Red Screes

The quickest way up Red Screes starts at the top of Kirkstone Pass, beside the Kirkstone Pass Inn, roughly 450m up before you take a step. From the car park a steep, winding path goes straight up the east side. It was badly eroded and has been rebuilt with stone blocks, so it is more of a staircase than a slope. Short as it is, allow for the steepness. In summer the 508 bus runs over the pass between Windermere and Patterdale.

The longer and better way starts in Ambleside. Walk up the Kirkstone road, the steep lane known as The Struggle, and take the long south ridge over Snarker Pike. It is a gentle, grassy climb between walls, with ladder and step stiles lower down and boggy patches around Snarker Moss. A good circuit goes up Scandale, the valley to the west, to Scandale Pass and along to the summit, then comes back down the south ridge. That round is about 14km. From Brothers Water there is a steep, largely pathless line up Middle Dodd to the north.

The top

The summit is a broad plateau of grass and stones with a trig pillar, several cairns, a round stone shelter and a small tarn. Helvellyn is prominent, and the Coniston fells, Bowfell and Scafell Pike are lined up to the west. You also get a dizzying look straight down to the inn on the pass.

The name comes from the reddish scree on the steep eastern slopes above the pass. The fell was quarried too: Kirkstone Quarry produced green and blue-black building slate until 2012.