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

Birkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)Birkett top

Gale Crag

Gale Crag at 512m (1,680ft) is a Birkett top on the broad moorland ridge above the Naddle valley east of Ullswater, giving views across the pastoral valley and towards the eastern fells.

512 m
Height
+1
Bonus Birkett
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →

Home › Fells › Gale Crag

Written and walked by Lee McCoy

512 mBirkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)+1 bonus Birkett within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 512 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Fri 11 Sep): 12° to 9°C, gusts to 29 mph, 1.9 mm of rain forecast.

Fri 11 Sep
🌦️
12° / 9°
💨 29 mph
🌧 1.9 mm (100%)
Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
15° / 9°
💨 51 mph
🌧 28.7 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
🌦️
13° / 8°
💨 20 mph
🌧 0.2 mm (62%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌧️
15° / 8°
💨 32 mph
🌧 11.3 mm (100%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌦️
14° / 8°
💨 35 mph
🌧 4.3 mm (89%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
11° / 9°
💨 31 mph
🌧 2.0 mm (78%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌦️
11° / 9°
💨 36 mph
🌧 3.2 mm (92%)

Forecast snapshot from 11 Sep 2026, 08:30 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 512 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

Gale Crag at a glance

Gale Crag

Gale Crag at 512m (1,680ft) is a Birkett top on the broad moorland ridge above the Naddle valley east of Ullswater, giving views across the pastoral valley and towards the eastern fells. Part of the quiet hill country between Ullswater and the limestone plateau to the east. A gentle, open fell with pleasant views.

Routes up Gale Crag

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

Hartsop Fells and Hart Crag
11.9 km · ~3.6 hr
Six tops from Gale Crag over Hartsop Above How to Hart Crag — 11.9 km and 765 m, with one stage averaging 20%. Severe for steepness, moderate everywhere else; about 3.6 hours.

Classifications & hill data

Birkett
Synge
512 m
Height
1,680 ft
In feet
NY 3924 1242
Grid ref

The short answers

Is Gale Crag a Wainwright?

Gale Crag is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.

Where do you park for Gale Crag?

The nearest car park we hold is Hartsop Dodd car park (free), about 1.2 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Hartsop Dodd (layby), 1.3 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 Gale Crag?

The shortest way up we hold is Hartsop Fells and Hart Crag — 11.9 km, 765 m of ascent, about 3.6 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.

All axes: steepness: Severe · navigation: Moderate · exposure: Moderate · length: Moderate · terrain: Moderate.

My hikes over Gale Crag (Strava)

1 logged hike pass over this summit:

Interactive route maps and photos load here for visitors with JavaScript. Data from Strava.

Parking & buses for Gale Crag

Best parking to hike Gale Crag

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

Hartsop Dodd car park (free) — 1.2 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Hartsop Dodd (0.9 km), Gale Crag (1.2 km), Brock Crags (Wainwright) (1.6 km). Free (OSM-tagged). Compacted surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Hartsop Dodd (layby) — 1.3 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Hartsop Dodd (0.9 km), High Hartsop Dodd (1.2 km), Gale Crag (1.3 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Gale Crag (layby) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Walking base for Middle Dodd, Little Hart Crag (Little Hart Crag - West Top), High Hartsop Dodd and Gale Crag — the 'Middle Dodd Little Hart Crag and High Hartsop Dodd' route starts 56 m away. Also serves 'Hartsop Fells and Hart Crag'. Free (OSM-tagged). Unpaved surface (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Cow Bridge, Hartsop (paid) — 1.4 km from summit (straight line)
Paid car park by Brothers Water — Hartsop above How, Dovedale, Caudale Moor. Fees: pay and display; coins and cards; RingGo ID 37323 (LDNPA, checked Aug 2026).
Directions Something changed here?
High Hartsop Dodd (layby) — 1.5 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: High Hartsop Dodd (1.0 km), Hartsop Dodd (1.1 km), Gale Crag (1.5 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?

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 Gale Crag by bus

The 508 stops at Hartsop, opposite Cow Bridge, 30 m from the start of Hartsop Fells and Hart Crag. The last bus is 19:51 towards Windermere (508) and 15:14 towards Hartsop (509), every day. Checked against the operator’s timetable, 7 September 2026. Times here are a guide, not a promise — leave yourself more than the minute.

Stagecoach 508 “Ullswater Bus”
Penrith – Pooley Bridge – Aira Force – Glenridding – Patterdale (summer services continue over Kirkstone Pass to Troutbeck and Windermere)
Catch it from: Penrith · Windermere (summer only)
The key route from Penrith for the Eastern and Far Eastern fells: Helvellyn from Glenridding, Place Fell, the Hartsop fells. The summer Kirkstone extension drops you at the pass for Red Screes and Caudale Moor.

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

Hazards on Gale Crag

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

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

Nearest parking: Hartsop Dodd car park (free), about 1.2 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Gale Crag (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.

2.2 km WNWGavel Pike784 m · Eastern

Routes over Gale Crag

Hartsop Fells and Hart CragRevised
11.87 km · ~765 m ascent · loop · ~3.5–5 h
Summits: Gale CragHartsop Above How (Gill Crag - Hartsop Above How)Hart CragDove CragLittle Hart Crag (Little Hart Crag - West Top)High Hartsop Dodd

⬇️ Download GPX

Full route guide ↗

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 Gale Crag

Water & shelter on the way up

On the Hartsop Fells and Hart Crag route:

🚌 Cow Bridge (29 m)🚌 Cow Bridge car park (33 m)🚌 Road End (306 m)

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

Places to stay near this fell

Greenbank Farm Bed and Breakfast guest house

about 1.8 km from the start, in a straight line

Ranked first despite being the eighth-nearest candidate because it answers more of the 6pm questions than anything else in the radius, and it answers them in its own sentences with prices attached: drying facilities, evening meals from £14.00, packed lunches at £6.00, and the only stated room composition on an independent B&B here. Its family room is a room for three, not four — which is exactly the fact a family of four needs before booking, and the reason a bare family_rooms=yes would have been a worse row than this one.

The farmhouse sits below Arnison Crag and looks across at Place Fell and Angletarn Pikes — the two fells this start's routes climb.

  • Drying room “We also have drying facilities and a large patio and garden to enjoy the view.”
  • Family rooms “Family: Room for three with a double and one single bed.”
  • Evening meal “We offer hearty home-cooked breakfasts and evening meals as well as packed lunches if required.”
  • Packed lunch “Packed Lunches £6.00”

Worth knowing before you book

These places state on their own site that they do not take children.

What each place says about itself, quoted from their own site. We have not stayed at any of them, and there are no prices, no booking and no affiliate links. Distances are straight lines from each route start, never walking times. Properties found via OpenStreetMap.

Other fells near Gale Crag