Written on 01/09/16 by Paul Oldham

Walk and Skinny Dip in the Lake District?

In April the Lonely Planet web site named Blackmoss Pot, approximately two miles from Stonethwaite, as one of their top 10 places to go skinny dipping. You can find Blackmoss Pot in the Langstrath valley at OSGB NY267113. It has a waterfall at one end and is surrounded by steep rocks, which conceal swimmers from prying eyes on the nearby bridleway, making it ideal for a nude swim ... allegedly.

Blackmoss Pot
Blackmoss Pot

Now we're into September we're not sure this is really the time for skinny dipping or for any sort of outdoor swimming to be honest but we have surveyed the walk to Blackmoss Pot. It's another out and back walk and this time it's 7km or 4.3 miles with 200m of ascent.

Langstrath and Blea Rock
Langstrath and Blea Rock

The walk takes you up the bank of Stonethwaite Beck to where its source - the meeting of Langstrath Beck and Greenup Gill below Eagle Crag - and there you turn right crossing Greenup Gill to follow Langstrath Beck up Langstrath to Blackmoss Pot.

The day we were there the pot was swimmer free but C Palmer was there on a day when people were swimming (although clothed) and took this photo:

Swimming at Black Moss Pot
Blackmoss Pot

Anyway it's a pleasant little walk even if you don't intend to swim so why not give it a go?

Photo of swimmers at Black Moss Pot by taken by C Palmer on 7th January 2004 and is used here under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0) licence.

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