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 (Sat 12 Sep): 12° to 6°C, gusts to 50 mph, 53.9 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 12 Sep 2026, 15:36 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.
Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle) at a glance
Routes up Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle) a Wainwright?
Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle) is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list, the Synge list and the Nuttall list.
Where do you park for Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)?
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 Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)?
The shortest way up we hold is Langdale Horseshoe — 20.2 km, 1497 m of ascent, about 6.5 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.
All axes: steepness: Severe · length: Severe · exposure: Hard · navigation: Hard · terrain: Hard.
Parking & buses for Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
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.
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 Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle) by bus
The 516 stops at New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel (opp), 290 m from the start of Langdale Horseshoe — a route we rate Severe. Last bus: Monday to Friday 20:03 towards Dungeon Ghyll (516); Saturday 22:23 towards Dungeon Ghyll (516); Sunday 20:03 towards Dungeon Ghyll (516). Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Hazards on Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
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: Hard Knott (verge), about 2.9 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. How to use this guide.
On the hill: terrain and water on Crinkle Crags South Top (First Crinkle)
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.
Places to stay near this fell
From Great Langdale: 3 places in Grasmere
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)