Autumn Leaves in the Lakes

A quick glance at any map of Cumbria reveals huge swathes of green in the south of the county too: woodland seems to dominate in the Duddon Valley, around Coniston and Hawkshead and along the shores of Windermere. Some of this, particularly in the Grizedale Forest, will be conifer plantation, but even here large expanses of deciduous woodland break up the regimented lines of green spruce, bringing a vibrant display.

Explore Claife Heights on the western side of Windermere and you’ll experience some of that variety. An unbroken line of good tracks and paths follows the shore of England’s longest lake for almost seven kilometres, hardly ever leaving the woods: from The Ferry House near Far Sawrey north, all the way to Wray Castle. Returning via the 244m top of Latterbarrow – a fine viewpoint over the treetops, and the many tarns that bejewel these gently rolling hills – makes for an excellent day out through a diversity of landscapes. But it’s also a fairly long day – at least 17km depending on which route you choose – so you’ll need to make sure you start early and have plenty of daylight.

Getting caught out here by autumn’s ever-lengthening nights is to be avoided at all costs... unless you’re deliberately seeking an encounter with the hooded figure that’s said to wander these dark forest tracks after dusk. The so-called Claife Crier is thought to be the spirit of a monk from Furness Abbey who was prevented from marrying the woman he loved by his monastic vows. Tormented, he retreated to the forests of Claife where he died of grief. Others say the sinister apparition is the ghost of one of the dozens of people who drowned in two boating tragedies on the lake in the 17th century.

My favourite part of the Lake District at this time of the year lies in the west of the National Park: Crummock Water and Loweswater. Every year, come the frosts of October and November, I grab my camera and head for the shores of these two lakes. In the hour or so after sunrise, a little mist invariably hangs over the water’s surface and, in some years, there may even be an early, light dusting of snow on top of the mountains. This area may lack the concentration of woodland that Borrowdale has, but it has something that the valley on the other side of the Honister Pass lacks. Don’t ask me what it is; it’s an almost ethereal quality created by the perfect combination of fell and lake.

And it’s from vantage points such as Rannerdale Knotts above Crummock Water that the full scale of nature’s most striking seasonal transformation can be appreciated: it’s not just the leaves and berries on the trees and bushes – everything is changing. The grasses, sedges and rushes have lost their deep, luscious shades of summer green, and, even more striking, the bracken is turning the lower fellsides a beautiful bronze, briefly redeeming itself for the pernicious way in which it chokes the countryside in the summer.

Autumn is a good time of year to spot red squirrels in Holme Wood beside Loweswater and the mixed woods at Lanthwaite, beside Crummock Water.

This is the busiest time of year for our endangered native squirrel, the time when they need to eat as much as possible to put on fat reserves to get them through the imminent winter and enable them to breed successfully the following spring. Eating the seeds from pine cones, larch, spruce, hazel and oak, as well as fungi and berries, they can put on up to 12 per cent of their body weight during the autumn. Their natural shyness is forgotten as the quest for fat becomes paramount. This is when they can be seen scurrying along the woodland floor, picking up nuts in their tiny paws, eagerly munching the good ones and quickly discarding the bad ones.

A circuit of Crummock Water, with a detour to the 355m top of Rannerdale Knotts, presents some of the most sublime low-level walking in the Western Lakes, if not the entire National Park. Just over 14km, it can be extended by adding on loops to take in Flass Wood, Green Wood and even Holme Wood.