Boat How
Boat How at 337m (1,106ft) is a small, rocky summit above Eskdale, its craggy top giving views across lower Eskdale and towards the sea.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 337 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Sat 12 Sep): 16° to 10°C, gusts to 40 mph, 39.5 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 337 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Boat How at a glance
Routes up Boat How
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Boat How a Wainwright?
Boat How is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells, not one of the 214 in the Pictorial Guides. It is also on the Birkett list, the Synge list and the Fellranger list.
Where do you park for Boat How?
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 Boat How?
The shortest way up we hold is Boat How, Great Bank & Wainwrights — 20.7 km, 1170 m of ascent, about 6.1 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.
All axes: steepness: Severe · length: Severe · exposure: Hard · terrain: Moderate · navigation: Moderate.
Parking & buses for Boat How
Best parking to hike Boat How
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. Lakeland car parks fill before 9am on fine weekends.
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 Boat How by bus
We don’t know yet. Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway (“La'al Ratty”) serves this area, but we don’t hold its stop positions, so we can’t measure the walk from it — and we won’t tell you to drive on the strength of a gap in our own data. Check the operator’s timetable.
By train: change at Ravenglass onto the Ravenglass & Eskdale (narrow gauge, seasonal, not in the National Rail timetable), and Dalegarth station is 130 m on foot from the start of Boat How, Great Bank & Wainwrights. First train in 06:39, last train out 20:52, Monday to Friday, checked 12 September; Saturday and Sunday.
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Hazards on Boat How
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: Dalegarth Station, Eskdale (paid), about 2.7 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Boat How (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 Boat How
✎️ 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 Boat How
Water & shelter on the way up
On the Boat How, Great Bank & Wainwrights route:
On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.