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A short, hard weekend from Buttermere

One easy lake, one proper mountain day.

One base: Buttermere. You unpack once.

A short, hard weekend from Buttermere
Photo: Anthony Parkes, via Wikimedia Commons (source), CC BY-SA 2.0 licence, fetched 2026-08-31
Nights
2
Best in
Spring, Summer, Autumn

Buttermere is a small base, a scatter of buildings between two lakes, Buttermere and Crummock Water, with Fleetwith Pike, Haystacks and the High Stile ridge rising straight from the valley floor. Two nights is enough to do the valley’s one easy walk and the one hard fell it is known for, without needing much more from the village than a bed and a place to eat. Honister Slate Mine sits a few minutes’ drive away at the top of the pass, still working slate, worth knowing about even though it is not part of either day’s plan here.

Who this suits

Fit, experienced walkers who want a short, focused trip built around a single serious objective, and who do not need a wide choice of shops or restaurants to enjoy a weekend. Haystacks involves scrambling near the summit and a long, rough descent, so it is not a first fell, and the full circuit runs to nearly fourteen kilometres with well over six hundred metres of climbing. A dog can manage it well, but the short scrambles near the summit sometimes mean lifting a dog between people rather than letting it find its own way, worth knowing before setting out rather than discovering halfway up.

The honest caveat

The nearest railway station, Workington, is around 18 miles away by road, and there is no fuel, cashpoint or large shop in the village itself, so this is not a spontaneous, turn-up-and-see trip. Without a car, the seasonal 77/77A Honister Rambler runs from Keswick between April and October, by the National Trust’s account. Arrive with whatever the weekend needs already in the car. It also is not a trip for anyone hoping to fill two nights with variety: Buttermere’s own walking amounts to one lake and one fell, which is exactly enough for a short, hard weekend and not much more than that.

Day by day

  1. Day 1

    Arrive, and walk the shore

    Buttermere has two hotels, a church and not much else, which is most of the point. The lake circuit starts right at the National Trust car park and stays flat and close to the shore for its full 7.2km, through a short tunnel cut into the rock below Hassness, an easy way to get the legs moving before the next day's climb.

  2. Day 2

    Haystacks, Wainwright's favourite

    The route follows the shore to Scarth Gap Pass, then climbs hard onto ground that gets rougher with every hundred metres, with short hands-on scrambles near the top and a scatter of small tarns, including Innominate Tarn, where Wainwright's ashes were scattered after his death. The descent past the old quarry workings above Warnscale Beck is loose and slow underfoot, so this is a full day out, not an afternoon.

    If it is coming down sideways: Wet rock on Haystacks' summit scrambles is a hazard rather than an inconvenience, and a poor forecast is better spent touring Honister Slate Mine at the top of the pass, which runs underground regardless of the weather outside.

Where to stay for this trip

All within a short drive of Buttermere, so the day plans above still work.

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