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744 m · Birkett — Southern (not a Wainwright summit) · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses, my hikes and live summit weather.

Birkett — Southern (not a Wainwright summit)Birkett top

Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

Buck Pike at 744m (2,441ft) is a fine Birkett summit on the ridge above Seathwaite Tarn in Dunnerdale, its rocky top giving views across the Coniston fells and down into the upper Duddon valley.

744 m
Height
+5
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX →

Home › Fells › Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

744 mBirkett — Southern (not a Wainwright summit)+5 bonus Birketts within 3 km

Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast

Modelled guidance for the 744 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 14° to 12°C, gusts to 34 mph, 4.8 mm of rain forecast.

Tue 28 Jul
🌦️
14° / 12°
💨 34 mph
🌧 4.8 mm (90%)
Wed 29 Jul
🌧️
13° / 11°
💨 29 mph
🌧 3.2 mm (98%)
Thu 30 Jul
🌦️
12° / 5°
💨 28 mph
🌧 1.4 mm (70%)
Fri 31 Jul
🌤️
14° / 0°
💨 23 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (73%)
Sat 1 Aug
🌦️
14° / 2°
💨 15 mph
🌧 2.1 mm (47%)
Sun 2 Aug
☁️
16° / 6°
💨 18 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (24%)
Mon 3 Aug
🌦️
16° / 6°
💨 15 mph
🌧 0.2 mm (17%)

Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 744 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.

Pro mountain forecasts: MWIS · Met Office mountain forecast

About the walk

Key information

Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

Buck Pike at 744m (2,441ft) is a fine Birkett summit on the ridge above Seathwaite Tarn in Dunnerdale, its rocky top giving views across the Coniston fells and down into the upper Duddon valley. Part of the high ground connecting Dow Crag to the Grey Friar ridge. Often combined with nearby tops on a longer traverse of the Coniston-Dunnerdale fells.

Routes up Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.

The Coniston Horseshoe
20.8 km · ~6.3 hr
The full Coniston Horseshoe — the grand ~21 km, ~1,280 m round of seven Wainwrights above Coniston: Wetherlam, the steep Prison Band onto Swirl How, Great Carrs, Grey Friar, Brim Fell, the Old Man of Coniston and Dow Crag. The big day out; for the shorter version see the [Coniston Old Man round](/routes/coniston-old-man-round.html).
Classifications & hill data
Birkett
Synge
744 m
Height
2,441 ft
In feet
SD 2623 9722
Grid ref

Map & nearby Birketts

Free mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.

Nearest parking: Walna Scar Road, Coniston (free, rough track), about 2.7 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell (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.

0.6 km SSWBrown Pike682 m · Western
1.7 km SSWWhite Maiden613 m · Western
2.1 km SWWhite Pike (Seathwaite)600 m · Western
2.3 km SHigh Pike Haw354 m · Western
2.9 km NNEGreat How (Swirl Band)775 m · Southern

Routes over Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

The Coniston HorseshoeRevised
20.8 km · ~1279 m ascent · loop · ~6–8.5 h
Summits: WetherlamSwirl HowGreat CarrsGrey FriarBrim FellThe Old Man of Coniston (Coniston Old Man)Dow CragBuck Pike - Seathwaite FellBrown Pike

✎️ Walked and described first-hand by Lee, Wetherlam-first — the full Coniston round over all the major tops, a long and serious mountain day. The trickiest navigation is the Grey Friar–Calf Cove–Levers Hawse traverse and the Lad Stones ground; carry OS Explorer OL6 and a compass for the clag.

⬇️ Download GPX

⚠️ Warnings: Prison Band, the rocky descent from Black Sails to Swirl Hawse, is steep and eroded with the ground falling away both sides — care needed in mist or wind.; Dow Crag's summit sits above a serious east face over Goat's Water — keep slightly left (west) of the top and well back from the gullies and edge, especially in poor visibility.; The Grey Friar → Calf Cove → Levers Hawse leg is largely pathless and the round's hardest navigation — careful map-and-compass work in clag.; The short final climb to Dow Crag from Goat's Hawse has scrambly steps with moderate exposure — stay on the path and away from the edge.

Full route guide ↗

A planned line is a suggestion, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate independently and carry a map & compass.

Best parking to hike Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

Where we have the data, each parking spot also shows the nearest public toilets and facilities (cafés, pubs, shops).

Walna Scar Road, Coniston (free, rough track) — 2.7 km from summit (straight line)
High free car park above Coniston — Old Man, Dow Crag, Brown Pike with a head start.
Directions
🚺 Coniston Bridge (1651m)🚺 Coniston Ruskin Avenue Car Park (1811m)
Seathwaite, Duddon Valley (roadside) — 2.9 km from summit (straight line)
Limited roadside parking near the Newfield Inn for the Dunnerdale fells and Walna Scar side.
Directions

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.

Water & shelter on the way up

On the The Coniston Horseshoe route:

🛖 map (7 m)

On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.

Buses to Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere

No regular bus serves the start points for this fell — this is one for the car (or a long approach from the nearest served valley). The nearest hubs are Penrith (X4/X5 & 508), Ambleside and Windermere (555, 505, 516).

Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com or Traveline before relying on a last bus.

A note on Church Beck (with Red Dell Beck & Levers Water)

Church Beck (with Red Dell Beck & Levers Water) runs below the old Coniston copper mines and carries mine-derived copper and zinc — enough to matter for river life, though the lead and cadmium that would harm a person stay below the drinking limit here. Treat any hill water before drinking (a filter won’t remove dissolved metals); don’t single this beck out as a clean fill-up.

What’s actually in this beck — we mapped every mine-fed one →

Metal-mine water data © Environment Agency (Open Government Licence v3.0).

Other fells near Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

Maps & guidebooks for Buck Pike - Seathwaite Fell

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