Bob Graham Round Leg 5: Honister Pass to Keswick

The route

Leg 5 is the home straight of the Bob Graham Round. From the top of Honister Pass it climbs the rebuilt path onto Dale Head (753m), then runs the airy Newlands ridge over Hindscarth (727m) and Robinson (737m). After Robinson the fells are done and the route drops to the Newlands valley for the long, flat run-in through Little Town and Portinscale to Keswick Moot Hall. It is 18.2km with only 723m of ascent, the gentlest leg of the round, but it comes after more than 60 miles and the road miles are deceptively hard on wrecked legs.

Bob Graham context

The Bob Graham Round is the Lake District's 66-mile, 42-peak, 24-hour challenge from Keswick Moot Hall, established by Bob Graham in 1932 and now overseen by the Bob Graham 24 Hour Club, whose members have all completed the round inside the day. Leg 5 carries you from the Honister support point back to the Moot Hall finish, and for clockwise rounds it is the leg where the clock and the legs are both running out. Many contenders are escorted across these final tops and along the road by their support runners.

Why it works

On its own this is a fine, runnable Newlands round over three North Western Fells Wainwrights, with the bonus of the classic Robinson descent and a genuine valley finish. The summits are grassy and the navigation is straightforward by Bob Graham standards, though Robinson's western nose needs care in mist. Take it as a fast evening run in its own right, or as the celebratory last act of a 24-hour round, and save just enough for the tarmac into Keswick. The road from Newlands through Portinscale is where the famous photographs of finishers being escorted to the Moot Hall are taken, often with a crowd waiting under the clock. Schedules typically allow around two and a half hours here, but the emotion of a successful round tends to carry tired legs faster than the splits suggest.