What’s it like? I remember reading a while back about it being sanitised…

Singletrack Article.
RM.

Awesome.

only some of it is sanitised, overall it’s well worth ridingadd part over the torver-Seathwaite-walna scar-torver loop

Walna Scar (and Garburn pass for that matter) are/were technically highways – they are unclassified roads, and as such the local highways dept are obliged to keep them in order. At the time Walna Scar had a road number like “u12345”. The work got done about ten years ago, give or take, and the Duddon side seems to have bedded in but the steeper bits on the Coniston side have been eroded/washed out so aren’t too different to what they were before.

If you want more info -http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/169093/2011_01_11modificationofdefinitivemapandstatement-walnascarroad.pdf but be warned it’s 55 pages long! Section 4.2 might be of interest though. More info and summing up http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/outdoors-news/walna-scar-closed-to-motor-vehicles/9287.html

Wouldn’t be surprised if the recent weather has reverted it even more to its previous state. Anyone ridden it recently?

Walna Scar was one of the I had set my mind to doing. It didn’t live up to any expatations. The bit of downhill there was is in no way worth the climb imo.

I did it in March last year – the route out of the mag. To be honest a bit disappointed. Admittedly I had a TRULY foul day for it – torrential rain and high winds, but it was in no way the epic I was expecting – took me about 2.5 hrs for the whole thing, including pushing most of the way up Walna Scar as it was too windy to ride.

The descent to Seathwaite was lovely, and the hairpins just down from the top of the scar were OK, but over too quick – but my overriding impression was “oh, is that it??”

Descent to spoon hall adds a bit to it rather than cruising down tranearth or to conistin village