Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
Crinkle Crags South Top at 834m (2,736ft) is the first and southernmost of the Crinkle Crags summits, also known as First Crinkle, forming the rocky starting point of the famous Crinkle ridge above the Great Langdale valley.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 834 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 13° to 12°C, gusts to 39 mph, 11.9 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 834 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
About the walk
Routes up Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
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: Three Shire Stone, Wrynose Pass (verge), about 3.4 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle) (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 Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
✎️ 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.
Best parking to hike Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
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.
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.
Buses to Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle) 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 Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
- 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)
Maps & guidebooks for Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
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