Grasmere circular walk
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Does the person who compiles these walks ever actually check to see if their guidance instructions are actually accurate and easy to understand? I recently purchased the Grasmere circular walk from this site and attempted to follow it last Saturday. The early stages of the walk say the cross the A591, walk down the 'old coffin road' - which is not marked anywhere so heaven knows how you are meant to find it - briefly, then cross back over the A591 towards the lake. This is absolute nonsense as the road in question on the other side of the A591 is several miles long !! This should be made abundantly clear in order to give helpful accurate guidance. It is really annoying and frustrating when we place our trust in numpties who put nonsensical directions on this site. Please do us all a favour - either put easy to understand, accurate walk-related information on the site or don't bother!
Dear Steven
Firstly we're disappointed that you didn't enjoy our walk. Over 750 people have purchased that walk to date and this is the first negative feedback which we've had but I have refunded you the £1 you paid for it.
Turning to the specifics you say that we say:
[to] cross the A591, walk down the 'old coffin road' - which is not marked anywhere so heaven knows how you are meant to find it
That's not actually what we say. What we say is (my emboldening):
Do not walk along the A591 but cross the roundabout and take the country lane with the 6'6" width restriction. Follow this past the Wordsworth Shop, Dove Cottage and up the hill.
... and then, in the next paragraph, and clearly after you've walked some distance as you have by this time passed the shop, the cottage, and walked up a hill.
Just past the small overgrown pond at How Top, turn left signposted "Public Right of Way to Alcock Tarn and Coffin Route to Rydal".
So that's where you should find a sign. It's a wooden signpost and is clearly shown in the photo for that walk instruction. This photograph in fact:
Did you fail to find a wooden sign at this junction? The same junction where there is also a white sign saying "NO THROUGH ROAD FOR MOTOR VEHICLES AFTER ½ MILE"? It sounds like instead you continued forward down the 0.83 miles of road back to the A591 and so missed the start of the Coffin Route.
If the wooden sign is no longer there then we need to update our walk. This sort of thing does happen so we do provide a feedback link at the bottom of every walk for people to let us know of changes.
While I wait for your feedback on the wooden sign I've updated the walk instruction to say (my emboldening):
Just past the small overgrown pond at How Top, turn left signposted, on a wooden sign, "Public Right of Way to Alcock Tarn and Coffin Route to Rydal" and also "NO THROUGH ROAD FOR MOTOR VEHICLES AFTER ½ MILE" on a white metal sign.
... so if the wooden sign has gone missing we've got an alternative.
MichyAndWill likes this postParticipants in these activities should be aware of and accept these risks and be responsible for their own actions.