High Crag is a minor fell on the Helvellyn Range in the eastern region of the English

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

. It sits on the ridge to the south of

Helvellyn Helvellyn (; possible #Names, meaning: ''pale yellow moorland'') is a mountain in the English Lake District, the highest point of the Helvellyn range, a north–south line of mountains to the north of Ambleside, between the lakes of Thirlmere a ...

and

Nethermost Pike Nethermost Pike is a fell in Cumbria, England, and a part of the Lake District. At it is the second highest List of Wainwrights, Wainwright in the Helvellyn range, the highest of which is Helvellyn itself. It is located close to the southern en ...

. It rises sharply above the head of Ruthwaite Cove, and has attracted the attention of rock climbers. Its rock type is a

lapilli tuff Lapilli (: lapillus) is a size classification of tephra, which is material that falls out of the air during a volcanic eruption or during some meteorite impacts. ''Lapilli'' is Latin for "little stones". By definition lapilli range from in diam ...

of the Helvellyn Tuff Formation.

Topography

High Crag is a rocky crag, over 100 m high, which rises abruptly above the head of Ruthwaite Cove () and which forms a minor fell on the south ridge of

, at a point some 350 m north of the

col A col is the lowest point on a mountain ridge between two peaks; a mountain pass or saddle. COL, CoL or col may also refer to: Computers * Caldera OpenLinux, a defunct Linux distribution * , an HTML element specifying a column * A collision sig ...

between that mountain and

Dollywaggon Pike Dollywaggon Pike is a fell in the English Lake District. It stands on the main spine of the Helvellyn range in the Eastern Fells, between Thirlmere and the Ullswater catchment. Name The spelling ‘Dollywaggon’ is used on Ordnance Survey 1:25 ...

.Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer map A

cairn A cairn is a human-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 (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehistory, t ...

marks the summit, which is 884 m high and has a prominence of 13 m from the ridge. To the west the ground slopes gradually away from the summit, merging with the western slope of Nethermost Pike.

Routes

Walkers may reach the summit of High Crag by taking a short diversion from the ridge path. Small paths lead to and from the summit cairn, but are much less worn than the path that bypasses it, only 60 m from the cairn. For climbers, two gullies and a buttress lead up the steep eastern face of High Crag.

Summit

The flat summit of High Crag is marked by a cairn which is visible from the neighbouring tops. The summit is a high perch from which there is a bird's-eye view down into Ruthwaite Cove, flanked by the two eastern ridges of Nethermost Pike and Dollywaggon Pike, and with its tiny tarn, Hard Tarn. Then the view goes on down Grisedale to

Ullswater Ullswater is a glacial lake in Cumbria, England and part of the Lake District National Park. It is the second largest lake in the region by both area and volume, after Windermere. The lake is about long, wide, and has a maximum depth of . I ...

and

Place Fell Place Fell is a mountain in the English Lake District. It stands at the corner of the upper and middle reaches of Ullswater, with steep western flanks overlooking the villages of Glenridding and Patterdale. Topography A horseshoe of high gr ...

, with the Pennine Hills in the distance.

Geology

High Crag is composed entirely of lapilli tuff of the Helvellyn Tuff Formation. - may be viewed on the or on the BGS's iGeology smartphone app This formation is part of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, formed during a period of intense volcanic activity on the edge of an ancient continent during the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

Period, about 450 million years ago. The Helvellyn Tuff Formation was formed by an explosive volcanic eruption which produced a large-volume

pyroclastic flow A pyroclastic flow (also known as a pyroclastic density current or a pyroclastic cloud) is a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter (collectively known as tephra) that flows along the ground away from a volcano at average speeds of b ...

of very hot gas and rock. Individual lapilli or pieces of semi-molten lava within the flow were flattened by the weight of deposits above them.{{cite book , author = D. G. Woodhall , date= 2000 , title = Geology of the Keswick District (Sheet Explanation of BGS Sheet E029) , publisher = British Geological Survey , location = Nottingham

Image gallery

Image:Ruthwaite Cove from High Crag.JPG, Looking down into Ruthwaite Cove from High Crag Image:High Crag summit cairn.JPG, Summit cairn on High Crag, with Helvellyn seen beyond

References

Mountains and hills of Cumbria Patterdale