Cockup & Skiddaw
1 NY248322 From Peter House farm, a rough lay-by is just to the south-west (the direction towards Bassenthwaite Lake). Continue along the road away from Peter House, past a derelict farm. As the road bends down right, a farm track turns off left. Immediately take a gate on the left, onto a track directly uphill. After 400m the track turns left into a field but continue uphill to right of the fence, on an old green track, and then alongside a row of hawthorns from a former hedge, to a gate in the wall at the foot of open fell.
2 NY254313 A small grass path continues uphill towards the minor hump of Cockup. The path heads into the saddle behind the hump, so fork left on a fainter path to the cairned summit. Rejoin the path in the saddle south-east of the cairn. It slants up to the left, to cross a stream in a little incised valley. The path is now less clear, directly uphill through more heathery ground to the sprawling cairn on Bakestall.
3 NY266308 A wide path leads ahead for 100m to a fence corner. Still wide and stony, the path heads up fairly steeply to right of the fence, to the leveling above Broad End (this is the Broad End at the north end of Skiddaw’s ridge, not the other one at the southern end…). The path bends left with the fence along the level wide ridge, then heads directly up the summit cone, past two shelter cairns, to the trig point at Skiddaw summit. There is also a viewpoint indicator and another shelter cairn.
4 NY260290 From the summit, head south through the first dip to a large cairn. Fork down right, on a path which slants down a great scree slope to the saddle beside Carl Side (the small Carlside Tarn is often dry). Keep ahead to Carl Side’s flat top, and turn right, north-west, on a path which descends to run along the narrow ridge of Longside Edge to its end at Ullock Pike.
5 NY244287 The well used path descends steeply north-west, then follows a gentle ridgeline north. A cluster of odd boulders at Watches is an intrusion of igneous diorite rock, good for scrambling. Where a wall runs across the ridgeline, turn down right on the path beside it to a track below.
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NY241306
Turn left through a gate, then another. As the track fades, go downhill alongside a grown-out hedge. At its bottom end, turn right on a faint path, slanting up to a small gate and on to a gateway with ladder stile. The track ahead leads above the buildings of
Barkbeth. A small gate lets you onto a path beside Barkbeth Gill. Go down this, to the left of the stream, to join a track just above Hole House.
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NY242313 Cross the stream, slant up the field on a faint track to a gate. Go along the top of the next field, to another gate. Follow a track across Mill Beck to the road 500m southwest of Peter House.