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About Grizdale Forest

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Our last day in the Lake District during this week got very wet, as the rain was coming down quite fierce at times, we decided to take in a woodland walk rather than getting beaten on a mountain. As we were staying in Coniston, we headed over to Grizdale Forest.  

We parked at the main car park and followed one of the main paths around which takes in the Tarn at the top of the forest. This path is easy going and very easy to follow from the outset, as you get a bit higher through the forest there are other main routes which seem made for kids as they have wooden statues around the paths, we continued up and here the path becomes more of a woodland track which the forestry commission use when felling the trees.   

This part of the path, around 2km started to get very muddy and for the next 2km, we were walking on a path which was mostly very thick mud. Luckily, leather boots allowed us to keep going but if we had some fabric ones on, I’d have been a little concerned. Moving through was slow, due to the mud, but it was still quite a pleasant walk and several other walkers were around too.   

Upon reaching the Tarn, there is a little path off to the left, we took this and got a wonderful view of the lake. It's almost in its own mini-dome and the only noise we could hear was that of birds.   

Moving away from the tarn, we joined the muddy road again, only to cut off to the right and take a forest path, this was much more what we had hoped for. A walk right through the middle of the forest shielded from the rain and wind. Water falling through the trees while we walked over small brooks and headed back down the hill was very nice. Eventually, through the wood, we started to level off and soon we were back on the main track, this one wasn’t muddy at all and we soon found we had joined back up with several the other routes.   

Following this down to the bottom of the hill then allowed you to walk alongside the river and under one of the bigger bridges we had crossed over during the start of the walk. It’s not too far then back to the car park.   

It’s an easy mapped route through some beautiful woodland so there isn’t too much to say but we wanted to map it to allow people to see what this route is like.