Seathwaite Fell

Seathwaite Fell as seen from Great End

Height: 601m (1,972ft)

Prominence: 12m (39ft)

Region: Southern Fells

Classifications: Wainwright, Birkett

Summit feature: Cairn

Times climbed: 1

Related trip report: 
Seathwaite Fell & Sprinkling Tarn - 26/07/215

Seathwaite Fell - Wainwright's summit

Seathwaite Fell - Great Slack (the true summit)

What Wainwright said:

"The fell, with few attractions to compare with those of greater mountains around, is rarely visited - except, of course, by the custodian of the rain gauges which record, to its shame, that the fell and its vicinity has much the heaviest rainfall in the country".

Seathwaite Fell stands above the hamlet of the same name at the head of Borrowdale. It is very rugged with several small tops along the summit of the ridge. At the northern end is a peaked summit 601 m, very prominent from the valley below. Wainwright took this as the summit of the fell in his influential Guide, even though he readily acknowledged that it wasn't the highest point.

To provide ease of identification, the highest point (632 m) is immediately east of Great Slack on Ordnance Survey maps, Great Slack being the name of the broad rake on the SW of the fell.

Seathwaite is listed as having 3,552mm of rainfall annually; this figure makes it the wettest place with rainfall statistics in England. The rain gauge used for this measurement is on the slope of Seathwaite Fell above the hamlet.

Views from both tops are excellent in their own right.

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