Yewdale Fells
1 SD302975 The main road north from Coniston centre leads to a crossroads on the edge of the village. Turn left towards YHA Holly How, then bend right past the hostel, before forking left opposite a private lay-by onto a stone track. (Did you spot the unusual ship stores on the left?).
2 SD302981 Go through a gate into open fellside and rather improbably straight uphill through the bracken! To find the narrow path, head 5m right then uphill just left of an oak tree. From here the path becomes both much more obvious and less dauntingly steep as it starts to trend more across the hillside. An overhanging ‘gorse tunnel’ leads to a scree section, reminiscent of a rough and abandoned winched railway incline. The scree continues onto a leveller section then the path maintains its direction sidling up the hillside just above a babbling stream.
3 SD303989 Just before a marshy tarn the stream bends abruptly left uphill. Cross the stream here and head rightwards to a grassy knoll above the tarn. The 318m ‘summit’ is a knoll overlooking Coniston and the valley below – but even this can be clagged in on a poor day. SD304989 Your ascent is now done so head back to the path, probably re-joining it just beyond the tarn. This may be just a slight marshy area in dry conditions. Follow intermittent cairns just to the right of the marshy valley, at the third cairn you briefly begin to descend gently, then cross over a boggy slight valley.
5 SD305994 The path now undulates a short distance through bracken covered fellside turning gently left between grassy knolls to briefly access another high marshy hanging valley plateau. From here you swap back and forth between this and the next high marshy valley a few times on faint or vague random sheeptrods.
6 SD306998 A small cairn towards the end of a level grassy area marks the start of the descent proper, where the path becomes clearer. Cross a small valley surrounded by stunted windswept yew trees, then descend left of a low grassy ridgeline and across the hillside. 7 NY305002 A much clearer quad track descends beside another stream. Bend sharp right with the stream, then head increasingly right of it as you zigzag on a path across the bracken covered hillside the out right to descend to an unfenced country lane on this side of the Yewdale valley.
8 NY310002 Head rightwards along this lane and down to a junction with the A593. Immediately before the junction, take a shared multi-use path rightwards towards Coniston. Stay on the gravel-surfaced bridleway as it begins to veer away from the road and through woodland. Cross three stream bridges, then stay right for the bridleway at a path fork immediately after the third.
9 SD303982 This soon leaves woodland for open bracken-covered fellside. The gravel surfaced path continues for about 200m to reach the junction with your incoming path from the start. Turn left onto this, and retrace your outward steps to the start.