Planning on a ride in the Lakes some time next year, and pretty much settled on Grizedale. I’ve done a fair bit round there, but if you could only do one ride there, on one day, what route would you do to get as much good in as possible? Ideally starting from Hawkshead…

Nothing like a big climb to get you started…
Take this bridleway out of Hawkshead and then head roughly SWish on any of the fireroads and cheeky singletrack hidden round there until you pick up the northern end of the North Face Trail. Follow that down to the visitor centre – that bit’s pretty good and is generally a nice descent.

Follow NFT out of the visitor centre and then fork off left on any of the descents down in the vague direction of Satterthwaite. Some of them are marked, some aren’t, it’s pot luck as to which one you get.

It’s worth looping round to climb up the fireroad from just NE of Force Mills and joining this descent into Satterthwaite. Nice bit of singletrack with a couple of rocky drops up the top. Either way, from Satterthwaite, climb Breasty Haw, descend through Great Wood on this track.

Once on the road turn left, climb for a bit then turn right onto the bridleway, cross the fireroad and pick up the brilliant descent down Devils Gallop

Turn right at the south end of Esthwaite Water, up to Near Sawrey, climb up to Claife Heights > Long Height then either descent west to Colthouse or north to High Wray and back to Hawkshead.

Trying to describe the trails round there is impossible, you could play around on Claife for half a day and not ride the same trail twice. And as for Grizedale, you could probably do 3 rides there without touching the same bit of trail twice!

In some respects, the NFT is the best thing to happen to Grizedale, it keeps most people on the same 10 miles leaving the singletrack to people who are happy just exploring.

We used to night ride Grizedale regularly and it was quite amusing the number of times we got lost, even though as locals we knew it better than most people! We found some ace trails that way.

Aye we’ve got a couple of “standard” rides we do round there but there’s still a load of stuff I haven’t done yet (Parkamoor, the riverbed descent) and it’d be nice to mix stuff up into a bigger “greatest hits” ride.

I could just look at a map but I’m bored 😉

you can add the drop from the fox to the road in as well and then turn right and meet up where you can

turn left because you are coming at it from the other way,

and cross the fireroad and pick up the brilliant descent down Devils Gallop

Anybody ridden Grizedale recently (post Desmond), any problems with fallen trees? Hoping to ride there next week. Not bothered about TNF trail.

Did a brief highlights ride on Sunday. No I issues to report.

Well there was a little tree down across red mist that we couldn’t manage to move, but we shifted it so you’ll be able to use a little rock to jump it.

🙂

Cheers, that was considerate of you 🙂

Pop in to the The Shop they’ll be more than happy to point you in the direction of a good ride! Also MBR did a Grizedale unplugged loop a year or two ago which takes in some of best bridleways in the forest

Grizedale Forest natural route

Np, just get to the right hand side of the trail when you see the tree, just after the little rise.

😉

This is what I’d do –

Start at Moor Top if you can – go S and up a bit then down Riverbed as a warm-up. Pick up the first climb of the NFT and head across to Parkamoor – Nibthwaite. Carry on S down the road then turn left and climb over to High Ickenthwaite. Drop down towards Force Mills and pick up a random fireroad on the left that climbs nicely back up to meet Grandad/Dad/Dentist. Lunch in Satterthwaite.

Then up to Breasty Haw, and down the Great Wood descent. Either climb the next BW to the N and head for the Fox descent, or just cross the road and do the Hole in the Wall descent towards Esthwaite. Either way, get to the foot of the Fox, climb up it again (nice technical climb, not too hard), and finish off with the Boulder Alley descent direct to the Visitor Centre, with only an easyish fire road climb to get back to Moor Top.

At least seven good descents there. I’m guessing about 27 miles/3500ft ascent? Happy to provide more detail if reqd.

If you want to start in Hawkshead, take the BW crazylegs suggests, but instead of doubling back up the Fox, carry on to Claife, and do the descents over to the Windermere side and finish down Colthouse.

The tremendous amount of rain has moved stuff about and some sections have lost the chippings and are down to bedrock and streams have crossed paths taking out chunks and there are plenty of random rocks. All still good.

Did the first climb of the North Face backwards for the first time in ages and really enjoyed it. Only really possible at night mind…

Cheers all, some ace ideas in there – reckon Martinhutch’s suggestion might be a goodun.