Scoat Tarn & Yewbarrow
1
NY167068 Start at the parking place beside Overbeck Bridge. A good path runs up to right of the stream. Through a kissing gate the path turns uphill; don’t go through its second kissing gate but fork left on a fainter path through gorse to a third kissing gate. Continue beside the stream for 800m to cross footbridge.
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NY166077 Turn briefly right, then uphill to right of a wall. Follow it up to the wide, gentle spurline. Head up this, between or over rocky lumps. As the spur levels off, with some boggy patches, Brimfull Beck stream is on the right. Follow it up to Low Tarn. Pass along its right-hand side and across its head, then slant up west onto the upper spurline again. It’s pleasantly rocky-knolly. A particularly fine knoll (NY159098) invites scrambling: from its top you see the foot of Scoat Tarn north. Go down to it.
3
NY158102 Pass along the right-hand edge of the tarn to its north-east corner. Head uphill, passing pale grey outcrops of scrambly rock. Above a slight terrace, a columnar black crag runs across the fell. Bear right, along its foot, to pass up through it at a faultline gap. The slope now runs gently uphill to Red Pike’s 826m summit (if you reach the 821m northern summit, head south with drops on your left across a little col up to the main top).
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NY165105 The path runs south across level plateau. It keeps to left of the subsidiary south summit, and runs down south-east. It becomes steep with rocky moments down to the major col at Dore Head. Ahead, Stirrup Crag is intimidatingly Matterhorn-like, and has a beckoning finger pinnacle on its left outline. Too much? From here a bypass path contours out to the right, before slanting up steeply to the saddle between Yewbarrow’s two summits.
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NY174095 From Dore Head follow the main path up ahead, zigzagging to the base of the craggy band. It passes up to the right in a cosy groove. Then it slants up left, with an exposed rock move to gain an easy but exposed line overlooking the eastward drops. Continue with big, well-used holds, by grooves and platforms, to the airy north end of Yewbarrow. The path heads south, gently downhill then up to the pointed main summit of Yewbarrow.
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NY173084 A path continues south along the ridge to a cairn 574m. Now it descends the ridge end quite steeply. At a narrow col, the ridgeline ahead would be a rocky crest: here the path turns down to the right, an eroded groove. Then good zigzags on scree bend round left into the top of a rock-sided hollow. Here (Great Door) a path descends in a scree-bottomed rock gully; however there’s good easy rock alongside
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NY168076
At the gully foot the path slants out to the left, repaired in places, then down as pitched stonework. It bends round left below Bell Rib crags to a ladder stile. Cross this for a path down the spurline, to left of the wall, to the Over Beck stream. The path turns down left, through a kissing gate, then runs above the stream to the car park.