Day 1: Burnbanks to Brothers Water
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Fork up and right past a phone box. The lane becomes a track which leads to a gate into a wood. The main track turns up right, then bends left above the wood and the reservoir soon appears below. Follow the track, after 2km shrinking to path, along the reservoir shore. At 8km from the start, the path rises over the foot of Long Stile ridge, then drops towards the head of the reservoir, with Mardale Head car parking 250m ahead.
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Don’t cross the bridge over Small Water Beck, but take a good path upstream to the right. It passes through a deer fence, and slants up the valley side, through another deer fence, into the upper hollow of Blea Water Beck. Here the original path line (as mapped by Harvey/OS) has been lost, for a boggier path along the foot of the right hand slope. The path rises beside the stream to the outlet of Blea Water.
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Turn right up a grassy path, which slants northwest, to reach Long Stile ridge, just above Caspel Gate col. A wide ridgeline path heads up, sometimes a little left of the crest – if snowcovered, it’s best to stick to the crest, but there may be moments of minor scrambling. The ridge finishes up an eroded stony path to a cairn at the summit plateau of High Street. Bear left, south-west, to join a broken wall. A path on the near side of the wall leads to High Street’s trig point.
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From here, there are two route options – you can follow the broken wall south, then south-west, or you can head west through the wall, for a clear path left along the top of steep drops to Hayeswater Gill. The latter has good views, but the choice will depend on how the snow lies. The broken wall turns right and the path along the rim passes through a gap. This wide path bends gradually right (west) across a wide col, for the short rise to the noble cairn on Thornthwaite Crag.
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A path slants down north-west, splitting into zigzag paths as the slope steepens, to the col at Threshthwaite Mouth. Pass through the wall for a path down and north to the head of Threshthwaite Glen. As the ground steepens, the path becomes pitched down into Threshthwaite Cove. The good path then runs to the left of Pasture Beck and the descent steepens again.
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At the glen exit, the path becomes a track, bending left towards Hartsop village. Ignore a track marked ‘no path’. The track bends right to a new (post Storm Desmond) bridge over Hayeswater Gill. Don’t cross this, but turn left on an earth track to the left of the river, along the back of Hartsop. Where a wooden footbridge arrives out of the village, the track bends left past barns and cottages. Keep ahead, until the track ends at a field gate. Then, take an enclosed path forking right, down to the A592.
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Cross diagonally left to a kissing gate and take the path that runs below the roadside wall, along the shore of Brothers Water. The path bears up left through a gate to the roadside, but at once turns right through a wall gap, to continue to the entrance to Brotherswater Inn and Sykeside Camping Park.