Kinn
Kinn at 374m (1,227ft) is a Birkett top above the Bassenthwaite valley in the North Western Fells, giving views across the lake and towards the Skiddaw massif.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 374 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Sat 12 Sep): 15° to 9°C, gusts to 48 mph, 17.4 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 12 Sep 2026, 18:50 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 374 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Kinn at a glance
Kinn
Routes up Kinn
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Kinn a Wainwright?
Kinn is not a Wainwright. It is on the Birkett list and the Synge list.
Where do you park for Kinn?
The nearest car park we hold is Kinn car park, about 1.0 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Kinn (verge, north), 1.2 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 Kinn?
The shortest way up we hold is Coledale Round — 16 km, 1108 m of ascent, about 5.1 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is steepness — Severe.
All axes: steepness: Severe · navigation: Hard · exposure: Hard · length: Hard · terrain: Moderate.
My hikes over Kinn (Strava)
1 logged hike pass over this summit:
- My knees didn't like that (opens in new tab) — 19.0 km · 1421 m ascent · 5h 33m moving · 16 May 2026
Interactive route maps and photos load here for visitors with JavaScript. Data from Strava.
Parking & buses for Kinn
Best parking to hike Kinn
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 Kinn by bus
The 77 stops at Braithwaite, at Croft Terrace, 720 m and 87 m of ascent from the start of Coledale Round — a route we rate Hard. Last bus: Monday to Friday 22:27 towards Workington (X5) and 17:37 towards Keswick (77) and 16:37 towards Cockermouth (77); Saturday 00:22 (+1) (after midnight) towards Workington (X5) and 17:37 towards Keswick (77) and 16:37 towards Cockermouth (77); Sunday 20:17 towards Workington (X5) and 17:37 towards Keswick (77) and 16:37 towards Cockermouth (77). Checked against the operator’s timetable, 12 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 Kinn
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.
A note on Coledale Beck
Coledale Beck runs below the old Force Crag 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).
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Kinn car park, about 1.0 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Kinn (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 Kinn
✎️ The Whinlatter Pass road car park is small and tucked behind the trees — and the bus to Braithwaite makes this an easy car-free round, adding only a couple of hundred metres of road to reach the start.
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 Kinn
Terrain & access
A 374 m top with a mapped path to within about 9 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 144 fells.
Water & shelter on the way up
On the Coledale Round route:
On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.
Places to stay near this fell
From Whinlatter: 10 places in Keswick
Other fells near Kinn
- Ard Crags
- Barf
- Barrow
- Broom Fell
- Castle Crag
- Cat Bells (Catbells)
- Causey Pike
- Crag Hill (Eel Crag)
- Dale Head
- Grasmoor
- Graystones (Graystones North Top)
- Grisedale Pike
- High Spy
- Hindscarth
- Hopegill Head
- Knott Rigg
- Ling Fell
- Lord's Seat
- Maiden Moor
- Outerside
- Rannerdale Knotts
- Robinson
- Sail
- Sale Fell
- Scar Crags
- Wandope
- Whinlatter (Brown How)
- Whiteless Pike
- Whiteside (Whiteside West Top)