Walk Red Pike by Ennerdale water, Lake District, England

Great challenging walk to the Wainwright summits of Red Pike, Little Dodd, Starling Dodd and Great Borne by Ennerdale water. Dog-friendly.

Red Pike by Ennerdale water walk information:

  • Distance: 13.5km
  • Duration: 6h
  • Ascent: 837m
  • Level: Hard
  • Car park: Bowness Knott Car Park, CA23 3AU, Cleator, free
  • What3words: Snuggled.laying.kinks
  • Dog friendly: Yes- no stile, sheeps in some fields,
Forest by Ennerdale water

This February the weather is really awful and we have not really be able to go hiking in the fells. So I went through my list of walks we did in the past that I did not have time to publish to write this week blog post. Last week I was telling you that at the end of the first lockdown we did Scafell pike. The weekend before that, we had decided in preparation for Scafell Pike, to go on a long walk as a training exercise after those long months without going in the fells.

Find Scafell Pike walk here.

Deer following us

So on a beautiful Saturday morning, we parked our car at Bowness Knott car park and followed the track along Ennerdale water. We had in mind to do Red Pike (755m above sea level) first before heading towards Little Dodd (590m), Starling Dodd (636m) and Great Borne (616m) going down by Steel Brown.

Way up Red Pike

The path going to Red Pike is a bit steep but not too hard as it is mainly a grassy path. Once at the top, the view is absolutely stunning as it is possible to see on one side the Ennerdale valley and on the other side the Buttermere and Crummock valley. The path from Red Pike to Great Borne is very visible and easy. I think it is the best part of the walk as the views are incredible and it is mainly flat. However, the path that goes down around Steel Brown is really steep. I hated that section of the walk. Maybe we should have used the path via Herdus to go down to the car park. We had a small stop by Rake Beck to put our feet in the water before joining the road to the car park.

It was another great day in the fells, not too busy and we were even followed for a short period of time by a deer.

Have you done Red Pike by Ennerdale water?

Going down after the difficult part of Steel Brown

View from the top of Red Pike and along the path to Great Borne

Ennerdale valley

Find all our dog-friendly walks in Cumbria in this page. To discover the United Kingdom it is here.

11 thoughts on “Walk Red Pike by Ennerdale water, Lake District, England

  1. I walked out from Buttermere across Floutern Moss and then up to Great Borne, Starling Dodd and Red Pike, before carrying on to High Stile and High Crag. You’re right about the walk and views from the summits along here, they are lovely in good weather and it looks like you had a lovely day for the weather

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