Helvellyn - WikiHQ

Helvellyn (; <small>possible meaning:</small> pale yellow moorland) is a mountain in the English Lake District, the highest point of the Helvellyn range, a north–south line of mountains to the north of Ambleside, between the lakes of Thirlmere and Ullswater.

Helvellyn is the third-highest point both in England and in the Lake District, and access to Helvellyn is easier than to the two higher peaks of Scafell Pike and Scafell. The scenery includes three deep glacial coves and two sharp-topped ridges on the eastern side (Striding Edge and Swirral Edge). Helvellyn was one of the earliest fells to prove popular with walkers and explorers; beginning especially in the later 18th century. Among the early visitors to Helvellyn were the poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth, both of whom lived nearby at one period. Routes up the mountain permit approach from many directions.

However, traversing the mountain is not without dangers; over the last two hundred years there have been a number of fatalities. The artist Charles Gough is more famous for his death on Striding Edge in 1805 than for what he achieved in his life. Among the human feats upon the mountain, one of the strangest was the landing and take-off of a small aeroplane on the summit in 1926.

Since 2020, the summit of Helvellyn including both Striding and Swirral Edges and the wider Glenridding Common have been managed by the John Muir Trust, a wild places conservation charity in partnership with the Lake District Park Authority.

Topography

General description

thumb|The eastern side of Helvellyn: Looking down onto [[Red Tarn from Striding Edge, with the summit of Helvellyn and Swirral Edge beyond]]

thumb|The western side of Helvellyn: Helvellyn Screes and Whelp Side seen over Thirlmere from the Wythburn Fells

The volcanic rocks of which the mountain is made were formed in the caldera of an ancient volcano, many of them in violently explosive eruptions, about 450 million years ago during the Ordovician period. To the west the mountain is rounded, its shape before glaciation: the ground drops gently at first but then more steeply down to Thirlmere, whereas on the eastern side deep glacial coves, each backed by high cliffs, are separated by spectacular sharp ridges or arêtes. The middle of these coves contains Red Tarn. Streams on the west side drain directly into Thirlmere, apart from Helvellyn Gill which flows into a parallel valley to the east of Great How and empties into St John's Beck. A leat captured the water of Helvellyn Gill, taking it into Thirlmere reservoir. but some authors have referred to it as Mines Gill.

A shoulder of the mountain, Whelp Side, between Whelpside Gill and Mines Gill, is largely grassy though with a few crags and boulders, and with coniferous plantations on its lower slopes around the reservoir. North of Mines Gill are the Helvellyn Screes, a more craggy stretch of hillside, beneath the north-west ridge, with a loose scree covering in places.

A second reservoir was built around 1860 in Brown Cove, between Swirral Edge and Lower Man, along with one further down the valley in Keppel Cove. These provided water to generate hydroelectric power for the lead mine. The dam in Keppel Cove is still in place, but water now leaks through its base. The remains of the dam in Brown Cove can be seen, but again water leaks freely through it. It is unclear whether there ever was a natural tarn in Brown Cove. Guidebook writers before 1860 refer only to Keppel Cove Tarn to the north of Swirral Edge.

Subsidiary tops

{| style="width: 100%; height: 150px" class="wikitable"

|+ Helvellyn and its subsidiary tops

! Name

! Grid reference

! Height

! Prominence

! Classification<br/>(height and prominence)

! Classification<br/>(authors' listings)

!Helvellyn||||||||Furth, Marilyn, Hewitt, Nuttall, Historic County Top||Wainwright, Birkett

!Lower Man||||||||Nuttall||Birkett

!Browncove Crags|||||||| ||

!Great How||||||||HuMP||Birkett

!Catstye Cam||||||||Hewitt, Nuttall||Wainwright, Birkett

!High Spying How||||||||Nuttall||

!Birkhouse Moor||||||||Nuttall||Wainwright, Birkett

!Keldas|||||||| ||

Routes

The whole of Helvellyn, above the conifer plantations to the west and the intake walls surrounding the valleys of Glenridding and Grisedale to the east, is Open Access land.

Routes up Helvellyn can begin from the villages of Glenridding or Patterdale to the east, Grasmere to the south, or from a number of places along the A591 road to the west, and can follow any of the mountain's five ridges, or the ridges of its neighbours, as well as some of the gills and shoulders on the west side of the range. Walkers can choose between many routes. Today the gap has been filled in and a ladder stile crosses the wall. From here the initial part of the ridge is relatively rounded and has a solid path running along the right-hand side. This changes upon reaching High Spying How, the highest point on the ridge — . At this point a narrow path continues close to the top of the ridge, which becomes increasingly narrow, and scramblers often follow the very top of the arête. The path on the right-hand side continues until near the end of the ridge where it switches over to the left-hand side. Scramblers who continue on the top of the ridge are forced to descend an awkward short gully down from the final rock tower to rejoin the path. At this point the ridge connects with the main Helvellyn massif. Reaching the summit plateau involves a steep walk or scramble up about of rough rocky terrain, known as The Abyss by W. A. Poucher, author of a popular series of mountain guide books between 1940 and the late 1960s. Another walker died after falling from Striding Edge in May 2008. Over the August Bank Holiday weekend in 2017, Patterdale Mountain Rescue attended a fatal fall from Striding Edge on the Saturday and helped rescue a seriously injured walker and his dog on the Sunday.

Swirral Edge offers a shorter scramble along a similar sharp arête. The main path to it comes up from Red Tarn, which is linked by a surprisingly level path to Hole-in-the-Wall, making this ridge equally accessible from Patterdale as from Glenridding. The ridge walk can be extended to include the summit of Catstye Cam.

Other approaches from the east

From Patterdale a long but safe and easy walk () on a good path follows the track up Grisedale to the tarn, and then takes the old pony track up the south ridge of Helvellyn. The second part of this walk takes a safe route well away from crags on the side of the ridge. Helvellyn's west slope includes Spots of Time, the first grade boulder problem in the United Kingdom. It was first ascended by Aidan Roberts in 2024, with Will Bosi confirming the grade later that year.

Nethermost Cove has some routes, including a large gully between Striding Edge and the back of the cove.

Browncove Crags on the western side of the mountain has some north-facing routes. These are easier to access from a car park, and they can be linked with the Red Tarn routes.

Fell top assessors

The Lake District National Park Authority employs two "Fell top assessors" during the winter months, usually between December and March. Working alternate weeks, one of these walks up Helvellyn each day during that period to check the weather, snow and walking conditions. Their report and daily photograph appear on Weatherline, the Lake District weather forecast website and phone line service, which includes a local weather forecast from the Met Office. The fell top assessors also put their assessments and photos on Twitter.

Summit

thumb|The top of Helvellyn, looking north-west from the summit cairn

The summit of Helvellyn takes the form of a broad plateau, sloping gently to the south-west, but dropping abruptly to the north-east into Red Tarn cove. So smooth and large is this summit that a small aeroplane was able to land on it in 1926 (see History below). The highest point, above sea level, is the top of a small rocky knoll, marked by a loose cairn. In former times this knoll used to be known as Helvellyn High Man (or Higher Man.) To the north is an Ordnance Survey trig point, slightly lower than the summit at .

Poets and artists were among the early visitors to Helvellyn at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Samuel Taylor Coleridge did a lot of fellwalking during the years when he lived near Keswick. In August 1800, barely a month after moving there, he went to visit his friends William and Dorothy Wordsworth in Grasmere, taking a route over Helvellyn and arriving at ten in the evening. A few days later William Wordsworth with his brother John and their friend Mr Simpson made a trip up Helvellyn, setting out after breakfast and returning home at ten that evening. John Keats speaks of Wordsworth "on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake..." in a sonnet that celebrates the poet and other artists. A portrait of Wordsworth, deep in thought among the clouds on the summit of Helvellyn, was painted by Benjamin Robert Haydon in 1842, an example of romanticism in portraiture.

An early casualty of the mountain was the artist Charles Gough, who slipped and fell from Striding Edge in April 1805. Three months later a shepherd heard a dog barking near Red Tarn and went to investigate. He found Gough's skeleton, his hat split in two, and his dog still in attendance. Initial newspaper reports that the dog had survived by eating the remains of her dead master were quickly forgotten. Gough became regarded as a martyr to the romantic ideal, and his dog Foxie was celebrated for her attachment and fidelity to her long-dead master. William Wordsworth and Sir Walter Scott both wrote poems about the scene; Francis Danby and Edwin Landseer both painted it. A memorial stone to Gough was erected on Helvellyn in 1890 and quotes part of Wordsworth's poem "Fidelity". Another fatality on Striding Edge in 1858 is commemorated by the Dixon Memorial. Robert Dixon from Patterdale was killed while following foxhounds on the ridge. William Ford, in his guidebook of 1839 recommended the Horse Head Inn at Wythburn as a good place to stay and where a guide could be hired "at a moderate charge"; he went on to describe the climb up Whelp Side and the view from the top. Harriet Martineau in 1855 described the ascent from Patterdale. Ponies could be taken as far as Red Tarn, where there were stakes to tether them while undertaking the final part on foot via Swirral Edge. "Though trying to unnaccustomed nerves," she said, "there is no real danger"; the other ridge "is always fool-hardy to do", and "every one knows" the story of Charles Gough. She mentioned three routes from the west: one by Grisedale Tarn, one from the Nag's Head at Wythburn, "the shortest, but by far the steepest," and a third from Legburthwaite (that is, from the inn at Thirlspot.) An advertisement in her book, placed by the King's Head Inn at Legburthwaite, claimed "A guide always in readiness at this inn."

Aeroplane landing

thumb|right|Monument on Helvellyn commemorating the first aeroplane landing there

In 1926 a small aeroplane landed on the summit plateau of Helvellyn and took off again. The plane was an Avro 585 Gosport, a two-seater biplane flown by Bert Hinkler, a test pilot who worked for A V Roe, the plane's manufacturers, at Woodford Aerodrome near Manchester. A ground party had cleared and marked a landing strip. Attempts on 15 December and on 21 December were abandoned. On 22 December Hinkler, accompanied by John F. Leeming, president of the Lancashire Aero Club, made another attempt. The landing was no problem. On the steep slope and with a strong headwind the plane stopped quickly. Professor E. R. Dodds witnessed the landing. The uphill take-off was more difficult and the plane dived off the edge of the summit with insufficient airspeed, but picked up speed as it dived, narrowly missing Striding Edge, to return to Manchester.

A stone tablet on Helvellyn, south of the shelter, commemorates this landing.

Due to the north–south orientation of the summit plateau, the gradual western slope, and the prevailing south-westerly winds in the region, the summit of Helvellyn is often subject to extremely strong and consistent wind. This leads to frequent rescues by local Mountain Rescue teams of wild campers who have been unprepared for the resultant cold, often wet, conditions, or due to tents being physically damaged by the wind.

Ecology

thumb|upright|Mountain avens ([[Dryas octopetala) an alpine species which survives on Helvellyn]]

Mountain birds around Helvellyn include the raven (Corvus corax), which has now become common. Peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus), buzzards (Buteo buteo) and ring ouzels (Turdus torquatus) have all bred in the immediate area. Skylarks (Alauda arvensis) and wheatears (Oenanthe oenanthe) are frequently encountered. At one time eagles (probably Aquila chrysaetos) soared over the mountain and bred on the steep cliffs above Red Tarn, but even in Wordsworth's day they had gone, having been persecuted to extinction.

The three coves to the east of Helvellyn are important sites for remnant populations of arctic-alpine plants.

Grassland on the Helvellyn range has been heavily overgrazed for many years, yet it supports a diversity of acid grassland species including sheep's fescue (Festuca ovina) on the summit ridge, matgrass (Nardus stricta) on the middle slopes, and fescue-bent swards on the lower slopes. The Nardus grasslands are the haunt of the scarce mountain ringlet butterfly (Erebia epiphron). Acidic flushes (areas of water seepage) with their carpets of sphagnum mosses are common. Less common are basic flushes, which support a greater diversity of species.

Geology

Solid geology

thumb|Pieces of lapilli tuff from the Helvellyn Tuff Formation, found on Catstye Cam, showing dark-coloured, flattened [[lapilli in the rocks]]

thumb|Finely laminated sandstone of the Deepdale Sandstone Formation, found near the summit of Helvellyn

All the rocks of Helvellyn are part of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, formed on the margin of an ancient continent during a period of intense volcanic activity during the Ordovician period, roughly 450 million years ago. Helvellyn lies within a geological structure which is interpreted as evidence of a volcanic caldera. This is a semi-circular series of faults which sweep eastwards to encompass Helvellyn, Patterdale, Deepdale and Fairfield, and which abut against a major north–south fault to the west (along the line of the A591 road).

This caldera was formed by an eruption of exceptional magnitude which produced a series of pyroclastic flows, fast moving currents of hot gas and rock, which buried the whole district of roughly beneath at least (in places up to of ignimbrite). This succession of ignimbrites is known as the Lincomb Tarns Tuff Formation, the most widespread volcanic formation in the Lake District.

The lowest and oldest rocks on Helvellyn are those of this Lincomb Tarns Tuff Formation, which outcrop along the western side, up to roughly the contour on Whelp Side. The lowest part of the formation here is the densely welded lapilli tuff of the Thirlmere Member, in which the individual pieces of semi-molten lava were flattened under the weight of deposits above them. Contemporaneous movement on the caldera's boundary fault has produced a thick deposit of breccia

Above these ignimbrites are found sedimentary rocks of the Esk Pike Sandstone Formation. These were deposited in water, probably in a caldera lake, as the volcanic rocks weathered and were eroded. Structures in these rocks suggest the faults were still active and the caldera was still subsiding. Layers of tuff and lapilli tuff indicate some ongoing volcanism.

Helvellyn Mine or Wythburn Mine opened in 1839 by the gill between Whelpside and Helvellyn Screes. but several spoil heaps remain, one covering the gill, along with the old miners' path which zigzags up the hillside, a self-acting incline to lower ore to the dressing floor, and the old winding-drum house. Various attempts to interpret the name have been made in the past. Some, led by the present spelling, possibly wrongly thought the final syllable was the Welsh word llyn, "lake" Richard Coates in 1988 proposed a Celtic derivation from the deduced Cumbric word hal, "moorland", and velin, the Cumbric equivalent of the Welsh word melyn meaning "yellow." Colour, in the Celtic languages, is perceived differently from the way it is seen and described in modern English. For example, in Scottish Gaelic the spectrum of colours was "pastel rather than primary, gentle rather than bold." Colours were related to a landscape context in which blues, greens, greys and whites in particular were both more diverse and more differentiated than in English. People who relied on the system of transhumance for their livelihood gained the ability to assess the nutritional value of upland grasses from a distance before moving their stock to a summer shieling, and used appropriate colour terms for grasses which would become progressively more green as the spring advanced. Yellow, at least in Gaelic hill names, is not a bright colour. It describes hills which are distinguished by grasses such as Nardus stricta and Deschampsia flexuosa, both of which appear pale and bleached in winter.

Lower Man. The mountain has two tops, which used to be distinguished as Helvellyn Low Man (or Lower Man) and Helvellyn High Man (or Higher Man). Both are drawn and labelled on a panoramic view of the range found in Jonathan Otley's guidebook of 1823.