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420 m · Outlying Fell — Around Penrith · Birketts to bag nearby, parking, buses, my hikes and live summit weather.

Outlying Fell — Around PenrithAlso a Birkett

Harper Hills

Harper Hills at 420m (1,378ft) is an Outlying Fell above the Lowther valley east of Shap, giving views across the limestone country towards the Pennines and back west to the Haweswater fells.

420 m
Height
+5
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX →

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420 mOutlying Fell — Around Penrith✓ summit is also a Birkett+5 bonus Birketts within 3 km

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

Modelled guidance for the 420 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 17° to 15°C, gusts to 33 mph, 4.6 mm of rain forecast.

Tue 28 Jul
🌦️
17° / 15°
💨 33 mph
🌧 4.6 mm (98%)
Wed 29 Jul
🌦️
17° / 14°
💨 30 mph
🌧 1.1 mm (98%)
Thu 30 Jul
☁️
16° / 8°
💨 28 mph
🌧 0.1 mm (63%)
Fri 31 Jul
☁️
17° / 4°
💨 25 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (82%)
Sat 1 Aug
🌦️
16° / 3°
💨 11 mph
🌧 6.3 mm (31%)
Sun 2 Aug
🌤️
18° / 4°
💨 18 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (25%)
Mon 3 Aug
🌦️
18° / 8°
💨 12 mph
🌧 0.2 mm (24%)

Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 420 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

About the walk

Key information

Harper Hills

Harper Hills at 420m (1,378ft) is an Outlying Fell above the Lowther valley east of Shap, giving views across the limestone country towards the Pennines and back west to the Haweswater fells. Wainwright included it in his Outlying Fells guide as part of the Around Penrith group. A quiet moorland fell in pleasant pastoral country.

Routes up Harper Hills

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

West of Wet Sleddale - Birketts
23.8 km · ~6.2 hr
Classifications & hill data
Outlying Fell
Around Penrith
Birkett
Synge
420 m
Height
1,378 ft
In feet
NY 5094 1424
Grid ref

Map & nearby Birketts

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

Nearest parking: Wet Sleddale dam (free), about 4.2 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near Harper Hills (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.

0.9 km SSWPowleys Hill465 m · Far Eastern
1.0 km NWNaddle Low Forest426 m · Far Eastern
2.5 km SSEGlede Howe476 m · Far Eastern
2.7 km NWFour Stones Hill415 m · Far Eastern
2.7 km NNWPinnacle Howe383 m · Far Eastern

Routes over Harper Hills

West of Wet Sleddale - BirkettsPlanned
23.82 km · ~856 m ascent · loop · ~6–8 h
Summits: Seat RobertHigh Wether HoweNabs MoorSelside PikeHare ShawPowleys HillHarper HillsScalebarrow KnottGlede Howe

⬇️ Download GPX

Full route guide ↗

✎️ 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.

Terrain & access

A near-path top (about 420 m): a mapped path comes within about 61 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 0 m of ascent, up to ~0°). The summit is on CRoW open access land.

Computed from open data, not walked — pathless ground needs confident navigation, and mapped paths, barriers and access boundaries can be incomplete. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors (via Overpass); Natural England CRoW Access Land; DoBIH; Copernicus GLO-30. See the terrain & access report for how this is worked out across all 145 fells.

Best parking to hike Harper Hills

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

Wet Sleddale dam (free) — 4.2 km from summit (straight line)
For the quiet Shap-side fells: Seat Robert, Sleddale fells.
Directions
Shap village (free) — 5.3 km from summit (straight line)
For the Shap fells and Crosby Ravensworth commons.
Directions
🚺 Public toilets (352m) — Free☕ Birchwood Cafe🍺 The Crown Inn🏪 New Balance

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.

Buses to Harper Hills from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere

Route 106
Penrith – Eamont Bridge – Askham – Shap – Kendal
Catch it from: Penrith
Monday–Saturday, infrequent — plan carefully. Useful for the Shap and Crosby Ravensworth outlying fells.

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

Other fells near Harper Hills

Maps & guidebooks for Harper Hills

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