July 31, 2025
A Day in Buttermere
There are 32 million sheep in Britain, and we have seen a heck of a lot of them in the last six weeks. Until a few days ago we weren’t taking pictures of them, because they are so ubiquitous, but I realized that failure gives a skewed view of our trip, like, someone reading our journal might think we went to England and never saw a sheep! In fact, sheep here are a bit like green vegetation and stone fences; there are just so many of them they become like background noise. But there are a zillion varieties of sheep and we seen a number of them.
I had a terrible night - low grade cold I think - and we decided I would not hike but Dave would. I would have been more excited to hang out and work on the tablet except for the poor internet.
Dave gathered his hiking gear together - such as it is - a crappy lightweight backpack, a packed lunch and his ball cap, and took off around 11 am. I walked with him as far as Buttermere Lake, to stretch my legs and then made my way to Sykes Tea Shop , where I had a mocha (first one on the trip since I now do tea) and enjoyed an hour and a half of trip planning. It was a joy because the internet worked and I had a very productive time planning most of the upcoming Portugal portion of our trip. I really like being in a coffee/tea shop by myself working on the tablet, and it doesn't happen that often.
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Dave had a signature hiking day. Weather was perfect for a stiff hike. He went straight up from Buttermere to Bleaberry Tarn, I will leave it to him to describe the hike:
The hike to Bleaberry Tarn (a small high mountain lake) starts right from our inn. As shown on the All Trails map below, it's a 3.3 mile hike with 1,450 ft of elevation. I ended up doing over 4 miles as I occasionally got diverted and explored a bit away from trail.
Buttermere is a hiker's paradise, replete with challenging hikes all around the lake. Clearly this is why people venture here, because there is nothing else to do. I did see a couple of standup paddle boats on the water, but otherwise it was empty. Everyone was either hiking around the lake or venturing into the hills. My hike was straight up with no letup in the incline until I reached the tarn. The return trip was, obviously, straight back down. This proved to be a real test for my knee's recovery, and I'm happy to report it was well up to the task.
The trail is well traveled and clearly marked. For the first third of the climb the trail wended its way through a lush forest and was covered with large rocks, some of which were flat and made for decent steps, others were jagged and the footing was tricky.
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Once I broke treeline, the landscape really opened up and I had marvelous vistas of the valleys and lakes of the area. The trail conditions also changed from big rocks to smaller, looser ones which made the ascent a bit easier.
By the time I reached the tarn, the path flattened out considerably and walking was much more pleasant. I was pretty well spent by the time I got there and was grateful to be able to sit down and have my sandwich for lunch. On my way up, I had the trail completely to myself which was a real treat. While eating, a few other groups came up, most of whom were continuing on to the next climb and then on to one of the Wainwright peaks that people enjoy summiting. I, on the other hand, was ready to head back down.
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The hike back down was every bit as beautiful as it was going up, even more so because the sun came out and warmed things up considerably.
That evening we went over to the Bridge Hotel Pub for diner. It is more hotel like and less dorm like that’s the Buttermere Court Hotel and the pub was more charming and our meal more interesting. Dave tried fish pie. Dave had met two gents and a yellow lab (Riley) on the hike; they were on the patio so he went over to have a nice visit with them.
Fyi, his legs are now killing him - but at least it’s not his knee. But his quads were in agony.
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