Castle Crag
Park at: Rosthwaite Village Car Park (pay and display car park with toilets)
Distance: 4 mile circular walk
Duration: 2.5 hours
Height: 290m / 951ft
Wainwright height ranking: 214 of 214
1) Exit Rosthwaite Village Car Park through a gap in the wall near the National Trust information board. This brings you out onto the lane that you entered the car park by.
2) Walk up the lane in the opposite direction from the main road - B5289 that you will have arrived on. Go past the Flock In Tea Room and a number of farm buildings bearing right onto a track through the farmland.
3) The track eventually arrives at the river bank. Follow the track, keeping the river to your left, and you will come to a small stone bridge that you will need to turn left to cross.
4) After crossing the bridge, turn right. Follow this track until you reach two gates next to one another. Take the stile over the right hand gate to continue following the river.
5) At a fork in the track, take the left fork to veer away from the river. Shortly after, the path splits again, with the main track continuing off to the right. Here you will need to take the left fork again to go over the stile and join a grassy path leading up the hill.
6) The path climbs steeply up the hill with both grassy and rocky terrain in places. Follow the path and you will pass through a stone wall with a gap in it, immediately turning right to follow the stepped path.
7) The path continues to climb steeply. You will then come to a ladder like stile over another stone wall that you will need to climb over.
8) After crossing the stile turn right and you will see a mound ahead of you covered in slate scree. Head towards the slate scree and you will see a path zig zagging its way up.
9) Follow the zig zag path up the mound where a cairn will be at the top. Enjoy stunning views here.
10) Continue beyond the view point. There is a path leading off to the left that leads to an abandoned quarry with many loose pieces of slate. Here numerous visitors have created standing stone towers and you are welcome to try and create your own.
11) To reach the summit, come out of the quarry and take the path to the left leading up through the trees. The path is not very defined here as you climb over tree roots.
12) The path leads to the top of Castle Crag. The actual summit is a rocky outcrop that can be climbed by a small amount of scrambling on one side and sits a couple of metres higher than the rest of the fairly open summit area. From here you can see across Derwentwater over to Keswick, with the fells of Skiddaw and Blencathra in the background.
13) To start your return walk, retrace your steps back down past the quarry and down the zig zag path on the slate scree covered mound,
14) Head down the path going past the ladder like style that you climbed over on the way up. The path will turn right and lead to a small gate.
15) Go through the gate and continue to follow the path downhill.
16) You will go through another gap in a stone wall before heading down a little more, eventually coming to the end of this path. Here, turn right to join the path that follows Broadslack Gill (beck).
17) Continue on this downhill path as it passes through a valley. You may have to cross the gill in places if there has been a lot of heavy rainfall prior to your walk. You will come to a gate that you need to go through.
18) After you have gone through the gate, there is a short distance before you reach a junction in the path. There is a path leading off to the left and a narrow wooden bridge almost directly in front of you. Cross this bridge and take the path that follows the boundary wall.
19) Follow this path down to the riverbank where you need to turn right, joining the Cumbria Way.
20) The Cumbria Way leaves the river after a short distance and begins to ascend slightly, before taking you left through a gap in a boundary wall.
21) Continue along the path until you reach a junction where you will need to turn left.
22) Follow this path until you eventually reach a gate that you will need to go through.
23) The track then follows the River Derwent back to the stone bridge that you crossed at the beginning of the walk just outside of Rosthwaite.