Windermere to Ullswater

These are images taken to catalogue a journey from Ambleside, Cumbria, through the Kirkstone Pass and down into Patterdale and Glenridding as far as Aira Beck.

The unclassified road from Ambleside to the top of the pass is called ‘The Struggle’.  It is a steep, unrelenting climb.  At the top it joins the A592 from Windermere to Patterdale.

Just over a week after my visit Storm Desmond hit and Patterdale and Glenridding were cut off.  The road appeared to have been trashed by the storm.  A little further along that road is Pooley Bridge – a pretty place, much photographed.  The bridge is no longer.  That last happened in the 18thC.  I didn't go along Ullswater as far as Pooley Bridge after I'd been photographing at Aira Force and Aira Beck.  I went back into Glenridding for some lunch.  After that I was watching the light and my time. 

Patterdale and Glenridding were not only cut off after the storm, but days later they were still without power, telephone landlines and mobile signals.  The army was looking after them.   Glenridding was hit again on the night of 9/10 December following more heavy rain.  The beck burst its banks and boulders came down from the fells.  More damage was inflicted.  There was a third flooding just in time for Christmas.

I had last been in the pass almost 65 years ago (February 1951 –  well before Wainwright published his definitive guides to walking in the fells).  Then I had walked from the Ambleside YH to the Patterdale YH, but not along the road.  I had climbed from Ambleside onto the fells and followed the line of The Struggle and then the A-road.  I descended from above Brothers Water into Patterdale.  If only we’d had the lightweight kit then that fell-walkers enjoy today … …

Back to the present:

Looking back towards Ambleside

A fellside detail

 

A resident

Clouds

Top of The Struggle

Kirkstone Pass Inn

The high point

Looking forward towards Patterdale

 

Looking back to the pass from Brothers Water

Cow Bridge, Brothers Water

Another view back to the pass

Brothers Water

Cow Bridge

Fell side

Aira Beck

Aira Force

Aira Beck

Across Ullswater