Pinnacle Ridge, St Sunday Crag

This is a classic Lake District scramble which is usually given Grade 3 for the short steep crux corner.

Can be a bit tricky to find first time, especially if its a bit claggy.

Grade: 3

Start/Finish: Park opposite the Patterdale Hotel (maps link) or the Car park  at Glenridding next to the Information Centre (maps link)

Approach

Head to Grisedale Bridge and turn up the lane into Grisedale.

After about 1 km the lane turns right (to cross a bridge over the beck and head towards Helvellyn). Instead carry straight on through a gate and follow the farm road, eventually passing farm buildings and holiday cottages beyond which is a walled plantation.

Continue on the lane and through the gate at the far end of Elmhow Plantation and turn immediately left to follow the wall uphill.

At the top of the wall turn left again and cross the bed of the beck (full of boulders following the floods) before turning right (uphill again) past a mound on your right where you should see the first faint traces of the Elmhow Zigzags (Ordnance Map to show plantation and zig zags).

These always stay to the left of the beck you crossed lower down. Keep those legs pumping and follow the zigzags until they begin to level out at the lip of Blind Cove.

Looking rightwards pick out the line of a path which now takes you across the beck. The path starts boggy and indistinct and then becomes more obvious. At a depression, avoid the dry line of the little ridge on the right, but follow the path beyond the depression which ultimately keeps a slightly higher traversing line. Cross a couple of bouldery scree lines (one requiring a bit of descent) taking care to resume the path on the other side. At a more substantial area of scree, cross and then try to make out the line of the ridge above.

Look for the “gun-like” block part way up the ridge, a rowan tree on the right or (more likely) fellow scramblers! Pick your way up the scree to the base of the ridge.

If you go a bit too high it’s easy to traverse onto the ridge proper without missing any of the good bits. Once established on the ridge, the approach is really obvious so take note for next time.

Scramble

Initial spikes and blocks soon give way to more substantial blocks, including the gun-like block seen from below. The scrambling can be varied around these massive lumps of rock, seeking out exposure or frictioning up slabby faces. A broken section appears to head for a large pinnacle but this is skirted on its left side to reveal the crux wall and corner just behind the pinnacle.

For roped parties there is a nice big chockstone on the right of the corner that takes a sling for protection and a good flat belay ledge with plenty of gear placements above the wall.

Start in the corner and use good holds on the wall to the left (I usually find jamming a boot in the groove helps at one point as does a sloping foothold behind). Some people step right onto the chockstone – whatever suits.

At the top go slightly left and then carry on up the steep crest to where it narrows over an exposed section culminating in a sharp pinnacle (give the leader a camera to take photos of you on this bit).

The top of the pinnacle is helpfully shaped to take a sling to protect the downclimb beyond. Using the left edge initially as a handhold, descend on footholds on the right side of the slab (looking down) that forms the pinnacle taking care to find the spiky footholds at the bottom.

Go up a little way beside a ridged slab to turn and watch the antics of your mates and take photos.

From here a couple of pleasant steps with some fun moves remain before the ridge merges with the fellside above. Go up the gravelly and vegetated ground (or sometimes a late-lingering snow patch) to the path on the main ridge line. Turn right to the summit.

Continuations

A pleasant scrambly line up the Cofa Pike flank of Fairfield and then a stroll over to Hart Crag brings you to Hartsop Above How ridge which is usually quiet and makes the outing into a version of the Deepdale Horseshoe. Descent to Grisedale Tarn means you have further options: up over Dollywaggon Pike to Helvellyn and return via Striding or Swirral Edge; descend to Ruthwaite Lodge, outflank Spout Crag on its northern side and then ascend Dollywaggon via “The Tongue” and thence to Helvellyn; descend further to the ruins of the mine at Eagle Crag and then scramble up to the right of the gully (G2) and then on the the East Ridge of Nethermost Pike and then to Helvellyn’s edges. Or you could go straight back down Grisedale to the bright lights of Glenridding.