Water Crag
Water Crag at 305m (1,001ft) is a Birkett fell in the West Cumbria group above the Duddon estuary, its modest summit giving views across the coastal lowlands.
Is it worth going? — Today’s conditions & 7-day summit forecast
Modelled guidance for the 305 m summit. Always check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
On the summit today (Fri 11 Sep): 14° to 11°C, gusts to 28 mph, 0.6 mm of rain forecast.
Forecast snapshot from 11 Sep 2026, 08:30 UTC — refreshed nightly and updated live in your browser. Temperatures and gusts adjusted to the 305 m summit altitude via Open-Meteo. Summit conditions are always harsher than the valley — check the professional mountain forecasts before you go.
Water Crag at a glance
Routes up Water Crag
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Classifications & hill data
The short answers
Is Water Crag a Wainwright?
Water Crag is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells, not one of the 214 in the Pictorial Guides. It is also on the Birkett list and the Synge list.
Where do you park for Water Crag?
The nearest car park we hold is Rough Crag Birker Moor (verge, south), about 1.7 km from the summit in a straight line. The next is Rough Crag Birker Moor (verge, south 3), 1.7 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 Water Crag?
The shortest way up we hold is Birketts Around Devoke Water — 8.6 km, 363 m of ascent, about 2.3 hours. On our scale its hardest axis is navigation — Hard.
All axes: navigation: Hard · exposure: Moderate · terrain: Moderate · length: Moderate · steepness: Moderate.
Parking & buses for Water Crag
Best parking to hike Water Crag
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 Water Crag by bus
The nearest bus stop we hold is the 505 at Coniston, outside The Ruskin Centre, 17.3 km of walking from the start — not realistically reachable without a car.
Rural routes change seasonally — confirm on stagecoachbus.com (opens in new tab) or Traveline before relying on a last bus.
Hazards on Water Crag
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
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap (switch layers top-right). Parking positions are approximate.
Nearest parking: Rough Crag Birker Moor (verge, south), about 1.7 km from the summit (straight line). Full parking, toilets and bus details are below.
Birketts near Water Crag (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 Water Crag
✎️ 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. How to use this guide.
On the hill: terrain and water on Water Crag
Terrain & access
A near-path top (about 305 m): a mapped path comes within about 52 m of the summit, with a last stretch of open ground (about 2 m of ascent, up to ~5°). 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.