Skiddaw’s Long Side,
Eager to avoid the tourist route up from Keswick? Climb Skiddaw via the Longside Edge ridge – undoubtedly the best way up the Lake District giant.
Lake District
Many ascents of Skiddaw are rather boring: long, arduous slogs with scant visual appeal until you reach the summit plateau. But not so with this route – the unrivalled best way up the affable giant of the northern fells.
The Ullock Pike and Longside Edge ridge is not a knife-edge arête by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a “splendid high-level way for walkers,” as Wainwright put it – “narrow enough in places to give startling glimpses downwards and heathery enough to supply springy couches for better enjoyment of the delectable views”. And that beats the tourist routes up from Keswick hands down.
This suggested route is a circular walk, starting near the hamlet of Barkbeth. It takes in the full length of the Ullock Pike and Long Side ridge, and then bags the top of Carl Side before a rather soul-destroying struggle up scree to Skiddaw (even the best way up has some trudging). Next comes a delightful, if not slighty tricky, descent via the little-known Randel Crag, Buzzard Knott and Great Knott ridge – a quiet, almost-secretive side to mighty Skiddaw.