Helvellyn via Striding Edge

Striding Edge is the best-known ridge scramble in the Lake District, an arête around 1.5km long connecting Birkhouse Moor to the summit plateau of Helvellyn, England’s third-highest mountain at 950m. Glenridding Common, 1,100 hectares taking in the summit ridges, belongs to the Lake District National Park Authority, which leased it to the John Muir Trust between 2017 and 2023. The standard round starts and finishes at the Glenridding car park, climbing past Lanty’s Tarn and Birkhouse Moor to reach the start of the ridge, then following its crest, hands often needed on the rock, to a final short, steep gully known locally as the Chimney that gains the summit tableland.

This is a mountaineering-grade route rather than a walk with a scramble added on. Guides rate it at the top of their difficulty scales, and the exposure on the narrowest sections of the ridge is real, with drops toward Red Tarn on one side. Fatal accidents have happened here, most often in poor visibility, ice, or when walkers underestimate how different the ridge feels in bad weather compared with a clear summer day. Most parties descend via Swirral Edge, a shorter, slightly less exposed ridge on the other side of Red Tarn, completing a horseshoe around the tarn’s headwall before returning to Glenridding.

At 14.1km and 900m of ascent, this is a full mountain day requiring good weather, sure-footedness and a head for heights, not a warm-up walk. It does not suit dogs. The scrambling sections, and in particular the awkward step at the Chimney, are difficult enough that a dog often needs to be lifted and passed between walkers, and several guides recommend leaving dogs at home for this one specifically rather than attempting it with them.