Utterly Buttermere

An Autumn trip to Buttermere takes some beating, not only have all the leaves cleared off but also the crowds of "flip floppers" have too.

If you've never been here before, i recommend you drive the Honister Slate Mine way, the drive alone is a cracker, just make sure your brakes work ready for the decent.

Now in my opinion the amazing thing about Buttermere is that you don't need to climb any fells to get the views, all around you is beauty. My first 1/2 dozen trips here with the "bin lids" & "trouble n strife" we just wandered around the lake.

 But trust me though, them "mountains are calling and I must go" your surrounded by them from nearly all sides, they whisper to you "please climb me" (they don't, I just made that last bit up, I'm sorry I'll get me coat)

Now at the far end of Buttermere is a small fell named "Haystacks" possibly named as the summit resembles stacks of hay in a field. It's a little fell standing only 1959ft and described by Alfred Wainwright as "a shaggy terrier in the company of foxhounds" due to the scale and beauty of the surrounding peaks, of all the fells in this area this is the one I recommend you climb if you get chance, it's one of the few I continually return to.

Autumn is also the time when I also feel less like the "shaggy terrier in the company of foxhounds" as this is the time that the "designer climbers" pack their expensive hardly used clobber away. No more being passed at great speed by couples wearing matching clothes, rucksacks and the obligitory "two sticks each" . I once bought one of these £80 active slim fit wicking base layers and it just made me look like I was smuggling a "Wok"

I think sometimes people enjoy the buying of things for their hobby more than their hobby itself.

So to quote AW for the last time "this is a place of great charm and fairyland attractiveness" in my words it's "Utterly Buttermere" so don't be "unabashed and unashamed" and go and have a wander.