting until a cyclist had done so and gone on his way. With a zoom in it might be possible to get a head and shoulders view of him just behind the wall, he was wearing a red jacket.
Once we were across the bridge I paused at the top of the slope to take a shot looking back at the bridge and the barn. I didn’t notice the old spoil heaps as we passed by them, I just thought that the stones/rocks I was walking across were just part of the scenery. This barn might have been the setting for one of Beatrix Potter’s stories, The Fairy Caravan, which she felt was too personal and autobiographical for publishing. It contained references to her life in the Lake District, local dialects, and thinly veiled portrayals of people she knew, including herself as an off-screen character and the first UK trade edition was not released until 1952, nine years after her death.
I was concerned about these ewes and their lambs as they were completely penned in without access to food or water. There was no way that they could have got in accidentally as there was unbroken fencing and heavy pallets all around the space they were in and a metal gate, like the one in the shot, at the other end of it. J came to the conclusion that the farmer had penned them in deliberately, perhaps because they needed some special attention, and that he would be unlikely to leave them in such a small space for very long. The space was certainly too small for three fully grown ewes and their lambs so I hoped that they wouldn’t be penned up for very much longer.
Still concerned about the ewes and lambs we carried on along the track until we came to this junction where we took the rising grassy path on the left. If you’d like to find out where the track on the right leads to then take a look at our walk of 31st July 2020 for further details.
From the top of the grassy path we have a view of Blue Gill, the deep ravine below the summit of Froswick. Alongside the section of wall running parallel with the lower section of the gill is the Scot Rake path which rises steeply across the fell side to the small col between Froswick and Thornthwaite Crag. The Scot Rake path and the wall part company at the wall corner.
Before we began our walk across the ridge of Troutbeck Tongue I took a look back to Caudale Moor (John Bell’s Banner as its known by many walkers) on the left with its summit of Stony Cove Pike to the right of it. The col over on the right is Threshthwaite Mouth which rises up to …..
….. Thornthwaite Crag over on the right. I wouldn’t like to say which climb from the col is worse, climbing up to Stony Cove Pike involves scrambling over Threshthwaite Crag which is steep and rocky but at least there are rocks to grab hold of, the climb up Thornthwaite Crag is also steep and along a slip-slidy path strewn with pebbles, stones and rocks. Depends which direction you’re going in I suppose and both climbs have their individual good and bad points.
We weren’t faced with that kind of decision, all we had to do was walk along a grassy path which eventually leads over to the summit cairn. This is a view of some of the fells around Woundale from the walk across. Another one of those annoying ‘spray’ trails was unavoidable for this shot.
A peep down at the spoil heaps of one of the derelict quarries which are scattered around the slopes of Yoke. I can’t imagine anyone today being willing to work on such steep slopes and ‘elf and safety’ would have a fit of the vapours just from looking at it!
The view looking back to Threshthwaite Mouth from the gate in the fence around the summit area.
Red Screes begins to appear above St Raven’s Edge and the Woundale Fells.
As the land opposite us began to rise up towards Baystones I thought I caught sight of some of the Coniston fells in the distance. I took the above shot and decided to find out their names when we returned home. AW didn’t give his usual run down of what fells could be seen but did say that ‘there is also a peep of distant fells to the west.’ Having had a study of the OS map I think that the above fells in the distance are, from L to R Wetherlam, Great Carrs and Little Carrs.
More distant fell tops began to appear on the opposite side to the Coniston group as we walked along but I couldn’t see enough of them to identify them at this point.
On the skyline is Red Screes summit (R) tapering down to Snarker Pike (C) after which the fell gradually tapers down into Ambleside.
A better view of those distant fells I caught sight of earlier which I didn’t recognise at first as there wasn’t enough of them on show. Now that they are showing up a bit better we can see Pike O’Blisco, Crinkle Crags, Bowfell and possibly some of Scafell Pike. The empty road going across the foreground is the presently closed Kirkstone Pass road.
From the summit cairn area a look across to Wansfell Pike and Baystones. More about the landslip repairs appears later.
Troutbeck Tongue’s summit cairn together with Wansfell Pike over on the right.
Looking along the Troutbeck valley towards Sallows, on the left skyline, and Windermere over on the right.
Red Screes from the summit cairn.
Crinkle Crags and Bowfell from the summit cairn.
We took a refreshment break at this point as we were directly opposite the landslip area and tried to assess what was going on, which seemed to be very little at that moment, although to be fair perhaps all the workmen were taking their lunch break as by now it had turned twelve noon. Anyway the landslip doesn’t appear to be all that extensive, despite all the headlines in the press, and we couldn’t decide what the white stuff was. What intrigued me was the amount of vehicles which were parked on the road over there. Each one would have had a driver so what were they all doing, apart from presently eating their sandwiches that is. What do they do all day? Anyway our break was spoiled by the incessant and chilly wind which we’d had quite enough of so we began our descent.
A peep from the descent route at the various spoil heaps, derelict buildings, adits and levels of another former quarry on the lower slopes of Yoke.
Another look along the Troutbeck valley and our route back to Troutbeck. The farm in the lower right corner is Troutbeck Park farm which was once owned by Beatrix Potter.
As we descended via the very slip-slidy path we were met with thousands of bluebells which have burst into flower on the sunlit slopes …..
….. a look back up to Troutbeck Tongue and even more bluebells …..
….. thousands and thousands of bluebells were happily flowering away on the slopes as far as the eye could see with not an ancient woodland in sight, which is where they are supposedly said to grow. Rannerdale had better look to its laurels or the Troutbeck bluebells might steal its thunder.
Another look down to the Hagg beck crossing, this time from the other side of the beck.
A final look back at Troutbeck Tongue and its bluebell filled slopes. If you do a zoom in you might be able to spot three walkers descending carefully by the same route with their dog. More about them below …..
….. as we approached this gate leading across the fields a chap came down the fellside and joined us on the path. He said he’d had enough of the slip-slidy path and had chosen to come down via another route. We had just stopped to remove our mid-layers now that we’re almost back down to the valley. He went through the gate and put quite a bit of distance between us by the time we were ready to go again …..
….. we walked down the field path, crossed Hagg Beck and eventually took to walking along the road. At some point along the road, back came the same man we had met at the gate, who asked us if we had seen three people with a brown and white dog. We replied that we had seen some people descending and they did have a dog with them. He added a breathless explanation of what had happened, that he’d descended via another route, they’d all got separated and his ‘phone battery was flat so he couldn’t contact them. With that off he went back along the lane to look for them. There’s rarely a walk goes by without us being involved in some incident or other, we must have an approachable type of appearance. Either that or its a case of us being the only ones around to ask.
Ing Bridge crossing Trout Beck from where we take to the tarmac of Ing Lane and the walk back down the sunny valley.
Looking back along Ing Lane before we lose the view as the lane turns up towards Town Head. We didn’t follow the road up to Town Head and instead used the narrow and rough track between the hedgerow until we were almost back on the A592 …..
….. we could see the A592 from the gate but the track across the grass had a greater appeal for both of us because our feet had had quite enough of pounding tarmac. It was only a short walk back down to the church in Troutbeck …..
….. where I took a shot of Troutbeck’s War Memorial, which stands in the church grounds, instead of my usual one of the church itself. Once that was done with we made our way to the car, dumped our packs, settled into our seats and began the drive home. We had a quiet drive down to the A591 but once on it and heading towards Waterhead it was a different kettle of fish entirely. Lots of traffic, every parking spot taken, and crowds of people, all of which made us glad that we don’t live in a holiday hotspot. Ambleside was no different and so we didn’t bother struggling up The Struggle and took to the A66 instead. Good walk in good weather though, apart from the chilly wind.