Yes we did make it to the lakes and back home again by the Settle Carlisle railway and the Stagecoach Carlisle to Keswick bus.
The is a lot of localised devastation and anyone in the Booths supermarket at the critical time would have drowned in 6 feet of water. Fitz Park is full of mud, rocks and dead trees dumped by the river. Many houses in Keswick and Carlisle have all their stuff outside waiting to be dumped. Its awful.

Any walks around Thirlmere will be inaccessible for a while, possible till Easter and the walks between Thelkeld and Keswick are bridge less. I saw one of the rail bridges and it is awesome to see how it has been tossed aside.
But Borrowdale bridges are mostly where they should be.

The pubs are very quiet so if you can get up there you won't be fighting for a seat.

We had 6 good walks though the last 3 were in a lot of rain. I have listed them so you can see what can be done, and you can extrapolate some more. Buttermere to the North Western Fells is OK too.

Seatoller Dale Head Seatoller Stonethwaite :Lane End 7m
Scales Blencathra Wescoe Threlkeld 8m
Keswick Skiddaw Keswick 11m
Keswick Bleaberry Fell Keswick 8m
Portinscale Grange ? Rosthwaite 11m
Stonethwaite Lane End- Langstrath ? Grange Derwentwater YH 9m

Ouch - heavy SNOW in the valleys now, with the A66 snow gates closed between Bowes and Brough (and slow going on the other sections) according to Cumbria Police!

Let's hope Raymond makes it to Keswick OK, and that the snowmelt doesn't exacerbate the existing problems ...

We are going to Keswick tomorrow for a week as we have booked
Now Dunmail Raise road is said to be closed till something like Easter. Difficult to get much good info abt state of paths. What is known if very bitty - understandably

http://www.lakedistrictweatherline.co.uk/

http://www.lakedistrict.gov.uk/aboutus/news/news-pages/cumbria-floods

Thirlmere back road blocked by landslides. East side of Whinlatter pass blocked by washed down trees

Lakes dist want us to go and spend our money, but may be better to come in 6 weeks!

Some dramatic aerial shots of the damage to Pooley Bridge, courtesy of Catstycam.com in Glenridding.

There's plenty more of Glenridding itself if you scroll back through their Twitter timeline,

Oh no - Glenridding's going under again after more rain today. The Telegraph are running a live blog, complete with pictures and video

Glenridding defences fail as rain continues - live

I daresay it'll make the main news channels as well in the morning.

Looks like the Ullswater Valley copped it pretty hard as well - debris all over the place in Patterdale / Glenridding with Pooley Bridge washed out, if anyone was thinking of doing Striding Edge etc. in the near future.

The felltop conditions assessors, though, are showing the old Blitz spirit and carrying on doing their daily duties, despite their office looking like a tsunami's gone through it!

Lake District felltop assessors continue despite Storm Desmond

Noted that the Wainwright Society have sent £1000 towards the Flood victims appeal. A LDWA contribution perhaps?

From George Fishers
Yes please do come, it is exactly what the town needs.
The river and lake levels have dropped a lot and Skiddaw and Blencathra will be accessible, although you may have to make detours around trees through any wooded approach routes.
Round the lake might be interesting, and you might have to go through Grange rather than over the duck boards, but I don?t think they are out of the water yet (they might be ok). The Borrowdale Rd only re-opened last night, and it was the 1st chance for people from Rosthwaite to get out of the valley but you could get as far as Grange via the back road.
You can get over the bridge at Portinscale for the lake shore, so by next weekend, hopefully the lake will have gone down enough to get round.
PS Buses from Penrith and Carlisle to Keswick now running as well as trains to Penrith and Carlisle though not full service.
It is aid Dunmail Raise road will open this week - if it does that will be impressive!