Dog-friendly walks in Wasdale Head

Sty Head Tarn from Wasdale Head

The old packhorse route out of Wasdale, five miles there and back from the National Trust car park at Wasdale Head, past Burnthwaite farm and up the Lingmell Beck valley to the pass at Sty Head and the tarn just beyond it. It is a stone-pitched path most of the way and steady rather than steep, with Great Gable on the left, the Napes crags overhead and the Scafells across the beck. Sty Head Tarn is shallow and gravelly at its outflow, so a dog can swim while you sit by the mountain rescue stretcher box. This is grazed fell all the way and the National Trust asks for a short lead throughout Wasdale.