Castle Crag (Mardale)
395 m · Birkett — Far Eastern (not a Wainwright summit) · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses and live summit weather.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 395 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 17° to 15°C, gusts to 36 mph, 8.5 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 395 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Routes up Castle Crag (Mardale)
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Mardale Head, Haweswater (free), about 2.1 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Castle Crag (Mardale) (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 Castle Crag (Mardale)
✎️ 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.
Terrain & access
A near-path top (about 395 m): a mapped path comes within about 152 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 85 m of ascent, up to ~53°). There is steep ground (over 30°) on the direct line — pick your line with care. 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 145 fells.
Best parking to hike Castle Crag (Mardale)
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.
Buses to Castle Crag (Mardale) 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 (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Other fells near Castle Crag (Mardale)
- Angletarn Pikes (Angletarn Pikes North Top)
- Arthur's Pike
- Baystones (Wansfell)
- Beda Fell (Beda Head)
- Bonscale Pike
- Branstree
- Brock Crags (Wainwright)
- Froswick
- Gray Crag
- Grey Crag (Sleddale Fell)
- Hallin Fell
- Harter Fell (Mardale)
- Hartsop Dodd
- High Raise (High Street)
- High Street
- Ill Bell
- Kentmere Pike
- Kidsty Pike
- Loadpot Hill
- Mardale Ill Bell
- Place Fell
- Rampsgill Head
- Rest Dodd
- Sallows
- Selside Pike
- Shipman Knotts
- Sour Howes
- Steel Knotts (Pikeawassa - Steel Knotts)
- Stony Cove Pike (Caudale Moor)
- Tarn Crag (Sleddale)
- The Knott (High Street)
- The Nab
- Thornthwaite Crag
- Troutbeck Tongue
- Wether Hill
- Yoke
Maps & guidebooks for Castle Crag (Mardale)
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