Graystones

The ridge that runs from the Vale of Lorton over Broom Fell and Lord's Seat to Barf begins at Graystones. It has two summits, and people disagree about their names. Wainwright used Graystones for the whole fell and said the hill was properly called Kirk Fell. Some guidebooks, and the OS 1:25,000 map, put Graystones on the eastern top and Kirk Fell on the western one. On the ground the Wainwright top and the Birkett top are separate lumps across a small col, and many baggers visit both.

The shortest way up starts at the Forestry Commission's Scawgill car park on the western side of the Whinlatter Pass road. Drop into the ravine, cross the footbridge, and take a narrow path steeply up through gorse and then grass beside a wall and fence. There is one rocky step, which you can climb or walk round. Above it a broken wall leads to the top. From the north-west you can come up from Armaside over Harrot and the Kirk Fell top, or from the north by Tom Rudd Beck from Embleton. Most walkers carry on over Widow Hause to Broom Fell.

The summit is grass, and its high point is a small upthrust of rock near the end of the wall from Widow Hause. The slopes are too gentle for much of a view. The Loweswater fells and the tops around Coledale Hause are in sight, with glimpses of Skiddaw and Helvellyn and a long line of the Scottish coast.

Conifers of the Darling How plantation cover the south-east flank. Hidden in them is Spout Force, a waterfall on Aiken Beck a few minutes from the car park. It is at its best in winter after rain, when the undergrowth has died back.