Cicerone Press recently published this guidebook, focusing on 15 short walks in three of the most popular places in the Lake District. As someone who is keen on documenting how you can, from scratch, progress from enjoying small trails to big and challenging ones, I thought it would be a great idea to buy this and take it ‘for a spin’…

For me, the key question when first picking up a guidebook, is simply this: does it make me want to get outside? Does it inspire me to pause for a few minutes to read more details that I might otherwise dedicate to something else? The answer with this short but lovely little volume is ‘yes’, very much so. The routes are spread out pretty evenly across the three centres included in the title, and they are all mostly short, apart from one ‘challenge’ route.

To test out the quality, I picked an area I knew well for the trial: Grasmere. I wanted to hike up a local summit and didn’t have much spare time. This is where the book is ideal – designed for a couple or a family looking to pack in lots of activities during a weekend trip. It also works well for a single traveller like me looking to scope out the best of an area within reach of local amenities. If you’re looking for a guidebook to head off the beaten track somewhere remote this is not for you! If you’re looking for a quick outdoor fix in this beautiful national park then it would be very difficult to beat this book for quality, size and price.

I chose route 13, Silver How – a small peak that packs a punch with views worth fighting for. A steep ascent is rewarded by a panoramic vista of its more famous local neightbours, all reminders of future challenges to be tackled perhaps with more time and experience. The navigation and route description were all excellent, with good quality OS mapping clearly displayed. I actually used a paper copy OS map alongside the guidebook which I marked as I usually do for all my walks. This made navigation a lot easier for me.

This book might well be great to pass to teenage members of the family – why not let them plan the adventure for the day? If you had done DofE Bronze then you could just about fathom your way through this book while maybe having an adventure or two along the way for good measure.

So how do I rate it? As a starter, it’s a great guidebook and will very likely build enough confidence and experience to take on much bigger challenges in the future. Its is slim and super light, easily fitting into most jacket pockets and even the most cram-packed of rucksacks. It looks great too, with a design that is hard to resist.

My only concern is that it does not mention which paper maps to use alongside the book. This might sound trivial or even absurd but hear me out: it’s vital to become familiar with using maps alongside these guidebooks due to basic things like orientating to relocate being very tricky otherwise. It wouldn’t be much of an edit to add in the OS map number of the local area. While you may use mobile phone mapping or a GPS with this it is a very useful habit to form to take paper maps with you, especially if you’re introducing young ones to the great outdoors.