Pike o' Blisco

Pike o’ Blisco

Southern Lake District

Route: Pike o’Blisco and Blea Tarn

Area: Southern Lake District

Date of walk: 8th September 2014

Walkers: Andrew and Gilly

Distance: 5.6 miles

Weather: Sunny with increasing cloud cover. Warm

We parked in the National Trust car park near Blea Tarn and followed the path which runs above the shore, with its classic view towards the Langdale Pikes. It was tempting to lie down and gaze at the view all day, but there was a mountain to climb – Pike o’Blisco

We walked along the west shore of the tarn and shortly after that we departed from the main track to take a faint grassy path leading up the fellside. This was a new route for us, suggested by Bob Allen in one of his excellent guidebooks, but – sorry Bob – this part of the walk was rather confusing. The so called path didn’t seem to exist and is not shown on the OS map so we were in some doubt as to whether we were on course. We knew the correct line of travel however and fumbled our way along until we eventually joined up with the main path leading from the foot of Side Pike. For anyone following this walk, it might be better to carry on along the main path from the tarn and start the climb later on, though this would make the walk a little longer. At least our route had the advantage of cutting the corner

Once we were on the main path, it was a straightforward climb to the summit of Pike o’Blisco, though there were three or four short scrambly sections when hands were needed. The views from the top were lovely but by now it had started to cloud over a little

The route down was along a vague path which would be hard to follow in mist. We made it back down to the bridge on the Wrynose Pass, then followed the steep road down for a short distance before joining an attractive path back to the start

For other walks here, visit my Find Walks page and enter the name in the ‘Search site’ box

Click on the icon below for the route map (subscribers to OS Maps can view detailed maps of the route, visualise it in aerial 3D, and download the GPX file. Non-subscribers will see a base map)

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