High Spy

High Spy's summit cairn is a tall, carefully built tower of stone. Vandals have knocked it about more than once, and walkers keep putting it back. It stands on a long, nearly level top between Newlands and Borrowdale, 653m up. Crags guard both sides. On the Newlands flank, Eel Crags fall sheer and are popular with rock climbers for the quality of the rock.

Most people take it in on the Newlands Horseshoe, walking south from Catbells over Maiden Moor. Walk Lakes' half-horseshoe starts at the small parking area near Hawse End, follows the ridge to High Spy, then drops to Dalehead Tarn and comes back down the valley beside Newlands Beck and its waterfalls, 16km with 750m of ascent. The ridge path is broad and easy to follow, and the only hands-on moments are on Catbells.

Direct routes come up from both valleys. From Rosthwaite a path climbs through the disused Rigg Head Quarries to the col with Dale Head and goes up the south ridge past a small tarn. From Grange an old drove road gets through the barrier of Blea Crag. From Little Town an old mine road zigzags up to the same col as the Rosthwaite path. Grange is also the start of a scramble up the rocky rake of Nitting Haws, which is not a walking route.

The Little Town path passes the Castlenook lead mine at the foot of the fell. The Company of Mines Royal once owned it, and it worked from the 1860s until 1918, when cheaper imports closed it.

High Spy North Top, just under a kilometre north, has the better view of Derwentwater. The name may once have meant a lookout, though nobody is sure.