Trekking the Highlander Lake District offers a unique journey through the nation’s most picturesque national park
The Lake District is home to England’s most dramatic landscape. In a country known more for its tame countryside and sedate farmland, Cumbria’s exhilarating terrain of craggy peaks, deep gorges and immense lakes reveals a refreshingly wilder side of the nation. As such, nowhere else was ever really in the running to host the inaugural Highlander UK trek, one of the latest additions to the Highlander Adventure collection.
The fells of northwest England have enticed walkers ever since the first ‘Lake Poets’ of Wordsworth and Coleridge put pen to paper in the 19th century. Today, the Lake District is England’s largest and the UK’s most frequented national park with over 15 million annual visitors.
The UNESCO-listed park has England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike at 978m (3,209ft), and the infamous Helvellyn at 950m (3,117ft) with its hair-raising Striding Edge ridge. It is also home to the Wainwright Fells, 214 hills and mountains described in Alfred Wainwright’s classic seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells (1955-66). Not to be overlooked, of course, are 16 principal lakes from which the park takes its name, as well as countless smaller tarns, lagoons and ponds.
This summer, I joined the inaugural Highlander Lake District trek, a challenging five-day foot journey through England’s highest mountain range.
Highlander Lake District: Hercules format
Distance: 99km
Duration: 5 days/4 nights
Ascent/descent: 4,780m/4,780m
More info: highlanderadventure.com
This was my fifth Highlander Adventure trek. The events are marketed as hiking festivals as they also include activities such as workshops, educational lectures and yoga sessions. So far, I’ve completed the Velebit in Croatia in 2020, Olympus in Greece in 2021, Svaneti in Georgia and Ras Al Khaimah in the UAE in 2022.
While no walk in the park (metaphorically speaking), the Highlander Adventure treks are a perfect introduction to multi-day hiking. The Highlander approach strikes a good balance between guided trek and self-sufficient expedition. The logistics are largely taken care of with internal travel to and from trailheads, routes, food, maps, checkpoints and campsites all pre-arranged.
Trekkers are only responsible for getting…
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