Steel Fell 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 of M ...

in 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 ...

, lying between

Thirlmere Thirlmere is a reservoir in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district in Cumbria and the English Lake District National Park, Lake District. The Helvellyn ridge lies to the east of Thirlmere. To the west of Thirlmere are a numbe ...

and Grasmere. It is triangular in plan, the ridges running north, west and south east. Steel Fell rises to the west of the

Dunmail Raise Dunmail Raise is the name of a large cairn in the English Lake District, which may have been an old boundary marker. It has given its name to the mountain pass of Dunmail Raise, on which it stands. This mountain pass forms part of the only low-lev ...

road and can be climbed from the summit, or from Grasmere and Wythburn.

Topography

Steel Fell stands away from the main spine of the

Central Fells The Central Fells are a part of the Cumbrian Mountains in the Lake District of England. Reaching their highest point at High Raise (2,500 ft or 762 metres), they occupy a broad area to the east of Borrowdale. The Central Fells are gen ...

, forming the end of one of the many east ridges of High Raise. Intermediate between the two are Codale Head and

Calf Crag Calf Crag is a fell in the English Lake District, on the eastern side of the High Raise massif. Topography The spine of the Central Fells runs on a north–south axis with the high point at High Raise. A complex system of daleheads to the east ...

. Steel Fell is bordered by Wythburndale to the north and the valley of Green Burn to the south-west. The eastern face looks down on

. Being triangular in plan, Steel Fell has three principal ridges. The northern ridge drops quickly to the head of Thirlmere at Steel End, while that to the south-east falls gradually toward Grasmere village, beginning down Cotra Breast. The eastern ridge connects to

, the next

in the popular circuit of the Greenburn valley, crossing a narrow depression with a scattering of small tarns. The southern face of Steel Fell falls over Blakerigg Crag to Greenburn, a feeder of the lake of Grasmere. Wythburndale marks the north western boundary of the fell, flowing to Thirlmere. The eastern face drops over Ash Crags to the pass of

. Two streams, both named Raise Beck, flow north and south down the pass, following the main Keswick–

Ambleside Ambleside is a town in the civil parish of Lakes and the Westmorland and Furness district of Cumbria, England. Within the boundaries of the historic county of Westmorland and located in the Lake District National Park, the town sits at the ...

road. Steel Fell thus sits on the Lake District’s main north–south watershed. Water from the southern slopes reaches the sea at Morecambe Bay while rain falling a few yards to the north reaches the sea via the River Derwent at

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. The town is at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast, south-west of Carlisle and north-east of Whitehaven. At the 2021 census the ...

Geology

The geology of Steel Fell is complex. The summit and Ash Crags exhibit the welded rhyo

dacitic Dacite () is a volcanic rock formed by rapid solidification of lava that is high in silica and low in alkali metal oxides. It has a fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic texture and is intermediate in composition between andesite and rhyolite. ...

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 ...

and

breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

of the Thirlmere Member. The remainder of the fell is characteristic of the Lincomb Tarns Formation of dacitic lapilli tuff with andesite sills. A large sill is evident near the surface above Wythburndale.

British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance Earth science, geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. ...

: 1:50,000 series maps, ''England & Wales Sheet 29'': BGS (1999)

Summit

Above the steep faces the triangular plateau, half a mile across, is dotted with small tarns. The summit bears the name Dead Pike and carries a large

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 ...

of reddish stone. The best of the view is to the north,

Blencathra Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly of the Cumbrian Mountains, in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top at . Name For many years, Ordnance Surv ...

appearing above

. South-west there is a fine mountain panorama stretching as far as the

Coniston Fells Coniston may refer to: Australia * Coniston (Northern Territory), a cattle station ** Coniston massacre, 1928 * Coniston, New South Wales ** Coniston railway station, New South Wales * Coniston, Tasmania, a town in the Derwent Valley United Kin ...

.Mark Richards: ''The Central Fells'': Collins (2003):

Ascents

The fell is most commonly climbed via the south east ridge, beginning at Gill Foot where the lane from Grasmere crosses Green Burn. From Steel End at the head of Thirlmere a way can be found onto the north ridge, or a longer route taken up the Wythburn valley to surmount the ridge to Calf Crag. Direct ascents up the eastern face from the summit of Dunmail Raise are also possible.

References

{{Central Fells Fells of the Lake District