Country:
District:
Start: The Mill Inn, Mungrisdale, nr Penrith, Cumbria (CA11 0XR)
(S/E) From the car park entrance of The Mill Inn, turn right and walk behind the pub and cross the river; turn left along the road. Almost immediately, turn left again at the phone booth and pass between cottages to a gate into open country. Follow the track across the valley bottom, until you reach a footbridge at the confluence of two streams beyond a slabbed section.
(1) Beyond the bridge, take the narrow path beside the stream on your left, rather than the more obvious path ahead. Follow the path up the valley, parallel to the stream, for a little over ½ mile, then ford Bannerdale Beck, the sidestream coming in from the right. Continue up the main valley, departing slightly and temporarily from the
stream around a young plantation of native trees; beyond these the path returns close to the stream, then descends to a footbridge.
(2) Bear left beyond the stream and follow the path obliquely up the slope to a saddle with views over the A66 to Clough Head and Great Dodd.
(3) At a junction of paths turn right and begin the climb up Scales Fell; a path ascending Mousthwaite Comb joins from the left. A little further on, ignore a prominent path heading off right, along the valley side (this is the
path to Scales Tarn and Sharp Edge).
(4) On reaching the brink overlooking Scaley Beck to the ridge of Doddick Fell, a path joins from the left and our onward route continues upward to the right, with steep slopes below and to your left. After a series of more or less rocky undulations, the route coming up Doddick Fell ridge joins from the left, and the main path climbs via a couple of zig-zags as Scales Tarn comes into view below and to your right, backed by Sharp Edge. After 300 yards or so, another set of wide zig-zags takes you to the summit ridge.
(5) Turn left to climb to Hall’s Fell Top, the highest point on Blencathra, marked by a discreet concrete Ordnance Survey ring.
(6) Leaving the main edge path (ahead), drop down off the summit to the right, heading to the right of a small tarn in a slight saddle. Continue along the top of the broad ridge beyond, passing a quartz cross and a series of cairns.
(7) Shortly after the minor summit of Atkinson Pike, and before the cliffs of Foule Crag, drop off the ridge to the left, picking your way down a scree-covered slope and then passing behind a minor rocky pinnacle. Follow the obvious path down to a saddle with the bleak slopes of Mungrisdale Common to your left and Skiddaw as a looming backdrop.
(8) At the bottom of the dip, ignore paths to left and right (though the latter offers a straightforward bad-weather alternative route back to Mungrisdale via the Glenderamackin valley). Take the leftmost of three routes on the grassy slope ahead of you, leading gently and obliquely up the grassy hillside (with the summit cairn of Bannerdale Crags well to your right). As you approach an area of peat, bear right on a vague path to shortly reach the top of the cliffs overlooking the hidden valley of Bannerdale.
(9) Turn left and follow the edge path left around the head of the valley.
(10) Beyond the last of the crags and screes, swing right onto a path that descends in a straight line down the southern slopes of the whale-backed ridge called The Tongue, above and to your left. A track coming out of Bannerdale joins from the right, and as you reach the end of the Tongue ridge the path becomes wider
and stonier and bears left to return to the footbridge you crossed near the start of the walk.
(11) Follow the slabbed path ahead, retracing your outward steps back to Mungrisdale village. Turn right at the phone box and then right again over the bridge to return to The Mill Inn and well-deserved rest and refreshment.
Association or club
Moderate 
Easy 
Walker
