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

Gavel Pike - a snow-covered slope rising to the summit ridge, a low winter sun in a bright blue sky
Birkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)Birkett top

Gavel Pike

Gavel Pike at 784m (2,572ft) is a Birkett top on the ridge between St Sunday Crag and Deepdale Hause in the Eastern Fells, its summit giving fine views down into Deepdale and across Ullswater.

784 m
Height
+3
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX → Parking & buses →

Home › Fells › Gavel Pike

784 mBirkett — Eastern (not a Wainwright summit)+3 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 784 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Fri 11 Sep): 10° to 8°C, gusts to 29 mph, 1.9 mm of rain forecast.

Fri 11 Sep
🌦️
10° / 8°
💨 29 mph
🌧 1.9 mm (100%)
Sat 12 Sep
🌧️
13° / 7°
💨 51 mph
🌧 28.7 mm (100%)
Sun 13 Sep
🌦️
11° / 6°
💨 20 mph
🌧 0.2 mm (62%)
Mon 14 Sep
🌧️
13° / 6°
💨 32 mph
🌧 11.3 mm (100%)
Tue 15 Sep
🌦️
12° / 7°
💨 35 mph
🌧 4.3 mm (89%)
Wed 16 Sep
🌦️
9° / 7°
💨 31 mph
🌧 2.0 mm (78%)
Thu 17 Sep
🌦️
10° / 7°
💨 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 784 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

Gavel Pike at a glance

Gavel Pike

Gavel Pike - a snow-covered slope rising to the summit ridge, a low winter sun in a bright blue sky
© Lee McCoy

Gavel Pike at 784m (2,572ft) is a Birkett top on the ridge between St Sunday Crag and Deepdale Hause in the Eastern Fells, its summit giving fine views down into Deepdale and across Ullswater. Part of the high ground above the Patterdale valley. An excellent viewpoint normally reached as part of the St Sunday Crag ridge walk.

Routes up Gavel Pike

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

St Sunday Crag
10 km · ~3.3 hr
Three tops and an outlier on the long Patterdale ridge — Arnison Crag, Birks and St Sunday Crag, with Gavel Pike a short detour off the summit. Steep in places, but the walking line stays well clear of the crags throughout.

Classifications & hill data

Birkett
Synge
784 m
Height
2,572 ft
In feet
NY 3728 1342
Grid ref

The short answers

Is Gavel Pike a Wainwright?

Gavel Pike is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.

Where do you park for Gavel Pike?

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 Gavel Pike?

The shortest way up we hold is St Sunday Crag — 10 km, 782 m of ascent, about 3.3 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.

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

Parking & buses for Gavel Pike

Best parking to hike Gavel Pike

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

Arnison Crag, south-east (layby) — 2.8 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Arnison Crag (0.8 km), Angletarn Pikes (Angletarn Pikes North Top) (1.5 km), Angletarn Pikes South Top (1.5 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Arnison Crag (layby) — 2.9 km from summit (straight line)
Nearest fells: Arnison Crag (0.7 km), Angletarn Pikes (Angletarn Pikes North Top) (1.4 km), Angletarn Pikes South Top (1.5 km). Free (OSM-tagged).
Directions Something changed here?
Gale Crag (layby) — 3.0 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) — 3.0 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?
Patterdale (paid) — 3.1 km from summit (straight line)
For Place Fell, St Sunday Crag, the Grisedale fells.
Directions Something changed here?
🚺 Public toilets (~705 m straight line) — Free🚺 Public toilets (~926 m straight line)🍺 White Lion Inn🍺 Patterdale Hotel

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 Gavel Pike by bus

The 508 stops at Patterdale Hotel (opp), 50 m from the start of St Sunday Crag. The last bus is 19:46 towards Windermere (508) and 15:09 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 Gavel Pike

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: Arnison Crag, south-east (layby), about 2.8 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Gavel Pike (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.

2.0 km SWCofa Pike823 m · Eastern
2.2 km ESEGale Crag512 m · Eastern
3.0 km WHigh Crag (Grisedale)884 m · Eastern

Routes over Gavel Pike

St Sunday CragRevised
9.96 km · ~782 m ascent · loop · ~3–4.5 h
Summits: Arnison CragBirksSt Sunday CragGavel Pike

⬇️ Download GPX

Full route guide ↗

🥾 Walked in part — Lee walked this ground in January 2025; km 4.4–4.8, km 5.6–6.4, km 7.3–8.2 of this line are from the map.

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 Gavel Pike

Water & shelter on the way up

On the St Sunday Crag route:

🚌 Patterdale Hotel (E bound) (12 m)🚌 Patterdale Hotel (W bound) (32 m)🚌 Youth Hostel (N bound) (462 m)🚌 Youth Hostel (S bound) (468 m)⛺ Patterdale Youth Hostel (486 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 1.3 km from the start, in a straight line

The only property in the whole radius that prices a packed lunch and an evening meal on its own page - Packed Lunches £6.00, Evening Meals From £14.00 - alongside a family room for three and drying facilities. A family walking St Sunday Crag can be fed before it leaves and fed again when it gets back without moving the car.

A working sheep farm sitting below Arnison Crag, looking across at Place Fell and Angletarn Pikes - the two things a guest walks up next. The guest dining/sitting room has a log burner and there is one shared bathroom.

  • 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”
  • Children “Family: Room for three with a double and one single bed.”

YHA Helvellyn hostel

about 3.2 km from the start, in a straight line

The only bed in this cluster that is already up the hill - 963 ft up the Greenside road - with a shared drying room, free parking on site and meals served in the building. Two things will decide it for a family: dogs cannot come at all unless you are in the Camping & Cabins or have hired the whole hostel, and reception is shut from 10:00 until 17:00, so an early arrival cannot check in.

Worth knowing: “Dogs: Pets are not permitted at YHA Helvellyn, except in our Camping & Cabins accommodation or when hiring the whole hostel through YHA Exclusive Hire. Assistance dogs are welcome - please notify us at the time of booking.”

It began life as accommodation for the lead miners at Greenside, opened to hostellers as "Glenridding", took men only in 1947 and admitted women the year after; mine debris still lies around the building.

  • Drying room “Free parking on premises Games Group meals Intermittent mobile coverage Licensed bar Minibus parking on premises Mountain view Restaurant Shared drying room Unlimited breakfast Water refill station WiFi”
  • Family rooms “Private room is offered here”
  • Evening meal “With tasty breakfasts, packed lunches and evening meals, groups are sure to find something delicious to eat at YHA Helvellyn (see sample menu ).”
  • Packed lunch “With tasty breakfasts, packed lunches and evening meals, groups are sure to find something delicious to eat at YHA Helvellyn (see sample menu ).”
  • Parking “Free parking on premises”
  • Children “Under 12s are not permitted in dorm rooms. Children under 3 can stay with us for free.”

Patterdale Youth Hostel hostel

about 0.5 km from the start, in a straight line

This is the nearest hostel bed to the start, 460 m away, and the row exists to carry the one thing the cache actually proves about it: YHA's own pet rule bars a dog from both dorms and private rooms, so the private-room workaround for the under-12 dorm rule does not solve a dog. No Patterdale-specific facility is claimed here, because the capture contains none.

Worth knowing: “Pets - including dogs - are not permitted in our hostels when staying in a dorm or a private room. This is a consideration of other guests who may be allergic as well as the logistics of pets staying.”

  • Children “People of all ages are welcome at YHA. Guests aged under 16 must be accompanied by an adult aged 18 years or older.”

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.

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