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

Birkett — Western (not a Wainwright summit)Birkett top

High Crags (Newlands)

High Crags at 529m (1,736ft) is a Birkett top on the ridge between Robinson and High Stile above the Newlands valley, its craggy character giving views across the valley to Causey Pike and the Coledale fells.

529 m
Height
+3
Bonus Birketts
See routes & download GPX →

Home › Fells › High Crags (Newlands)

529 mBirkett — Western (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 529 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.

On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 15° to 14°C, gusts to 36 mph, 3.4 mm of rain forecast.

Tue 28 Jul
🌦️
15° / 14°
💨 36 mph
🌧 3.4 mm (99%)
Wed 29 Jul
🌧️
15° / 12°
💨 28 mph
🌧 8.5 mm (100%)
Thu 30 Jul
🌦️
13° / 5°
💨 29 mph
🌧 2.9 mm (87%)
Fri 31 Jul
🌤️
15° / 3°
💨 22 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (86%)
Sat 1 Aug
🌦️
15° / 6°
💨 15 mph
🌧 2.7 mm (82%)
Sun 2 Aug
☁️
16° / 6°
💨 17 mph
🌧 0.0 mm (35%)
Mon 3 Aug
🌦️
16° / 6°
💨 16 mph
🌧 0.4 mm (23%)

Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 529 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

High Crags (Newlands)

High Crags at 529m (1,736ft) is a Birkett top on the ridge between Robinson and High Stile above the Newlands valley, its craggy character giving views across the valley to Causey Pike and the Coledale fells. Part of the high ground above the beautiful Newlands valley. An excellent viewpoint rarely visited on its own.

Routes up High Crags (Newlands)

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

Scope End, Hindscarth & Dale Head from Little Town
12.1 km · ~3.6 hr · Moderate
A proper Newlands mountain day that most walkers drive straight past. The shapely Scope End ridge lifts you out of Little Town onto Hindscarth, then an airy walk along Hindscarth Edge carries you over to Dale Head above the head of the valley before a long descent back to the start. It's about 12 km with 730 m of ascent, with no scrambling — but the pulls are steep and the tops are big and open. Walk it on a day the Catbells car parks are overflowing and you'll have the ridge largely to yourself.
Classifications & hill data
Birkett
Synge
529 m
Height
1,736 ft
In feet
NY 2175 1750
Grid ref

Map & nearby Birketts

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

Nearest parking: Little Town, Newlands (paid, small), about 2.5 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.

Birketts near High Crags (Newlands) (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.

0.6 km NERed Knott452 m · Western
1.0 km NEScope End412 m · Western
2.4 km NWIll Crag (Newlands) (Knott Rigg North Top)546 m · North Western

Routes over High Crags (Newlands)

Scope End, Hindscarth & Dale Head from Little TownPlanned
12.08 km · ~729 m ascent · loop · ~3.5–5 h · Anticlockwise — up Scope End, over Hindscarth to Dale Head, then down into Newlands. · Moderate
Summits: Scope EndRed KnottHigh Crags (Newlands)HindscarthDale Head

✎️ Little Town sits right under Catbells, so Newlands catches the overspill from the honeypot next door — but almost everyone stops at Catbells. Start up Scope End instead and the crowds thin out within ten minutes. Roadside parking in Newlands is very limited, so arrive early or you'll end up driving back out.

⬇️ Download GPX

Best season: All year for confident hillwalkers. The steep grass of Scope End and the descent off Dale Head turn greasy after rain and are genuinely treacherous under frost or snow — in winter conditions treat this as a route needing an ice axe, crampons and the skill to use them.

⚠️ Warnings: The climb onto Dale Head is sustained and steep (around 43% at its worst) — pace it, and expect hard, slow going in the wet.; Scope End's nose and the long descent off Dale Head are steep grass and scree: slippery after rain and hazardous in frost or snow.; Hindscarth and Dale Head are broad, grassy, near-featureless tops — in cloud, take a compass bearing off each summit before setting off.; Dale Head drops away in crags on its Newlands (north) face; in poor visibility be sure you've picked up the correct descent line and don't drift onto the steep ground.

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 529 m top with a mapped path to within about 28 m of the summit. There is steep ground (over 30°) on the direct line — pick your line with care. 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 High Crags (Newlands)

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

Little Town, Newlands (paid, small) — 2.5 km from summit (straight line)
Newlands valley — Catbells, Maiden Moor, Hindscarth, Robinson.
Directions
Gatesgarth Farm, Buttermere (paid) — 3.4 km from summit (straight line)
Farm car park at the foot of Haystacks, Fleetwith Pike and the High Stile ridge.
Directions

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 Scope End, Hindscarth & Dale Head from Little Town route:

🛖 map (6 m)

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

Buses to High Crags (Newlands) from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere

Stagecoach 77 / 77A “Honister Rambler”
Keswick – Portinscale – Hawse End (Catbells) – Grange – Seatoller – Honister Pass – Buttermere – Lorton – Whinlatter – Keswick (circular)
Catch it from: Keswick (connect via 555 from Windermere/Ambleside or X4/X5 from Penrith)
Seasonal (roughly Easter–October). Brilliant for the North Western fells: Catbells, Dale Head from Honister, the Buttermere fells and Whinlatter.

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

A note on Newlands Beck

Newlands Beck runs below the old Goldscope mine and carries mine-derived zinc — enough to matter for river life, though the lead and cadmium that would harm a person stay below the drinking limit here. Treat any hill water before drinking (a filter won’t remove dissolved metals); don’t single this beck out as a clean fill-up.

What’s actually in this beck — we mapped every mine-fed one →

Metal-mine water data © Environment Agency (Open Government Licence v3.0).

Other fells near High Crags (Newlands)

Maps & guidebooks for High Crags (Newlands)

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