If Catbells is full
Before you go
Ten fells take 67.3% of the 195,370 searches a month for Wainwrights, and on a fair Saturday their car parks show it. For four of them this page gives three things a walker can use at the car-park gate: when the crowd arrives, from the National Park Authority’s own ticket data; a quieter walk from the same base, set beside the usual one so you can see whether it is the same size of day; and a shorter walk for a later start. All three are computed from stores this site already holds, and each says which.
Cat Bells (Catbells) 16.8% of all Wainwright searches
When the crowd arrives. Nobody sells a ticket for the Hawes End and Skelgill Bank verges, so there is no arrival data to print. The verges fill early on a fair weekend and the road becomes the overflow; that is the whole reason this page starts with Catbells.
The usual walk: Catbells: the short way up.
5.7 km and 407 m of ascent, about 1¾–2½ hours; terrain Moderate, navigation Easy, exposure Easy; starts at Hawes End; walked by Lee, May 2026
A similar outing: none of the walks we publish from this base is a quieter walk of about the same size.
A longer mountain day: Walla Crag, Bleaberry Fell, High Seat, High Tove and Armboth Fell, over Walla Crag, Bleaberry Fell and High Seat, each with under a tenth of Catbells’ search interest. Quieter, and a bigger day than the usual walk.
17.0 km and 812 m of ascent, about 4¾–6½ hours; terrain Moderate, navigation Moderate, exposure Easy; starts at Ashness Gate Car Park; walked by Lee, August 2025
The later start. Catbells: the short way up: about 1¾–2½ hours, exposure band Easy; walked by Lee, May 2026.
Helvellyn 23.5% of all Wainwright searches
When the crowd arrives. At Glenridding car park, 43% of weekend tickets are bought before 10am and 26% before 9am; the busiest weekend hour is 9am, and on an August Saturday 36% are before 10am. LDNPA ticket data, 2024-08-17 to 2026-03-31, 48,365 tickets. That is when people arrive, never whether there is space.
The usual walk: Helvellyn via Striding Edge & Swirral Edge.
12.7 km and 948 m of ascent, about 4–5½ hours; terrain Severe, navigation Severe, exposure Severe; starts at Glenridding; walked in part; km 4.1–6.7, km 10.3–11.5 from the map
A similar outing: Glenridding Dodd, Sheffield Pike, Catstye Cam, Birkhouse Moor, over Glenridding Dodd, Sheffield Pike and Catstye Cam, each with under a tenth of Helvellyn’s search interest. Close to the usual walk in distance and climb.
15.6 km and 1,269 m of ascent, about 5–7 hours; terrain Hard, navigation Hard, exposure Hard; starts at Glenridding; walked by Lee, September 2023
The later start. Lanty's Tarn and Glenridding Beck: about 0¾–1¼ hours, exposure band Easy; planned from the map, not yet walked.
Helm Crag 2.5% of all Wainwright searches
When the crowd arrives. At Broadgate Meadow, Grasmere, 14% of weekend tickets are bought before 10am and 5% before 9am; the busiest weekend hour is 11am, and on an August Saturday 12% are before 10am. LDNPA ticket data, 2024-08-17 to 2026-03-31, 24,085 tickets. That is when people arrive, never whether there is space.
The usual walk: Helm Crag & Far Easedale.
15.9 km and 870 m of ascent, about 4½–6¼ hours; terrain Moderate, navigation Moderate, exposure Moderate; starts at Grasmere Village; walked by Lee, January 2025
A similar outing: West of Grasmere, over Sergeant Man, Blea Rigg and Silver How, each with under a tenth of Helm Crag’s search interest. Close to the usual walk in distance and climb.
15.4 km and 863 m of ascent, about 4½–6¼ hours; terrain Moderate, navigation Moderate, exposure Moderate; starts at Grasmere Village; walked by Lee, March 2025
The later start. Silver How from Grasmere: about 1½–2¼ hours, exposure band Moderate; walked in part; km 0.5–2.6 from the map.
The Old Man of Coniston (Coniston Old Man) 1.3% of all Wainwright searches
When the crowd arrives. At Coniston's village car parks, 41% of weekend tickets are bought before 10am and 19% before 9am; the busiest weekend hour is 9am, and on an August Saturday 46% are before 10am. LDNPA ticket data, 2024-08-17 to 2026-03-31, 5,450 tickets. That is when people arrive, never whether there is space.
The usual walk: Coniston Old Man Round.
16.1 km and 1,155 m of ascent, about 5–7 hours; terrain Moderate, navigation Hard, exposure Moderate; starts at Coniston village; walked by Lee, August 2024
A similar outing: none of the walks we publish from this base is a quieter walk of about the same size.
The later start. North of Coniston Birketts: about 2¼–3¼ hours, exposure band Moderate; walked in part; km 2.2–5.5 from the map.
How these are chosen
The honeypots are the most-searched Wainwrights in the search-interest data that have a usual base with parking we hold a pin for. “When the crowd arrives” is the Authority’s pay-and-display ticket data under FOI, the same store as the arrivals page: the share of weekend tickets bought before 10am and before 9am, and the busiest weekend hour. It never says a car park is full, because the data cannot. A quieter walk is a route we publish from a start within 2.5 km of the base that visits a fell within 6 km of it with under a tenth of the honeypot’s monthly searches. It is compared with the usual walk as a walk, not as a summit: distance plus a kilometre for every 100 m of climb. Within 0.6 to 1.3 times the usual walk it is “a similar outing”; beyond that it is “a longer mountain day”, and the page never offers one as the other. A walk that also climbs the honeypot says so. Every walk shown was reviewed by us before it went on the page. The later start is the shortest published route from the same base whose time range, slow end included, is within 3.5 hours and whose exposure band is Easy or Moderate, walked routes first. The exposure band is our grade for drops beside the path; it is not a judgement of how the way down will be in fading light. Quiet is measured as search interest, which is a guide to popularity and not a count of people: nothing here was counted on the ground, and nothing here knows whether a car park has space today.
Search interest: SISTRIX UK monthly volumes as recorded in the site’s search-interest data. Ticket data: LDNPA, FOI/2026.500 (Environmental Information Regulations), 2024-08-17 to 2026-03-31. Contains public sector information provided by the Lake District National Park Authority and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The hourly figures are free to download as open data. Rules and figures: data/honeypots.json, regenerated by every build.