White Combe
White Combe (417 m / 1,368 ft) is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells and a Birkett (one of the 541 tops in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells), a top north-east of Black Combe.
Summit conditions on White Combe
On the summit on Thursday 29 October: 10° to 8°C, gusts to 21 mph, 0.6 mm of rain forecast over the whole day, midnight to midnight.
The forecast figures are Open-Meteo’s, worked out for the summit’s height. How we check →
Routes up White Combe
Hand-mapped, with GPX to download — full maps further down.
Stoupdale Head, White Combe and Stoneside Hill in the far south-west — 12.25 km and 430 m, with a steepest sustained pull of about 22%. The name is earned by the navigation, which is rated hard. Around 3–4¼ hours.
Distance and climb are measured from the route’s GPX track, and the time from them by Naismith’s rule; the route page says what each grade rests on. How we check →
How hard is White Combe?
The shortest way up we hold is Awkward Around Swinside Fell — 12.25 km, 430 m of ascent, ~3–4¼ h. On our scale its hardest axis is navigation — Hard.
All axes: navigation: Hard · length: Moderate · steepness: Moderate · terrain: Not assessed · exposure: Not assessed.
These are the route page’s grades, set by the rules on how we grade: length and steepness measured from its GPX track, the others set on the ground, judged from the map or estimated from OpenStreetMap. The route page says which. How we check →
Conditions and 7-day summit forecast
Modelled for the 417 m summit (Open-Meteo). Check the Met Office mountain forecast and MWIS before you set off.
Full 7-day forecast
Taken 29 October 2026, 09:00 UTC; the live forecast replaces it when it loads. Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (opens in new tab)
Parking & buses for White Combe
Parking
Route starts first, then the car parks nearest the summit, which are not always a way up.
1 more place to park near White Combe
Positions are approximate.
Vehicles are left at their owner’s risk: we list places people park and cannot vouch for any of them. Take valuables with you and leave nothing on show.
Buses
The nearest bus stop we hold is the 505 at Coniston, outside John Ruskin School, 20.4 km of walking from the start — no bus route we hold serves it.
Getting there across the Lake District: Buses · Parking map · By train · By boat
Hazards on White Combe
Notes from a planned route, not walked: Awkward Around Swinside Fell
If you need to get off (the leg from Stoupdale Head): Do not attempt to descend the steep, pathless, and occasionally craggy slopes directly into the Whitecombe valley. The way back is to Stoupdale Head and down your ascent route.
Quoted from the route page of a planned route, drawn from the map and not yet walked: the note for the leg that reaches White Combe.
We have not written a hazard card for this fell yet, and that is not a sign that it is low-hazard. Read the warnings on the route pages that climb it, check the forecast, carry a map and compass, and turn back in cloud if the ground is not what you expected. The National Park Authority’s What to pack page, AdventureSmart’s hill walking kit list and Mountain Rescue England and Wales’s safety page are linked from our what to carry guide.
If you need Mountain Rescue
Dial 999 or 112 and ask for the Police, then Mountain Rescue.
Before you call, have ready: where you are (a grid reference if you can – the OS Locate app shows yours on your phone), what has happened, how many of you there are, and your mobile number.
Then stay where you are until the rescue team contacts you.
If you cannot make a voice call because of a hearing or speech impairment, emergency SMS works only if you have registered first: text “register” to 999.
From Mountain Rescue England and Wales’s guidance on calling them out (opens in new tab) (read 26 October 2026).
Map, GPX and nearby Birketts
Skip mapFree mapping: OpenTopoMap / OpenStreetMap, with SRTM elevation data (switch layers top-right).
Parking, toilets and buses: Parking & buses ↑.
Birketts within 3 km of White Combe
These Birkett tops are not Wainwright summits. Distances are straight lines: check the ground and access on a map before adding one.
Routes over White Combe
Download GPX Planned route · not yet walked
Every line here is a guide, not a guarantee — conditions change. Navigate for yourself and carry a map and compass. How to use this guide.
On the hill: terrain and water on White Combe
Access on White Combe
Access: summit and direct approach lie within mapped open-access land (CRoW). The usual access-land conditions apply.
Walls & fences: the approach crosses a wall. No stile or gate is mapped within 150 m of the crossing — that’s a statement about the map, not the wall, which may well have one. Expect to walk the wall to find a crossing rather than climbing it, and turn back if you find none: dry-stone walls are working boundaries and take real damage from climbers.
Local restrictions can close open-access areas temporarily — check the official open-access information (opens in new tab) before travelling.
How we worked out the access
Summit and approach positions are tested against Natural England’s CRoW Act 2000 access layer; rights of way and wall or fence detail come from OpenStreetMap. Both are open datasets with known gaps — in our own survey only 4 of 26 wall and fence crossings had a stile or gate mapped within 150 m — so absence of a mapped feature never means absence of a real one. Nothing here is field-verified unless marked, and none of it is legal advice. How we checked 377 fells.
Access land: © Natural England copyright. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.
About White Combe
Classifications & hill data
Is White Combe a Wainwright?
White Combe is one of Wainwright's Outlying Fells, not one of the 214 in the Pictorial Guides. It is also on the Birkett list.
Selected lists
This is the summit’s grid reference. If you call from anywhere else, give your own position, not this one.
The summit is also a Birkett.
Lists, height and summit position from the Database of British and Irish Hills; the feet are converted from its metres and the grid reference from that position. How we check →