In his 1979 book 'A Walk Around The Lakes', Hunter Davies was not particularly taken with Grizedale's attempts to lure in the casual visitor, writing:

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"Before heading down to the slopes of Coniston Water, I spent some time exploring Grizedale Forest which lies between Coniston and Esthwaite Water, but I didn't like it. The Forestry Commission are trying hard these days, wanting everybody to love them, welcoming visitors and laying on nature trails. There's a wildlife centre and a big camping site, and most surprisingly of all, a Theatre in the Forest.... It was a wet and dismal day when I was there, which didn't help." 

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What would Davies make of Go Ape, the vertigo-inducing tree-top assault course which brings in tons of visitors each year? It is, perhaps, the co-existence of forestry and tourism taken to its logical conclusion. The balance between maintaining the forest as a working environment while also finding ways of entertaining incomers has been a tightrope which the Forestry Commission have been walking since the decision to open Grizedale up properly to the masses, decades ago.

 

It's impossible to say whether Bill Grant would have approved (he probably would), but no doubt he would have liked the wooden gorilla carving which sits next to the Ancient Forester, just by the start of the Go Ape course. Tim Atkins has been making these sculptures since 2002, when the first Go Ape course was installed at Thetford Forest. Grizedale's Go Ape followed a year later and was only the third of its kind in Britain. Rebecca and Tristam Mayhew created the courses after being inspired by similar a similar concept in France. There are now courses all over the UK and the couple opened their first American Go Ape in 2010, in Rockville, Maryland.

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Grizedale's Go Ape has grown significantly since I did it a few years ago, and the zip wires now extend all the way up to Grizedale Tarn in what looks like a fun course, unless you don't like heights. Then it would probably be terrifying. Grizedale sadly can't claim to have the longest zip-wire, though; that honour goes to the Aberfoyle course up in Scotland, whose zips exceed four hundred metres in length, or, to use the standardised measurement of comparison, roughly four football pitches.