Honister Pass
Honister Pass, which is a mountain pass on the B5289 road in the Lake District, connects the Buttermere Valley in the Lakes with the eastern end of Borrowdale Valley in Keswick. This pass, which has an altitude of 356 metres, is not only one of Cumbria’s highest passes, but with a gradient of up to 1 in 4 (25%), it is also the steepest. Located at the summit of this pass in the Honister Slate Mine and Honister Hause Youth Hostel.
This pass can be extremely challenging during the winter months. In the Victorian times it was popular to take a horse drawn carriage circular day trip from Keswick over the pass, however, the men who took the coach were expected to walk from Seatoller, in the Borrowdale Valley, to the summit in order to relieve the strain on the horses. Today, however, there are footpaths which lead from the summit of the pass to Fleetwith Pike and Grey Knotts to the south and Dale Head to the north.
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