Cold Pike

Three rocky knobs make up the top of Cold Pike, each with its own cairn, a small copy of Crinkle Crags next door. The highest cairn is well built. The fell looks down on Wrynose Bottom, and plenty of walkers take it in as a side trip on the way to Crinkle Crags.

Almost everyone parks at the top of Wrynose Pass, by the Three Shire Stone. The few spaces there fill early at weekends and in the holidays. From the stone, a faint sheep track heads north-west over boggy patches straight to the summit. For an easier gradient, take the wide path north towards Red Tarn and climb Cold Pike from the tarn. That path was made to serve Red Crag Mine, which was worked for iron between 1860 and 1875 and never paid its way. Great Langdale by Oxendale is another start, and there is a pathless line from Wrynose Bottom that means fording the Duddon.

Walk Lakes grades the ground as very rough and boggy, and the path on Cold Pike fades in places. The usual lines need no scrambling, though the south side drops in tiers of crag.

From the summit you look across to Crinkle Crags, the Langdale Pikes and the northern Coniston fells. On a clear day the Pennines show beyond Windermere, and Morecambe Bay lies down the Duddon. Red Tarn, below, is long and shallow, about 1.5 metres deep. A circuit from the pass that adds Pike o'Blisco is about 6.5 km with 486 metres of climbing.