While a walk around the park is all the adventure many of us need, for the brave a trek along Wasdale Screes in the Lake District is sure to get your adrenaline going
Many of us will take to the trails at the weekend to fill our lungs with fresh air, get our hearts going and take our minds away from the stresses of everyday life. While a Sunday afternoon stroll may usually resemble a lap around the local park or the route around next door’s field.
However, for one man, his leisurely walk turned out to be an all-around more stressful afternoon as he attempted the UK’s scariest walk.
TikTok reviewer and social media star Phil Carr headed up to the Lake District to attempt the perilous walk up Wasdale Screes, an area of unstable, loose boulders on the bank of Wast Water.
The route appears to be more of climb than a hike, with locals and trekkers alike generally advising against the route due to the seemingly endless places to take a tumble or roll an ankle.
Heading up the sketchy hill, Phil said: “The scariest path in the UK? This is it, and yes, Wasdale Screes is an actual footpath, and it’s terrifying. Everyone said ‘don’t do it’ and I couldn’t find anybody who’d walked across it more than once in their lives.”
While the likes of Giddy Edge in Derbyshire, a path that essentially straddles the side of a cliff face, and The Broomway in Essex, a path that can soon leave you cut off by the ocean, whereas Wasdale poses a whole different challenge – thousands of loose rocks lining a mountainside above your head.
Phil added: “Wasdale Screes is over 1,000 feet of rock slide just above your head. It’s insecure, it’s steep, it can all go at any minute, and the route across it is over a mile.”
The Lake District route starts seemingly innocently with rolling green hills filled with sheep and even alpacas, that is, until the path splits off up to Wasdale, with the National Trust signpost even labelling the walk as “not recommended”.
Decked out in hiking gear and with a SOS call at the ready, Phil bravely soldiered towards the climb. He added: “Another massive red flag is that there were quite a lot of people in this part of the Lake District, but none of them were going down the path I was going down.”
Locals advised Phil to avoid a dog and to stay low across the screes, with what looks like miles of unsteady rocks looming over you.
Continuing, Phil said: “Normally when you’re walking along a scary path you’re worrying about a drop to one side of you, here you’re worrying about what’s above you, it could all come crashing down on me… they wouldn’t even find me.”
Despite the adrenaline hit and both breathtaking and petrifying views, Phil seemed somewhat scarred by the experience. He added: “It’s not at all rewarding, but it is absolutely terrifying and it is very slow – a mile is a long way when you have to think about every footstep you take.”
Finally summing up his experience and questioning whether he would recommend the path, Phil summarises: “Well, absolutely not, it’s completely pointless, you don’t get any sense of achievement, the view of the mountains is actually better from the other side of the lake.”