Harter Fell [Mardale]

The summit cairn is the thing people remember. It is decorated with ironwork salvaged from an old fence, and some of the posts stick up like upturned pitchforks. A second cairn to the north has the same treatment. Walk towards the rim of the crags and the whole length of Haweswater comes into view.

Mardale Head, at the end of the road along Haweswater, is the usual start. The car park is only about 1.6 km from the summit on the map but 550 m below it, and the crags of the north west face rule out a direct climb. Instead you go up one of the two old passes that flank the fell and come down the other. Nan Bield Pass, to the west, leads up past Small Water, a tarn about 15 m deep with brown trout and perch. At the top of the pass a stone shelter marks the start of the steeper, rockier ridge to the summit. Gatescarth Pass, to the east, keeps its original zigzags over the steep ground. Both were trade routes, to Kentmere and to Longsleddale, until Mardale Green was drowned under the raised reservoir.

The summit area is a narrow, grassy horseshoe open to the south east. Three ridges leave it: south over The Knowe and Brown Howe to Kentmere Pike, east over Little Harter Fell and Adam Seat to Gatescarth and Branstree, and west to Nan Bield.

From Kentmere, Harter Fell is where the Kentmere Horseshoe turns for home. Walk Lakes notes that the climb of about 140 m from Nan Bield feels harder than it is, because your legs have done a lot by then. From Longsleddale, you can also climb the grassy slopes above Wrengill Quarry.