Bowfell

Great Langdale is the valley for Bowfell. Park at the National Trust pay and display by the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. The New Dungeon Ghyll car parks, a little further down the valley, take the overflow. The 516 bus comes up from Ambleside and turns round at the Old Dungeon Ghyll, so you can do the whole day without a car.

The standard way up is The Band, the long spur behind Stool End Farm. It is pitched most of the way and steady rather than steep, and it brings you out at Three Tarns, the col between Bowfell and Crinkle Crags. From there it is a short, rough pull over blocky ground to the top.

The Climbers' Traverse

A better line leaves The Band near its top and runs north along a narrow terrace under the eastern crags, high above Mickleden. The terrace is roughly 500 metres long and airy in places, but it is a path, not a scramble. It ends at Cambridge Crag, where a spring runs out of the foot of the rock even in a dry summer. Climb beside the Great Slab, a huge tilted sheet of rock, or up the boulders next to it, and the summit is a short walk on.

The top is a small pyramid of broken rock, and the highest point is a heap of loose stones with no proper cairn. Bowfell stands in the middle of the high fells, so nearly every group in the district is in view. Across the head of Eskdale, Scafell Pike fills the skyline. For the way down, a good round goes north by Ore Gap, Angle Tarn and Rossett Gill into Mickleden.