Misty Skiddaw

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Please leave no trace of your visit to the fells. Items of food, tissues, sweet and chocolate wrappers, otherwise called litter have no
place there. Even apple cores, orange peel and banana skins take a long time to biodegrade in the cooler conditions and in winter
will remain there for many months. As well as being unsightly, after all you don't want to walk amongst a rubbish dump, it can be a
significant danger to livestock and other animals.

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Unless otherwise stated the text in this walk is the copyright of Hug Solutions Ltd trading as WalkLakes and the photographs are the copyright of
Elizabeth Oldham. Hill data is derived from Database of British and Irish hills which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported
License. Maps contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2011 and paths © OpenStreetMap Contributors,CC-BY-SA,
2011
Misty Skiddaw
Apparently Skiddaw often has its head in the clouds! but if you wait 5 minutes it'll probably change. Such is
the way on the high mountains. However the paths are wide, clearly marked and present no difficulty for
human or canine walkers even in quite thick mist.

The Skiddaw massif standing over the town of Keswick can be seen from much of Lakeland. Its bulk made
of layers of shales and mudstones formed over 450 million years ago, compressed and heated to form its
own particular variety of slate then pushed upwards as tectonic plates collided. Skiddaw slate has a grey
tint unlike the Borrowdale green slate mined at Honister, and can be seen in many of the buildings around
Keswick. A curious feature of the way the slate was formed produced the "Musical Stones of Skiddaw".
Made from hornfels which is a hard, dense rock from the interface of mudstones and hot lava, the stones
ring when struck and the instrument is called a Lithophone.

Way back in the early 1900s there used to be a tea hut called the half-way house, which was as you might
guess at the half way point from Keswick. Now all that remains is a small flat area next to a gateway on the
slopes near Underskiddaw.

Some people like to start this walk in Keswick, but the car park behind Latrigg at the end of the Gale Gill
road gives us a bit of a head start. Cheating? Absolutely not.

This walk takes you to the top of the following hills: Skiddaw South Top, Skiddaw North Top, Skiddaw
Middle Top, Skiddaw Little Man, Skiddaw - Lesser Man, and Skiddaw; and includes 2 Wainwrights, 1 Furth,
6 Birketts, 2 Hewitts, 2 Nuttalls, and 1 Marilyn.

Start: NY281254 Terrain: 2 - rough

Near to: Bassenthwaite Lake, Braithwaite, Bog Factor: 1 - none
Derwent Water, Keswick Tech Diff: 1 - easy
Maps: 50K: 89, 90 25K: OL4 Easy to follow paths even in mist.
Distance: 10.0km (6.2 miles) 6.2miles Dog issues: Sheep. Little available water.
Ascent: 750m
Min. Time: 3 hrs 15 mins

1
 Walk height profile

height in metres, distance in kilometres - note that gradients are usually exaggerated

2
1 At the far end of the car park behind
Latrigg go through the gate and turn
sharp left. Follow the wall on your left to
a kissing gate, go through the gate and
keep left with the fence close by. Another
gate is in the dip beyond the shepherd's
monument. Now the climbing begins!

After a set of zigzags you reach another

gate and continue on the obvious wide
track beyond now with the fence on your
right hand side. This is where the
half-way house used to be.

2 In a little over 1.0km (0.6 miles) you

reach another gate marked with a small
sign saying "Skiddaw Summit", go
through and continue on this track as it
contours around Little Man. The track
then steepens with a large cairn at the
top of the rise. This marks the southern
end of the summit ridge. Bear right and
head to the trig point and summit proper.

3
3 Return is largely retracing your steps.
However, we'll also visit Little and Lesser
Man. So return to the cairn at the
southern end of the summit ridge and
bear left. Drop down to the cairn just
before the top fence and gate where a
small path bears right alongside the
fence and then left to keep the fence
close beside you. Cross the grassy soft
plateau and start the climb up Little Man.
The fence moves away here, but our
path continues largely straight ahead on
a rough rocky path.

Reaching the summit cairn of Little Man,

continue on to reach the second cairn
marking the end of the short ridge and
the summit of Lesser Man (which is not
named on OS maps).

4 Continue straight ahead descending

towards the outward bound track
rejoining it at the gate with the small
sign. Bear right and keep on the track all
the way back to the car park.