Dow Crag
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Dow Crag is a
fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle o ...
in the
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...
near Coniston,
Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumb ...
. The eastern face is one of the many rock faces in the Lake District used for
rock climbing Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and ...
. The name Dow Crag originally applied specifically to the eastern face which looks down upon the tarn of Goat's Water, the fell itself having no need for a name before the inception of hill walking in the 19th century. As with many fells the name of a prominent feature was then applied to the whole mass. Dow was originally named Doe and still locally pronounced as "Doe".Richards, Mark: ''Southern Fells'': Collins (2003):


Topography

The Coniston (or Furness) Fells form the watershed between Coniston Water and the
Duddon Valley The Duddon Valley is a valley in the southern Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England. The River Duddon flows through the valley, rising in the mountains between Eskdale and Langdale, before flowing into the Irish Sea near Broughton in ...
to the west. The range begins in the north at
Wrynose Pass The Wrynose Pass is a mountain pass in the Lake District National Park in Cumbria, England between the Duddon Valley and Little Langdale. Etymology The unusual name of the pass is taken from that of the adjacent Wrynose hill, also called Wryn ...
and runs south for around 10 miles before petering out at
Broughton in Furness Broughton in Furness is a market town in the civil parish of Broughton West in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. It had a population of 529 at the 2011 Census. It is located on the south western boundary of England's Lake Distric ...
on the Duddon Estuary.
Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume ''Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'', published ...
in his influential ''
Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells ''A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'' is a series of seven books by A. Wainwright, detailing the fells (the local word for hills and mountains) of the Lake District in northwest England. Written over a period of 13 years from 1952, they ...
'' took only the northern half of the range as Lakeland proper, consigning the lower fells southward to a supplementary work ''The Outlying Fells of Lakeland''. Dow Crag is the last fell in the northern section of the range and therefore qualifies as one of the 214
Wainwrights Wainwrights are the 214 English peaks (known locally as ''fells'') described in Alfred Wainwright's seven-volume ''Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'' (1955–66). They all lie within the boundary of the Lake District National Park in Cumbr ...
. Later guidebook writers have chosen to include the whole range in their main volumes.Birkett, Bill: ''Complete Lakeland Fells'': Collins Willow (1994): The higher northern part of the range can be likened to an inverted 'Y' in plan.
Brim Fell Brim Fell is a fell in the English Lake District. It stands to the west of Coniston village in the southern part of the District. Topography The Coniston (or Furness) Fells form the watershed between Coniston Water and the Duddon valley to th ...
stands at the junction of the three arms with the northern branch continuing over
Swirl How Swirl How is a fell in the English Lake District. It stands between Coniston and the Duddon Valley in the southern part of the District. It rivals the Old Man of Coniston as the highest point within the traditional County Palatine of Lancashire ...
and
Great Carrs Great Carrs is a fell in the England, English Lake District. It stands above Wrynose Pass in the Southern Fells, southern part of the District. Topography The Coniston (or Furness) Fells form the watershed between Coniston Water and the Duddon ...
. The south western branch traverses to Dow Crag and the south eastern to The
Old Man of Coniston The Old Man of Coniston is a fell in the Furness Fells in the Cumbria, English Lake District and is the highest point (county top) of the historic county of Lancashire. It is at least high, and lies to the west of the village of Coniston and t ...
, with Goat's Water lying in a deep depression between the two. The connecting ridge from Dow Crag to Brim Fell crosses the depression of Goat's Hawse above the head of the tarn, the Dow Crag side in particular being steep and rough. South of Dow Crag the ridge steps down over the subsidiary tops of Buck Pike () and Brown Pike () to the
Walna Scar Walna Scar is a hill in the English Lake District, lying just south of a pass of the same name in the Coniston Hills. Its summit at is only slightly higher than the pass. Walna Scar is the highest of Wainwright's ''The Outlying Fells of Lake ...
Road. This is primarily a pedestrian route - the summit being at - although it has seen use from off-road vehicles, together with the attendant erosion. It provides a crossing from Coniston village to Seathwaite in the Duddon valley and was originally constructed both to facilitate local trade and to serve the many slate quarries on these fells. The first section at either end is paved although the remainder is a stony bridleway. Beyond the Walna Scar Road are the further tops of Walna Scar (), White Maiden () and White Pike (). Richards treats these as one fell (Walna Scar) in his recent Landranger guide. South of White Pike is a profound drop to an area of rough country before the shapely pyramid of Caw rises skyward. To the west long and gentle slopes run down from the summit of Dow Crag toward the Duddon, while further north on this flank is
Seathwaite Tarn Seathwaite Tarn is a reservoir in the Furness Fells within the English Lake District. It is located to the south of Grey Friar and to the west of Brim Fell (on the ridge between The Old Man of Coniston and Swirl How) and north east of the vil ...
. The ground here also begins in a shallow descent, but turns steep above the tarn in a line of minor crags. Seathwaite Tarn is a reservoir in a side valley of the Duddon system. This was originally a much smaller waterbody, but was dammed early in the 20th century to provide drinking water for the
Barrow in Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. In 2023 the ...
area. The dam is almost long and is concrete cored with slate buttresses, the resulting depth being around . Water is not abstracted directly from the tarn, but flows some distance downriver to an off-take weir.Blair, Don: ''Exploring Lakeland Tarns'': Lakeland Manor Press (2003): By contrast Goat's Water retains its natural form. Much smaller and enclosed by steep ground on three sides it contains both trout and char. The outlet flows through a boulder field, becoming one of the headwaters of Torver Beck. This stream passes a disused quarry near the Tranearth climbing hut, keeping the workings topped up via an artificial but extremely picturesque waterfall. Torver Beck finally issues into Coniston Water to the south of Torver village. A second tarn to the east of Dow Crag stands in a small hollow below Brown Pike. This is Blind Tarn, so named because it has no visible inlet or outlet. About a hundred yards across and twenty feet deep, the tarn has a respectable population of trout. Whilst other theories are possible, it must be assumed they have been introduced for sport.


Summit

The summit bears no
cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...
, being a rocky point perched directly above the crag. The view south and west to the coast is excellent, but much of Lakeland is blotted out by the flanks of the Coniston range. The
Scafells Image:Annotated Scafell range.jpg, 300px, The Scafell range as seen looking west from Crinkle Crags. (Interactive labels.) rect 23 372 252 419 Slight Side (762m) rect 173 794 560 834 Scafell East Buttress rect 707 787 893 861 Esk Crag or But ...
are far enough west to put in an appearance and
Skiddaw Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. Its summit is the sixth-highest in England. It lies just north of the town of Keswick, Cumbria, and dominates the skyline in this part of the northern lakes. It is the ...
and the
Helvellyn range The Helvellyn range is the name given to a part of the Eastern Fells in the English Lake District, "fell" being the local word for "hill". The name comes from Helvellyn, the highest summit of the group. The Helvellyn range forms a ridge extend ...
can be seen through Fairfield and Levers Hawse.
Alfred Wainwright Alfred Wainwright MBE (17 January 1907 – 20 January 1991), who preferred to be known as A. Wainwright or A.W., was a British fellwalker, guidebook author and illustrator. His seven-volume ''Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'', published ...
: ''
A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells ''A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells'' is a series of seven books by A. Wainwright, detailing the fells (the local word for hills and mountains) of the Lake District in northwest England. Written over a period of 13 years from 1952, they ...
'', Book 4:


Ascents

The simplest direct routes begin at either end of the Walna Scar Road, making for the summit from the top of the pass. Ascents can be made from Seathwaite Tarn (pathless) or to the north of Goat's Hawse, but these give no clue to the grandeur of the crag on the eastern side of the ridge. For this the walker will leave the Walna Scar Road at The Cove, or climb to this point from Torver. From here Goat's Water is the next objective for views of Dow Crag. Two choices now present themselves- easy via Goat's Hause, or steep via the South Rake (see below). Many walkers will also reach the fell using the good paths from The Old Man of Coniston and Brim Fell.


Rock climbing

Dow Crag is composed of
rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...
and has an approximately 100 metre rock face with over 100 recognised climbing routes including: *Giant's Crawl *'C' Ordinary Route *Hopkinson's Crack *Eliminate 'A' *Leopard's Crawl *Nimrod *Side Walk *Holocaust *Tumble *The Shining Path South Rake is a scree filled gully towards the south of the crag, and is the easiest way up the crag, being a fairly easy scramble, especially for the less agile. Dow is noted for being particularly cold, bleak and exposed, especially in summer, typical of the Cumbrian season. Dow Crag is usually approached from the Walna Scar road which connects the Duddon Valley with Coniston. Se
UK Climbing crag database


References


External links



{{Southern Fells Fells of the Lake District Hewitts of England Nuttalls South Lakeland District