Crag Fell
Crag Fell rises steeply above the southern shore of Ennerdale Water in the quiet Western Fells, its craggy face — home to the Crag Fell Pinnacles — falling towards the lake.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 523 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Fri 11 Sep): 12° to 10°C, gusts to 25 mph, 1.1 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 11 Sep 2026, 08:30 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 523 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Crag Fell at a glance
Crag Fell
Routes up Crag Fell
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Crag Fell a Wainwright?
Crag Fell is a Wainwright. It is also on the Birkett list, the Synge list, the Fellranger list and the HuMP list.
Where do you park for Crag Fell?
The nearest car park we hold is Bleach Green, Ennerdale (free), about 1.5 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Bowness Knott, Ennerdale (Forestry, paid), 1.6 km out. 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 Crag Fell?
The shortest way up we hold is Grike, Crag Fell and Lank Rigg — 13.1 km, 618 m of ascent, about 3.6 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is navigation — Moderate.
All axes: navigation: Moderate · steepness: Moderate · length: Moderate · exposure: Easy · terrain: Easy.
My hikes over Crag Fell (Strava)
1 logged hike pass over this summit:
- Grike, Crag Fell and Lank Rigg (opens in new tab) — 13.1 km · 630 m ascent · 2h 48m moving · 24 May 2025
Interactive route maps and photos load here for visitors with JavaScript. Data from Strava.
Parking & buses for Crag Fell
Best parking to hike Crag Fell
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 Crag Fell by bus
The nearest bus stop we hold is the 77 at Buttermere, outside Court Hotel, 14.3 km of walking from the start — not realistically reachable without a car. It is a seasonal service too: 1 November 2026 is its last day of the year (confirmed with the operator, 29 August 2026).
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Hazards on Crag Fell
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.
Navigating Crag Fell in cloud
Care neededA rough, rocky summit ringed by crags, with no single obvious way off in poor visibility. Take care in poor visibility — carry map and compass, and know how to use them.
In winter — snow, whiteout, cornices, buried features — every top demands full winter navigation skills whatever its band, and a broad, gentle summit can be the worst place of all. See walking in bad weather and the navigation guide.
How Crag Fell compares with all 214 — the Clag Index: navigating in cloud. A relative, deliberately cautious guide; the site can’t navigate for you.
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Bleach Green, Ennerdale (free), about 1.5 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Crag 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.
Routes over Crag Fell
A planned line is a suggestion, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate independently and carry a map & compass. How to use this guide.
The view from Crag Fell
The 360° skyline from Crag Fell
A computed 360° skyline — every visible named top labelled by distance and bearing, from the terrain model in perfect clarity, not photographed. Drag to pan; reveal the far four-nations horizon.
What you can see from Crag Fell, by direction
- North: Blake Fell (6 km), Carling Knott (6 km)
- North-east: Herdus (3 km), Whiteless Pike (10 km), Grasmoor (10 km), Thirdgill Head Man (10 km), Wandope (10 km), Whiteside (10 km), Whiteside East Top (11 km), Knott Rigg (11 km), Crag Hill (11 km), Gasgale Crags (11 km), Ill Crag (11 km), Sail (12 km), Hopegill Head (12 km), Ard Crags (12 km), Causey Pike (14 km), Skiddaw (22 km), Skiddaw North Top (22 km)
- East: Starling Dodd (5 km), Red Pike (6 km), High Stile (7 km), Black Crag (7 km), Pillar (8 km), High Crag (8 km), Robinson (11 km), Brandreth (12 km), Grey Knotts (12 km), Combe Head (16 km), Ullscarf (20 km), Cofa Pike (26 km), Fairfield (26 km)
- South-east: Caw Fell (5 km), Haycock (6 km), Steeple (7 km), Scoat Fell (7 km)
- South: Whitfell (22 km), Burn Moor (23 km), Buck Barrow (24 km), Black Combe (29 km)
On the clearest days the far horizon adds: Slieve Donard (168 km, Ireland), Merrick (98 km, Scotland), Broad Law (109 km, Scotland), Snaefell (75 km, Isle of Man), Cairnsmore of Carsphairn (98 km, Scotland), Cairnsmore of Fleet (80 km, Scotland), Corserine (94 km, Scotland), Lamachan Hill (91 km, Scotland).
Computed from terrain in perfect clarity, not photographed · distances are straight-line.
Computed from Copernicus GLO-30 terrain; distant tops from the Database of British and Irish Hills (opens in new tab) (CC BY 4.0). See how we compute the view · and the summit intervisibility report below.
Sunrise and sunset on Crag Fell
Crag Fell waits for the sun. Its longest wait of the modelled year falls at midwinter, when the sun is up for 21 minutes before it clears this skyline — first light 08:55 against an almanac sunrise of 08:34. You are standing in shadow while the valley below is already lit. The sun comes up to the south-east from here (136.0°), and the skyline on that bearing stands at 1.99°.
| First light | Almanac sunrise | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midsummer | 04:46 BST ±5.0 min | 04:38 | +8 min |
| Equinox | 06:27 GMT ±5.0 min | 06:17 | +10 min |
| Midwinter | 08:55 GMT ±5.0 min | 08:34 | +21 min |
A low, open northern horizon — the ground falls away northwards (mean -0.2°).
Last light — when the sun leaves Crag Fell
Crag Fell holds the light. On not one of the sixteen dates modelled does the sun leave this summit before almanac sunset — the ground falls away westward rather than standing over you, and at midsummer it is still in the sun 3 minutes after the valley has lost it.
| Last light | Almanac sunset | Difference | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midsummer | 21:57 BST ±5.0 min | 21:54 | +3 min |
| Equinox | 18:33 GMT ±5.0 min | 18:28 | +5 min |
| Midwinter | 15:57 GMT ±5.0 min | 15:50 | +7 min |
Computed, not photographed. First light is the first minute the sun’s upper limb clears this summit’s own skyline and last light the last minute it is still clear of it, both solved against the 360° horizon profile behind The View from Crag Fell. Almanac sunrise and sunset are the flat-horizon convention. Every time carries a ± band from the 30 m elevation model — it smooths arêtes and cornices, so nothing here claims better than five minutes. These are daylight figures, not a descent plan: the light goes on fading for a good while after the sun leaves, and going down in it is a decision about your own ground and party, not about this table.
What you can see from Crag Fell
On a clear day — computed sightlines, curvature- and refraction-corrected.On the clearest days the view reaches across to Scotland and the Isle of Man.
- Merrick Scotland
- Snaefell Isle of Man
- Criffel Scotland
- Solway Firth bay/estuary
- Irish Sea open water
All 32 Wainwrights in clear view (nearest first)
Grike, Lank Rigg, Great Borne, Gavel Fell, Starling Dodd, Caw Fell, Blake Fell, Haycock, Red Pike (Buttermere), Steeple, Scoat Fell (Little Scoat Fell), High Stile, Pillar, High Crag (Buttermere), Whiteless Pike, Haystacks (Buttermere), Grasmoor, Wandope, Whiteside (Whiteside West Top), Robinson, Knott Rigg, Crag Hill (Eel Crag), Sail, Hopegill Head, Brandreth, Grey Knotts, Ard Crags, Causey Pike, Graystones (Graystones North Top), Ullscarf, Binsey, Fairfield
How Crag Fell’s view compares with all 214 — the View Report: every Wainwright ranked by what you can see from the top.
Sightlines from a bare-earth terrain model (forests and buildings not included), corrected for the Earth’s curvature and average atmospheric refraction. “Distant” sightlines and any over 100 km depend on exceptionally clear air. Modelled from Copernicus GLO-30 open elevation data — a guide to the view, not a guarantee of any single one.
Frequently asked questions about Crag Fell
Is Crag Fell an easy walk?
Among the easier western fells, yes. Our round with Grike and Lank Rigg is 13.1 km with 618 m of ascent, and we grade its steepness moderate — a grade barely anything in the Lake District earns, and close to flat by the standards of these fells.
The one thing to respect is the northern edge above Ennerdale Water, which is genuinely craggy and drops steeply to the lake. Stay on the crest, enjoy one of the best views of Ennerdale there is, and the fell asks nothing else of you.
Questions drawn from real Google “People also ask” searches; answers written and fact-checked by us. · Reviewed 2026-08-30 · Suggest a question or correction (opens in new tab)
Other fells near Crag Fell
- Base Brown
- Blake Fell
- Brandreth
- Buckbarrow
- Burnbank Fell
- Caw Fell
- Fellbarrow - Mosser Fell
- Fleetwith Pike
- Gavel Fell
- Great Borne
- Great Gable
- Green Gable
- Grey Knotts
- Grike
- Haycock
- Haystacks (Buttermere)
- Hen Comb
- High Crag (Buttermere)
- High Stile
- Kirk Fell
- Lank Rigg
- Low Fell
- Mellbreak (Mellbreak South Top)
- Middle Fell
- Pillar
- Red Pike (Buttermere)
- Red Pike (Wasdale)
- Scoat Fell (Little Scoat Fell)
- Seatallan
- Starling Dodd
- Steeple
- Yewbarrow