Carl Side

Few people climb Carl Side for its own sake. It is usually the middle of a round, and the popular one starts at the Old Sawmill tearoom car park at Dodd Wood, on the A591 between Keswick and Bassenthwaite. The car park reads your number plate and you pay as you leave. Marker posts lead up through the forest to open fell and then along the ridge over Ullock Pike and Longside Edge, with Southerndale on one side and Bassenthwaite Lake on the other.

From Long Side the path drops to Carlside Tarn and climbs a short way to the summit. The way back goes steeply down the south ridge past White Stones to Long Doors, the gap between Carl Side and Dodd, then along forest tracks to the car. A short, steep direct route also comes up the south ridge from Millbeck, near Applethwaite.

It is Skiddaw Slate underfoot the whole way. The ridges are mostly grass, but the steep parts are loose, slatey scree and slick in the wet. Ullock Pike has a few rocky steps with easy paths round them, so you will not need to scramble.

The summit is a broad, grassy top with a cairn. Look south, down Derwentwater to the Borrowdale fells. Carlside Tarn, in the col towards Skiddaw, is the only standing water in the whole Skiddaw group. It is very shallow and often dries up in summer.

Ospreys nest in the valley, and in season, usually April to October, you can look for them from the Dodd Wood viewpoints on the way back to the car. Miners dug a trial level into the fell in the 1870s, looking for baryte and lead ore.