You Are Here … …
If you are considering a walk up “Scafell Pike”, this is the best place to start.
ScafellPike.org.uk provides information about the various routes you can choose from, the best time of the year to attempt your Scafell Pike walk and what equipment you should take with you.
We also provide a guide to what maps are available, where the best places to stay are located and how to avoid the ghosts of ancient smugglers at Moses Trod, riderless horses at Burnmoor and 13th century outlaws at Sty Head Pass.
Current news events concerning Scafell Pike walks have their own section, as do details of how you can combine your Scafell Pike walk as part of the Three Peaks Challenge. We have a page dedicated to further information about Scafell Pike walks and, before you leave the site, please take a look at our terms of use to see how the site is paid for and maintained.
… … Because It’s There
Why would anybody want to brave the Cumbrian weather, risk painful blisters and battle against the toughest sheep in England to walk up Scafell Pike? Because it is there! Not only is the Scafell Pike walk modestly challenging, it has invariably been described as exhilarating, beautiful and breathtaking.
The Scafell Pike walk, and the view from the top, has inspired writers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Baines and Wainwright (See Wainwright book) as, on a clear day, you can see the five kingdoms of Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man and Heaven!
Scafell Pike walks became popular in the eighteenth century before Ordnance Survey maps were available and when walkers were guided up the slopes of the “Scafell Pike Mountain” by locals, keen to supplement their income.
Indeed, it was an error on an Ordnance Survey map which gave Scafell Pike its current name – previously being known as “The Pikes of Sca Fell” in honour of a neighbouring peak, which looks higher from many angles, but which is in fact ten feet lower.