Scale Force is a beautiful waterfall near Crummock Water.  It’s probably best seen before the tree foliage gets too thick, but it was still worth a visit today (early August 2017).

We parked at the pay and display car park, next to the Fish Inn, at GR 174169 on OS map OL4.  First of all, we headed off to the bottom of Sour Milk Gill.  It’s a beautiful waterfall, easy to get to (pushchair friendly up to this point) and has lovely views out over Buttermere.

From here we headed north west along the bridleway, until Crummock Water appeared on our right.  It was very wet in places, with big puddles (it had rained heavily in the morning), and several boggy areas, so make sure you wear appropriate footwear.

At GR 158175, we took the lower (and slightly longer) path, turning left up the beck after the wooden footbridge.  The shorter route was incredibly boggy.  After following the path along the beck for just under a kilometre, Scale Force will appear.

After a picnic, we headed back the way we came, taking the shorter route back to Buttermere village, marked in red on the map below.  The map also shows the two waterfalls, Sour Milk Gill on the right and Scale Force to the left.

Just from Buttermere to Sour Milk Gill (blue dot on the right) and back is less than 1 mile (and pushchair friendly). If you do the full route, to Sour Milk Gill, then along to Scale Force and back to Buttermere it is 4.75 miles (not pushchair friendly).  It is mostly a flat walk, apart from the last bit up to the waterfall, but this is not too strenuous at all.

The weather for this walk was intermittent sun, cloud and light rain showers.  Originally we had planned to climb Rannerdale Knotts, but heavy rainfall first thing had scuppered our plans, so we thought a waterfall walk would be perfect, and it didn’t disappoint!

It was so wet, in fact, that the kids had their picnic up a tree, as the floor was too damp to sit on!

Once back to Buttermere, we stopped at the Fish Inn.  Friendly atmosphere, nice food and kid friendly.

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