Walking the old miner's track above Borrowdale.

One of the first and one of the best walks that I have even been on in The Lake District, so much so that I come back to it year after year. If ever there was an "options" walk then this is it. You can start at either Grange in Borrowdale, Rosthwaite, Longthwaite or Seatoller and follow one of a dozen paths up onto the old bridleway which originally took the miners and quarry men of Borrowdale up to the slate mines and quarries at the summit of Honister Pass. You can make it in to a full circular walk or cut the walk short by just taking one of the many paths back down into Borrowdale.

We started at Rosthwaite, walked along the valley to Longthwaite and then took the track up through Johnny Wood and Scaleclose Coppice. The only problem with having so many paths to choose from is that it is all to easy to take the wrong one and this is what we did. We did end up at the miners track but there was a barbed wire fence, a wall and a beck in our way. We managed to carefully circumnavigate the barbed wire fence which then allowed us to clamber over the wall and on to the miner's path. As you can imagine, this was not easy for two fat blokes in their sixties with a dog in tow!

It was then pretty plain sailing all the way to the Honister Pass and back down into Seatoller. Our return path took us through Johnny Woods to Longthwaite where, quite conveniently, the Borrowdale Youth Hostel is situated and where, even more conveniently, you can get a smashing pint of ice cold lager. It had been a hot day with very little cover so our pints were most welcoming and, if there is a nicer beer garden than one next to the River Derwent in Borrowdale, I have yet to find it!

Suitably refreshed we fair skipped along the remaining last half mile back to Rosthwaite.