Loweswater Horseshoe, Lake District
This high-level Lake District circuit bags five Wainwrights and finishes with a well-deserved pint at the Kirkstile Inn.
Loweswater feels somewhat understated and overlooked. It lacks the mass appeal of Derwent Water, the ruggedness of Wast Water, or the beauty of Buttermere – but it oozes charm. It is a peaceful little lake, with its own bothy, waterfall and a mixed woodland of alder, oak, lime, chestnut, ash and sycamore.
The village of Kirkstile boasts a top-notch post-walk watering hole (The Kirkstile Inn), and the surrounding grassy, rounded hills are tranquil and pleasant. It is to these hills that this walk sticks, creating the closest thing possible to a high-level, peak-bagging circuit of the lake. The route bags five Wainwrights – Fellbarrow, Low Fell, Burnbank Fell, Blake Fell, Gavel Fell – in a productive day in the hills. The highlight is Low Fell. Alfred Wainwright wrote that Low Fell serves up a view of ‘classical beauty, an inspired and inspiring vision of loveliness... a scene of lakes and mountains arranged to perfection’.
And from here it is the view of Crummock Water, rather than Loweswater, that catches the eye. The lake stretches out sumptuously into the distance, framed perfectly by the sweeping ridgeline of Mellbreak and the looming bulk of Grasmoor.