Chaamb one

Verified Slow Way

Verified by 80.00% of reviewers

I walked this from Chapel Stile to Ambleside. There were two points where I accidentally found myself following the obvious path then discovered that I had gone off the actual ChaAmb One route. The first one was on the way up Dow Bank, and would have involved losing a significant amount of height gained (not easily) and I didn’t want to go back down to find the correct path. The second one was on the path through Low Wood.
It seemed more sensible to me to upload the easier to follow version that I walked, and strictly speaking, I can’t give this version a positive review because I didn’t fully walk it, so I’m doing “Maybe”.
It was generally a good route, with many beautiful views, although I found Dow Bank a bit of a challenge, especially going downhill. I’m glad I brought trekking poles.

I walked this route the day after Storm Éowyn passed through, and I walked from Ambleside to Chapel Stile. I tweaked the starting point slightly to Kelsick Road, as I arrived on the bus. So long as you can get out of Ambleside via Rothay Park and Miller Bridge, it's easy enough to find the way over Loughrigg Fell. A steep and narrow tarmac road climbs the fell, giving way to a gravel track, then an obvious stony path crosses over a shoulder of the fell and drops down the other side. Loughrigg Tarn is passed using field paths, rather than an obvious vehicle track. After a road walk, the only trace of storm damage I found was in Low Wood, where a tree had come down across the path, but it was easy to duck underneath it. Flights of slate steps climbed out of the wood to a road. If the weather was really nasty, you could follow that road down to Elterwater. In good weather, it's a great walk over the steep and rugged Dow Bank, and as long as you spot the path dropping down to Chapel Stile, then you wouldn't have any problems up there. There's a pub, cafe, shop and bus stops in the village, but I didn't stop, and simply launched straight into Chaamb Two to return to Ambleside.

Lovely route, beautiful scenery.

Starting at Chapel Style this nice walk takes you up over the fells past Loughrigg tarn before crossing the river into Ambleside.
A few elevation changes along the route, not to much and plenty of natural places to catch your breath.
Sometimes struggled to get an accurate gps location particularly near Chapel Style but the route is fairly straightforward
Would recommend this walk.

This is a beautiful and interesting walk.
I walked this from Ambleside to Chapel Stile.
The route up Huntingstile Crag and onto Dow Bank is fun and gives great views but does require a bit of easy scrambling. If I had just wanted to get to Chapel Stile quickly, or using something with wheels, I would have just used the road from High Close.

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