This high glacial tarn is stocked with wild brown trout and Loch Leven trout, and fishing is permitted without charge provided a valid rod licence is held. A clear footpath largely circumnavigates the water, raised just enough above the shoreline to keep the walk dry under normal conditions. At the head of the tarn, however, the ground becomes soft and marshy, and the crossing of Hayeswater Gill—where water is drawn into the former intake—can be awkward or hazardous in wet or wintry weather.

Viewed from the north shore, Hayeswater forms a long, enclosed lakescape beneath the eastern wall of the valley, where the cliffs of The Knott merge into the higher ground of High Street. Around much of the shoreline, and rising across the backwall behind the tarn, there is clear and extensive evidence of glaciation, with smoothed rock, drift, and morainic deposits marking the gradual retreat of ice that once occupied this compact mountain basin.

Below the steep eastern face of Gray Crag, a dense swarm of moraines gathers along the lake’s fringe, forming low ridges and hummocks that trace the former margins of the Hayeswater glacier as it stagnated and retreated within this confined hollow.

Hayeswater is a prominent valley landmark when viewed from the Angle Tarn ridge of the Coast to Coast path, as well as from High Street and Gray Crag. It lies within a deep glacial hollow, fed by Hayeswater Gill, which rises from springs close to the rim of the valley backwall near Thornthwaite Beacon. The tarn’s outflow is also Hayeswater Gill, which descends beneath Gray Crag to join Pasture Beck, before its waters are carried onward by Goldrill Beck as it flows out of Brothers Water.

From High Street, near Thornthwaite Crag, the lake is encircled by undulating, grass-covered moraine, with low hummocks and ridges visible along much of the shoreline, clearly revealing the former limits and slow retreat of ice within the Hayeswater basin.