Walk · Cumbria

Wansfell Pike and Stock Ghyll Force from Ambleside

Ambleside · LA22 9BU

6.5MILES

4h 10mON FOOT

520mCLIMB

CircularSHAPE

Off-road 86% 14% shares tarmac with cars

Field & moor path 66%Lane & track 20%Road with traffic 14%

Our drawing of the route — the shape of the walk, not a navigation aid. Carry OS Explorer on the hill. Off-lead information here is what walkers reported or what signage allows — never our advice. Whether and when a dog is off the lead is the owner’s decision and legal responsibility; keep dogs under control near livestock and follow signs on the day.

Starts at

Ambleside market cross LA22 9BU

Parking

Rydal Road and Low Fold pay-and-display in Ambleside, both charged all year and both full by mid-morning in summer. There is no parking on Stock Ghyll Lane itself beyond the first hundred yards.

Directions to the start →

The Ambleside side of Wansfell, taken by way of the waterfall rather than up from Troutbeck. Stock Ghyll Lane leaves the market place and the falls are a five-minute detour into the wooded gorge, where the path is fenced but the drops beside it are real. Above the woods the route climbs open pasture to the 482m top, and the return runs south-west along the ridge to High Skelghyll and down through Skelghyll Wood past Jenkin Crag, which is the best view of Windermere on the walk. The pasture between the woods and the summit is grazed throughout.

THE SMALL PRINTThe open fell is access land under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act. Government guidance for open access land is that "dogs must be kept under effective control at all times and on a short lead of no more than 2 metres at all times near livestock", with the short-lead rule near livestock applying between 1 March and 31 July on non-coastal access land. Sheep are on the Wansfell pasture all year and the route passes through High Skelghyll, a working farmyard. In Stock Ghyll the path runs along the lip of a gorge with unfenced sections above the falls.

House rules, decoded

Livestock — leads on

REGION · CUMBRIA

GRID · 54.4283, -2.9614

SOURCE · HTTPS://WWW.GOV.UK/GUIDANCE/OPEN-ACCESS-LAND-MANAGEMENT-RIGHTS-AND-RESPONSIBILITIES

Wansfell Pike and Stock Ghyll Force from Ambleside

House rules, decoded

2 Cambridge Villas

3 Cambridge Villas

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