Easdale Tarn

The cliffs of Tarn crag at 900 feet surround Easdale tarn in its isolated valley. The tarn lies in a basin carved during the ice age by glaciers. The valley is littered with boulders rounded by the force of ice scraping over them.

Sour Milk Gill, so called because of its white churning water, exits from the tarn.

To reach Easdale tarn a two-mile walk is required. Start at the car park in Easdale Lane in Grasmere, head across Goody Bridge, cross Easdale Beck and follow the signposted path with the beck on your right hand.

According to poet Thomas de Quincey, Easdale tarn was a chapel within a cathedral and the most gloomily sublime tarn.

Easdale Tarn is under the care of the National Trust.

Photos courtesy of Tony Richards and Andrew Leaney

Back to Tarns

© 1997-2008 by The Cumbria Directory. Reproduction of this work in whole or in part, including images, and reproduction in electronic media, without documented permission from The Cumbria Directory is prohibited.