Orrest Head
Orrest Head at 238m (781ft) is the famous viewpoint above Windermere, the first fell the young Alfred Wainwright climbed when he arrived in Lakeland — and the view that changed his life.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 238 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Tue 28 Jul): 18° to 16°C, gusts to 23 mph, 3.1 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 28 Jul 2026, 04:58 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 238 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
About the walk
Orrest Head
Routes up Orrest Head
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Map & nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Church Bridge, Troutbeck (limited), about 3.3 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Orrest Head (within 3 km)
No bonus Birketts within 3 km — every Birkett near here is already a Wainwright summit, so just enjoy the walk.
Routes over Orrest Head
✎️ 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.
Orrest Head is one of our picked Lake District viewpoints — what you can see from it, when the light is best, and where to park.
Best parking to hike Orrest Head
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.
Water & shelter on the way up
On the Orrest Head route:
💧 Treat water from the fell before you drink it. A mapped point is usually a tap or public supply, but never drink untreated from a beck, stream or tarn — even clear-looking hill water can carry giardia or cryptosporidium from livestock or a carcass upstream and leave you seriously ill. Run it through a filter or purifier (a LifeStraw, Sawyer Squeeze or HydraPak) or bring it to a rolling boil first.
On-route facilities © OpenStreetMap contributors, per route — an absent marker doesn’t mean none.
Buses to Orrest Head from Penrith / Ambleside / Windermere
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Other fells near Orrest Head
Maps & guidebooks for Orrest Head
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases — at no extra cost to you. How affiliate links work →