Helvellyn

The classic ascent is from Glenridding on Ullswater, where there is a large National Park pay and display car park and the 508 bus from Penrith. Climb beside Mires Beck to Birkhouse Moor and cross the wall at the Hole in the Wall, now a step stile. Then go over High Spying How and along Striding Edge to the summit, and come back down Swirral Edge and past Red Tarn.

Striding Edge is a real scramble. The crest is narrow and exposed for most of its length, near the far end you climb down a short chimney, and then there is a steep, loose climb onto the plateau. Swirral Edge starts with a loose, stony drop onto a short ridge of jumbled boulders. Unless you are experienced, avoid both in high wind, ice or poor visibility.

The Thirlmere side is gentler. From the Swirls car park a pitched path goes up over Browncove Crags to Lower Man. It is the most direct way up, with no scrambling. Thirlspot and Wythburn are the other western starts, and the old pony track up Grisedale is long but steady.

On the plateau

The summit is a broad, stony plateau. The highest point is a small rocky knoll a little higher than the trig pillar, with a cross-shaped wall shelter nearby. South of the shelter, a stone tablet records the aeroplane that landed on the summit in 1926. Red Tarn, in the corrie below, is about 25 metres deep and holds brown trout and schelly, a rare whitefish.

Charles Gough fell to his death near Striding Edge in 1805, and his dog stayed by his body until it was found. A memorial stone near the top of the climb from Striding Edge carries lines Wordsworth wrote about it.