Our drawing of the route, over road and path data from OpenStreetMap. It shows where the walk goes and what it goes through. It is not a survey and not a navigation aid — carry OS Explorer on the hill.
Seven and three quarter miles and about three and a half hours for 260 metres of climb, out of Gosforth village along the Bleng into the forestry and over the shoulder of Ponsonby Fell - a quiet corner that sees a fraction of the traffic of the central valleys. It starts in Gosforth itself, where there is free on-street parking around the square and by the church with its Viking cross. The river is the best of it for a dog, running clear over gravel with plenty of access, and the forest tracks are enclosed for off-lead walking, but the fell section crosses grazed open ground, there are two ladder stiles that a large dog cannot manage without help, and the return lane carries fast local traffic for half a mile.
A bed and breakfast in a seventeenth-century farmhouse at Bolton Head, on the lane between Gosforth and Nether Wasdale, ten minutes from the foot of Wast Water and half an hour from Wasdale Head. Its own site states that dogs are welcome in three of the bedrooms, which is the only published bedroom dog policy in Gosforth parish. No charge is published, so agree it when you book. It is a useful fallback when Wasdale Head is full, which it is most summer weekends.
A seventeenth-century hall turned inn in Gosforth, the last village of any size before Wasdale, with a bar that serves the full menu to walkers straight off the fells. Dogs are welcome in the bar and the beer garden; the restaurant is kept dog-free.
A refurbished village pub on Gosforth square, more sports bar than fell-walkers' snug, with a big screen, a pool table and thirteen rooms above. It publishes a dog-friendly bar and beer garden and, unusually for this corner of Cumbria, an actual menu for dogs: a plain beef burger called the Woof Whopper at five pounds, sausages at two pounds, cooked chicken at three, dog ice cream and a berry frozen yoghurt. It is the obvious stop on the way in or out of Wasdale, ten minutes from Nether Wasdale and twenty from Wasdale Head. Nothing is published about dogs in the bedrooms.
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