The Fairfield Horseshoe: A Circular walk from Rydal

The Fairfield Horseshoe earns its reputation as one of the Lakeland’s epic hikes. Starting from Rydal, it climbs quickly onto the ridge at Nab Scar and then keeps gathering height, views and summits all the way up to Fairfield and back – nabbing 8 whole Wainwrights – with an option of dropping to Stone Arthur if you want to make a big day even bigger.

Is this walk for you?

This is a very good walk if you want a full-value Lakeland horseshoe with a proper sense of journey and a good haul of summits. It suits walkers after a classic all-day ridge route rather than a quick half-day outing, and it works best if you are happy with both distance and navigation responsibility.

My Fairfield Horseshoe

Summer holidays – the Lake District

Our second week away this summer brings us to the Lakes. I’m with the wife and kids but I’ll have a day out on my own at some point. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this day until we get to Low Wray (on the western shores of Windermere), set up the tent and take a walk along the ‘beach’ what I’m going to do becomes very obvious!

I love to look up at Wansfell and remember the time in May when I stayed here at Low Wray with my son Jack. We worked out that that lovely lump above the marina at Waterhead was the fell we would be heading up the next day. It was our first Wainwright.

To the left of Wansfell in this view is The Fairfield Horseshoe, looking all lovely and welcoming. My day’s leave from the clan will take me to Rydal, and Fairfield.

Onto The Fairfield Horseshoe

I wake naturally at 5:15, and I’m dressed for half passed. It feels like a while since the last walk, so I’m anxious to get over to Rydal as soon as I can to get some early morning photos. It pays off.

There’s no car park so I’m parking near St Mary’s church in Rydal. A short walk up this side street takes you to the cottage that William Wordsworth lived in, Rydal Mount, where you turn left. There’s a sign there showing the way.

Nab Scar

I’m heading up Nab Scar by 6:30. Nab Scar is the crag at the very end of the western ridge, the summit adopting the name. The views from the ascent are great already, having a fantastic view of Windermere and the morning mist.

It’s so nice to be on the summit of a fell after what seems like so long.

As you get to the top of the crag, you get a full sight of Rydal Water, the sun’s shining; it’s incredible.

Grasmere comes into view as you pass the Nab Scar summit. I head on for Heron Pikes. With the sun coming over High and Low Pike on the other side of the horseshoe, it starts flooding into the valleys and burning off the mist.

Which one is Heron Pike summit?

Alfred says that the true summit of Heron Pikes is the Southern peak. You can easily tell that the upper peak is higher. I check the book. As the Southern peak is ‘the Wainwright’, I get my photo there.

The view of the top of the valley (Rydal Head) and more importantly, the south flank of Fairfield, Black Crag and the tops is spectacular as you follow the Horseshoe round to its end – Great Rigg is next, then Fairfield at the valley head, down the col and up to Hart Crag, Dove Crag, then I’m guessing that the two small lumps near the end (out of reach of this photo) must be High Pike and Low Pike.

I make a Detour

Great Rigg is just along the ridge. However, Stuart Marshall’s ‘Walking The Wainwrights’ suggests you drop down the tongue to Stone Arthur. It’s a bit tricky to make out where the ‘summit’ is on a slope that keeps giving you suggestions to one. My advice is to use my Wainwrights List to get the actual Wainwright co-ordinates and use the simple app called GPS OS Grid Reference to check it when you’re there. This app would be a life saver if you needed help.

You either bag this one now in the next hour or so, or spend half a day travelling, then climbing from Grasmere some other time. Down we go.

The walk is quite pleasant, and I feel like I have all the time in the world. However, there’s a niggle in the back of your head. You have to ascend back up again, 900ft, to Great Rigg!

Stone Arthur

Stone Arthur has no cairn to mark the top, it’s actually not a peak at all, just some really big rocks on the end of the tongue. If Alfred did the marketing for Grasmere in the 1950s, this was probably why he included Stone cold Arthur in the green book. It looks grand from below. Indeed, it’s a good hill to climb from the A591, but the going is steady, and you might not know you were at a ‘top’ at all – until you reached Great Rigg.

Funnily enough, there’s a rock along the trail down with my wife’s name on it.

I think it best to have a snack with Arthur and a small rest. You need ‘new legs’ for the 900ft ascent back up.

Great Rigg

The climb is a proper workout, and the views are getting better, especially looking back down the ridge on what you’ve done already.

Summit of Fairfield

Fairfield is a wide flat top; it’s sunny as you would like, and the skies are clear. Four spurs are heading off this summit. I wonder how many walkers with little navigation skills have got lost here and ended up in Patterdale.

I’m at the highest point of my trek, so it’s time for my rice pudding. I love rice pudding when I’m out hiking. I have a wander round to get an even better photo of St Sunday with Cofa Pike in the fore. It’ll be 18 months, and winter before I get to that one.

Looking at my planned Helvellyn walk

It’s waiting for me, a walk I planned weeks ago – up Birkhouse Moor to Helvellyn, Nethermost Pike, Dollywagon, Seat saddle, over St Sunday and down over Birks and Arnison Crag.

It’ll be a long one, but I’ll probably ascend Helvellyn then camp back down at Red Tarn, a morning swim before starting again. The options are endless. I love seeing the next walk from the one you’re currently on.

Back to the scheduled programme – there’s a fantastic view of the crags along the side of The Step from the edge of Fairfield.

You must be very careful on the Fairfield Horseshoe that you don’t get caught out without a map. The problem being, you need two maps! Some is on the Ordnance Survey OL5 map and the the rest on OS OL7. I would strongly recommend you take both maps, even if you’re using your phone or a GPS unit.

Fairfield’s flat summit in cloud is an easy place to get lost, there are four spurs from the top (I came from the south, to the west is Grisedale Hause and on to Seat Sandal, the north takes you over Cofa Pike to St Sunday, then heading east brings you round to Hart Crag, unless you veer off down The Step into the abyss), I need to head east rounding the ridge before turning south. If you’re going to follow my Escape Route Back To Rydal that you’ll see later in the blog, you really need the OL7 map.

Private Navigation Workshop

Phone battery died halfway up Fairfield? Learn to navigate with tools you can trust every single time. On my Private One-Day Navigation Workshop in the Lakes, Peaks or Snowdonia, you’ll master map and compass — and the confidence to find your own way back, and reach places you’ve never dared go.

Take a look at the Navigation Workshop

Hart Crag

Down to the col and I’m wondering, have I missed the top of Hart Crag? Eventually, though, I come a big enough cairn to know it’s the summit. On to Dove Crag, from where I will get one of the most amazing 360 degree views of the Lakeland fells.

The Priest Hole cave – Not this time

It’s here you could take another detour to the Priest Hole cave. I didn’t, but in between Hart Crag and Dove Crag is the slope that becomes Dovedale. Two and a half years later, I’ll be climbing up a glacia on this very ‘slope’, digging steps with the axe, on my Priest Hole Cave Wild Camp. It’s only a 100m descent into the valley North East from here before you get to the cave, perched in the side of the crag.

Somebody who walks the Fairfield Horseshoe has a cracking opportunity to have a wild camp in the cave. Two of you can comfortably sleep in it, or four at a push. People have died in pursuit of the Priest Hole.

On to Dove Crag

Dove Crag is my 35th Wainwright; it’s Summer 2015. I still have 179 to go.

Every Wainwright. One Wall Map.

Halfway through the 214? Just starting? Or quietly pretending you’re not obsessed while knowing your exact total? This wall map shows every Wainwright on one beautifully framed sheet — built for planning routes, tracking progress, and slowly filling with colour as you go.

Read more: the 214 ‘Wainwrights’ Checkmap

Most of the Wainwrights are behind me in the photo below. I speak to a fellow Wainwright bagger on the top, and he swears that Dove Crag has the best view in the Lakes! At this moment, I’m likely to agree but hardly qualified to be right. The photo below does not do the view justice – the original is image is 32000px wide and you can clearly see Thornthaite Beacon – let me know what you think…

Alfred’s book gives you diagrams of the views from Dove Crag, he excludes I think, the fells if you can’t see the summit but most of the big ones are there patiently waiting for our meeting, one day. I’m looking forward to the contrast, Autumn, then Winter.

The guy who took this photo has five Wainwrights left, and it’s taken him years, he lives down on the South coast, I forget where.

I’m running out of water again. The BBC forecast (now I would recommend the MET Office app or MWIS) has said all week that there would be cloud from 10 am today. As you can see, it was incorrect. There was one cloud all day, it’s in one of the photos, by the time I get to the car I will have carried a hoody, bob hat, gloves, scarf and a coat 9 miles, applied factor 50 at least six times and still got sunburned. I really must come out more prepared for all weather from now on.

High Pike and Low Pike

My face has had enough now even with the factor 50 protection, and I need a can of 7-up. I set off a run down the east ridge heading for High Pike, down, down, down, up, up, up High Pike, done, down down, up Low Pike? Ah, this must be it, let’s see the photo, number 37 and 177 to go!

Straight down the ridge takes you down into Ambleside. Balls to that.

Escape Route Back To Rydal

I consult Alfred’s book about the route to Ambleside but don’t fancy the two-mile walk back to Rydal. There must be a way through to the church I started at. The map looks promising, I’m heading for Rydal, Bear Grylls style.

As Bear says, ‘a stream will take you to a river and the river will lead you to civilisation’, in this case, my car.

As you come down the hill from Low Pike, after crossing the wall via a gate, keep going until a wall (heading down into the valley towards Nab Scar) crosses your path. Follow it down through fern to an old red gate.

Through the red gate cross a field of thick fern, it gets thicker, and you meet a stream. Watch your step as you follow the stream south-west to woodland. There’s a wall here to scale, not on the OS map. The wall now is no more than an 8-inch pile of stone.

Follow the stream through the wood until it meets a wall. Head south, follow your nose and you’ll find a way through.

Don’t just carry on south forever as it heads over to Ambleside. Head downhill along a trodden path through the grass. This leads to a bigger stream, cross this and pass through a hole in a wall.

As you go through the woodland, you should hear heavier water ahead, follow your nose and come to a forestry track heading South. However, before heading down over a lovely bridge to the Rydal Tea Room at Rydal Hall, look for a trail that will lead you to the Rydal Beck Falls, a really nice waterfall, a pool and bigger falls, a great place for a dunk of the head on a hot day like this.

If I’d had a change of clothes, I might have been tempted to take a swim. Now for that can of pop.

Read Next…

The Extended Coledale Horseshoe

While we’re on a roll, let’s keep adventuring – taking in 12 Wainwrights, covering 29 miles with 7600!!!ft of ascent – this is the big one. Did I take on more than I could chew?

Read the blog