High Street - Lake

The guide book for this route called it "Sever" and I wouldn't disagree with that, although I think that the weather must have a bearing on that, had it been dry for a week or so the going would have been far smoother. Anyway, here it is;

I started off from Patterdale rather than Hartsop car park because from Hartsop it's a climb straight away and I wanted to get my legs warmed up first. Patterdale gave me 2 1/2 or so miles on road first, which was nice. The bridleway from Hartsop to Hayeswater is ridable but can get a rocky in places but once you get to Hayeswater its a push up to the top of the High Street. The summit was very misty when I was there so I didn't venture all the way to the top.

From this point there was a good downhill stretch with a short climb to Loadpot Hill, which is a good place to stop for something to eat. In my view the run from Loadpot Hill down to The Cockpit is excellent, it was very wet on Monday, in the dry this would very very fast, it was only very fast in the wet.

From the Cockpit you take a sharp left and almost come back on yourself. This is a nice run and you can get up some speed (watch out for walkers, there seem to be all over the place). The bridleway runs out at Howtown and you get back on to road. This road climbs up and over the top of Hallin Fell, take a left onto the bridleway heading back to Patterdale. This bridleway is very rocky and I found that I had to push and carry most of way, again lots of walkers around here. The bridleway runs alongside Ulswater and is very pretty; I almost decided to take a swim but thought better of it. Anyway, I was glad to get to the end of this bridleway and back onto some actual ridable track back to the car.

In all I wouldn't say that this route was sever, not after the first climb anyway. It has something for everyone, climbing, fast grassy downhill, technical bridleway and some nice scenery. I think it would be much better riding it after a few dry days, the rain has not really stopped for a couple of weeks so the ground was very wet and boggy in places.