Silver How

From the cairn you look straight down on Grasmere village and its lake, with the Fairfield horseshoe filling the skyline behind. Turn round and the Langdale Pikes are close and side-on, and the Coniston fells show to the south.

Grasmere is the usual start. There is pay and display parking on Red Bank Road and at Stock Lane, and the 555 bus between Kendal and Keswick stops in the village. Take the narrow lane beside the Miller Howe Café up past Allan Bank, where Wordsworth lived for a time and which the National Trust now owns. You then climb through stands of juniper, ford Wray Gill (wet after rain), cross a small plateau and make a steep final push to the top. A good way back is the engineered steps down Scree Gully. The round is about 5 km with a little over 300 m of climbing.

Chapel Stile in Great Langdale is the shortest approach, steep but quick, with the Pikes in front of you once you gain height. Elterwater and High Close near Red Bank are other starting points, and the paths criss-cross so much that you can make up a different circuit each time.

It is grass and rock underfoot, with some boggy patches. The Grasmere side is wooded low down and craggy near the top. There is no real scrambling, but the ground around the summit is a jumble of rounded knolls, and in mist it's harder to find your way than the modest height suggests.

Silver How sits on a long ridge. Westward it runs over Lang How, Swinescar Pike and the Castle Hows to Blea Rigg. Eastward it drops through the woods at Red Bank to Loughrigg Fell. Either makes an easy extension.