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About Easedale Tarn | About Blea Rigg | About Sergeant man | About High Raise | About Tarn Crag
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This 4 peak walk was in mid-September. A month where no one knows what sort of weather to expect. As it turned out, it was a stunner of a day (as you can see in the photos). Great weather made the views fantastic! It’s definitely a walk you will appreciate more on a clear day.
Starting in Grasmere, we headed through the village and onto Easedale road. This road leads you nicely to a small bridge over Easedale beck. We headed over the bridge and through a few flat fields, some containing cattle, before heading onto the fellside.
Once away from the fields, the path starts to gather height and you start to hear the running water of Sourmilk Gill. The closer you get, the louder it becomes. You head around a corner and the waterfall appears! It runs right alongside the path. We popped down to the edge to take in the views of the waterfall from below as they seemed to be the best, before then heading back onto the main path and continuing the climb.
Further up the path, there is a fork, here we headed left. This swings you over a small hill before then exposing the unbelievable view of Easedale Tarn and the bowl of mountains at its head. I have to say that the view’s from this huge tarn are well worth the paragraphs that have been written about it over the years. It has a great vastness with edges that are walled with the steep slopes of the surrounding fells. On a sunny day, it’s just beautiful with the green grasses and ferns popping against the deep colour of the tarn and the grand vista of mountains to the rear. I spent far too long taking photo after photo here until I turned around and realised Rachel was just standing waiting to carry on the walk!
We followed the main path alongside the Tarn. At about halfway along, we took a left path almost directly up to Blea Rigg. This path had almost three different parts. Part one was walking through head height ferns (straight out of Jurassic Park). It was a struggle to find the path when you can’t see much other than fern! Part two was a slightly boggy section that, although we didn’t fall foul of, had we not used a map that pointed it out we very likely would have. Part three, luckily the majority of the path to Blea Rigg, was much more like the mountain path’s we’ve become used to. It’s rocky, slightly steep and easy to follow. It heads directly towards the fell, and only near the rocky top does it start to form a few switchbacks to make the walking easier.
We follow the path to swing around the far side and head up to Blea Rigg. The views from here, back towards the tarn are amazing and it just inspires you to keep going. The path is quite undulating but easy to follow and heads between the larger rocky outcrops. As we made our way across, we started to get views of Codale tarn. One of our options for this walk was to make our way down to the tarn before heading over Tarn Crag and making it a two peak day. As it was so warm and sunny, we decided to pass on this and head up higher.
At the point where you can either head down to Coldale tarn or up to Sergeant Man, the path becomes much rockier and although still very easy to follow, is tougher. We started to gain height much quicker and we're lucky to have a decent amount of water as the sun had started to beat down. Nearing the top of the rocky section there was a small dip heading over towards Sergeant Man before one last push to hit the peak. The views from this peak are stunning, Stickle tarn in the front of your view which stretches out a huge distance.
Coming down from Sergent man and getting a bearing over to High Raise was a little difficult, enjoying the views had spun us around a little but we soon made our way to the path that soon became a bit more obvious. This path is very easy to follow, it’s high, but it feels like you’re walking along a pretty low field. The main giveaway is the epic views out, with mountains reaching high in a 360 view. We travelled across this path much quicker than the rest of this walk. It was such easy going, we soon came upon the storm shelter on High Raise.
To our surprise here, we could see Keswick and Skiddaw, as well as Bathenswaite lake. In the other directions Blencathra, Helvellyn and some other greats can be seen. On this walk, we found our new favourite viewpoint. Nowhere else feels quite like you’re in the middle of the lake district than High Raise. We sat and ate lunch and just kept looking around, pointing out peaks and enjoying ourselves before heading back down the path which got us to High Raise.
Before reaching Sergeant Man, a path shot off to the left, we followed this over Coledale head and followed the path along. It’s much rockier and slowly drops down giving way to small tarn after small tarn. Eventually, our GPS showed that there should be a path to the left and after double-checking, it seemed to be right, but we couldn’t easily see it. We took a bearing to the right and carefully headed that way; we very quickly found a path which we followed for a short while before again struggling to find the main way. We followed a path we could see (that wasn’t on the map) but eventually, this seemed to join what would become the main route. .
Once back on track, following the path was easy. We had views back around the horseshoe we had been walking on, surrounding Easedale tarn. We kept following this path along, the views open and let you see more and more, with Coledale tarn on view too. Eventually, we get towards Tarn Crag. As there isn’t a path directly up on the map, we assumed we might just follow the path around, however, there was another unmapped path which takes you to a fantastic viewpoint. Do not miss this, the views down the valley are just stunning.
Once we had drunk enough of the view, we headed back to the main path which originally got us to Easedale tarn and then down. This was a bit tougher, with lots of large ferns and rocks covering the path ensuring it was a bit slower than normal. Once back down, we followed the path back to Grasmere.
We found this walk to be much better than we ever imagined, the views from up high are just stunning and nowhere quite feels like “the lakes” than this did. There is no other walk than that between Sergeant Man and High Raise. As the Southern Fells fall away behind you, the northern fells rise into view. It is here that you can truly grasp the scale of the Lake District.
