Black Crags (Mickleden)
Black Crags at 588m (1,929ft) is a rocky Birkett top on the southern rim of the Great Langdale valley above Mickleden, giving excellent views across the valley floor to the Langdale Pikes and up into the wild upper reaches towards Bow Fell.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 588 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Sat 12 Sep): 14° to 8°C, gusts to 47 mph, 38.6 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 12 Sep 2026, 18:50 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 588 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Black Crags (Mickleden) at a glance
Routes up Black Crags (Mickleden)
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Black Crags (Mickleden) a Wainwright?
Black Crags (Mickleden) is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.
Where do you park for Black Crags (Mickleden)?
We hold no car park within 2.5 km of the summit, so there is no short walk-in to recommend here. We only look within 2.5 km, measured straight-line: over longer distances a road may cross a pass and the drive bears no relation to the line.
How hard is Black Crags (Mickleden)?
The shortest way up we hold is Langdale Horseshoe — 20.2 km, 1497 m of ascent, about 6.5 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.
All axes: steepness: Severe · length: Severe · exposure: Hard · navigation: Hard · terrain: Hard.
Parking & buses for Black Crags (Mickleden)
Best parking to hike Black Crags (Mickleden)
Where we have the data, each parking spot also shows the nearest public toilets and facilities (cafés, pubs, shops).
Positions are approximate — zoom the map to confirm.
Tip: pan and zoom the interactive map at the top of this page to spot other potential parking near your route.
Vehicles are left entirely at their owner’s risk. We list places people park; we cannot vouch for any of them. Judge it on the day: take valuables with you, leave nothing on show, and if a spot feels wrong when you get there, park somewhere else.
Getting to Black Crags (Mickleden) by bus
The 516 stops at New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel (opp), 290 m from the start of Langdale Horseshoe — a route we rate Severe. Last bus: Monday to Friday 20:03 towards Dungeon Ghyll (516); Saturday 22:23 towards Dungeon Ghyll (516); Sunday 20:03 towards Dungeon Ghyll (516). Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Hazards on Black Crags (Mickleden)
No hazard card for this fell. The usual open-fell rules apply: check the forecast, carry a map and compass, and turn back in cloud if the ground is not what you expected.
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Old Dungeon Ghyll (NT, paid), about 3.6 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Black Crags (Mickleden) (within 3 km)
These Birkett tops are not Wainwright summits — detour to them on this walk and they are pure profit. Distances are straight-line; allow extra for terrain.
Routes over Black Crags (Mickleden)
✎️ Planned route — drawn but not personally walked or checked yet.
A planned line is a suggestion, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate independently and carry a map & compass. How to use this guide.
On the hill: terrain and water on Black Crags (Mickleden)
Terrain & access
A near-path top (about 588 m): a mapped path comes within about 64 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 4 m of ascent, up to ~29°). The summit is on CRoW open access land.
Computed from open data, not walked — pathless ground needs confident navigation, and mapped paths, barriers and access boundaries can be incomplete. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors (via Overpass); Natural England CRoW Access Land; DoBIH; Copernicus GLO-30. See the terrain & access report for how this is worked out across all 144 fells.
Water & shelter on the way up
On the Langdale Horseshoe route:
💧 Treat water from the fell before you drink it. A mapped point is usually a tap or public supply, but never drink untreated from a beck, stream or tarn — even clear-looking hill water can carry giardia or cryptosporidium from livestock or a carcass upstream and leave you seriously ill. Run it through a filter or purifier (a LifeStraw, Sawyer Squeeze or HydraPak) or bring it to a rolling boil first.
On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.
Places to stay near this fell
From Great Langdale: 3 places in Grasmere
Other fells near Black Crags (Mickleden)
- Allen Crags
- Black Fell
- Bowfell
- Brim Fell
- Cold Pike
- Crinkle Crags - Long Top (Second Crinkle)
- Dow Crag
- Esk Pike
- Glaramara
- Great Carrs
- Great End
- Green Crag
- Grey Friar
- Hard Knott
- Harter Fell (Eskdale)
- Holme Fell
- Illgill Head
- Lingmell
- Lingmoor Fell (Brown How)
- Pike of Blisco
- Rossett Pike
- Rosthwaite Fell - Bessyboot
- Scafell
- Scafell Pike
- Seathwaite Fell (Wainwright summit)
- Slight Side
- Swirl How
- The Old Man of Coniston (Coniston Old Man)
- Wetherlam
- Whin Rigg (Wasdale)