Stybarrow Dodd (the hill of the steep path) is a mountain or fell in the English Lake District. It stands immediately north of Sticks Pass on the main ridge of the Helvellyn range in the Eastern Fells, which is situated between the lakes of Thirlmere and the Ullswater.
The summit of Stybarrow Dodd is a smooth, rounded, grassy dome, like those of its two northern neighbours, Watson's Dodd and Great Dodd. Together, these three rather similar fells are sometimes called ‘The Three Dodds’. All three are covered by the same sheet of volcanic rock.
Topography
The summit of Stybarrow Dodd stands on the main ridge of the Helvellyn range, immediately north of Sticks Pass. This ridge runs north–south for about without dropping below . Stybarrow Dodd occupies just over of this length, from Sticks Pass to the col which connects it to Watson's Dodd and Great Dodd. At this point the ridge is the watershed between the Eden river system to the east and the Derwent river system to the west. The fell rises to , standing nearly above Sticks Pass and above the col to the north. From its smooth, rounded, grassy summit, four shoulders or ridges extend in different directions.
To the west a generally grassy shoulder runs for about down into the valley of the How Beck and to the A591 road. This shoulder is sharply defined by the valleys of Stanah Gill to its north and Sticks Gill (West) and Fisherplace Gill to its south. It slopes gently at first to around the 450 m contour and then more steeply into the valley over a number of rocky crags. The bridleway to Sticks Pass rises over this shoulder. This ridge is drained by two gills just mentioned, which are now captured by a water leat and diverted into Thirlmere Reservoir.
! Name
! Grid Reference
! Height
! Prominence
! Classification
(height and prominence)
! Classification
(authors’ listings)
|-
!Stybarrow Dodd||||843 m||68 m||Hewitt||Wainwright
|-
!Green Side||||795 m||30 m||Hewitt||Birkett
|-
!Hart Side||||756 m||23 m||Nuttall||Wainwright
|-
!Birkett Fell||||725 m||2 m|| ||Birkett
|-
!Swineside Knott||||553 m||15 m|| ||Birkett
|-
!Brown Hills||||551 m||11 m|| ||Birkett
|-
!Common Fell||||552 m||18 m|| ||Birkett
|-
!Round How||||387 m||26 m|| ||Birkett
|-
!Bracken How||||373 m||21 m|| ||Birkett
|-
!Sheffield Pike||||675 m||91 m||Hewitt||Wainwright
|-
!Glenridding Dodd||||442 m||45 m|| ||Wainwright
|-
|}
Sticks Pass
Sticks Pass, to the south of Stybarrow Dodd, crosses the Helvellyn ridge at a height of about , the highest pass in the Lake District crossed by a bridleway. Now used only by fellwalkers, it once provided a regular connection between the communities on either side of the Helvellyn range. The becks flowing to either side of the pass are both named Sticks Gill on Ordnance Survey maps.
The route to the pass starts from Stanah in the west and rises over the west ridge of Stybarrow Dodd. It remains to the north of both Sticks Gills, so that most of its length is carried by Stybarrow Dodd. In 1928 the route was still marked by a number of sticks, from which it was supposed that the pass had been named. By the 1950s these sticks had vanished.
Wainwright saw a ‘very loose estate-boundary iron post’,
From the west there is access to the fell from Stanah on the bridleway to Sticks Pass. From the east, ascents can be made from Glenridding, via Greenside Road and the Sticks Pass bridleway, or via the Sheffield Pike and Green Side ridge. From the north-east ascents can begin from Dockray or High Row, either along the Hart Side ridge or through the rather wet valley of Deepdale.
Geology
thumb|A piece of welded ignimbrite of the Thirlmere Tuff Member, showing flattened lapilli - found on the path between Great Dodd and Stybarrow Dodd
The rocks of Stybarrow Dodd are all part of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group (BVG), formed on the margin of an ancient continent during a period of intense volcanic activity, roughly 450 million years ago in the Ordovician Period.
Within that group, the bulk of the rocks forming the fell and its ridges belong to the Birker Fell Andesite Formation. These rocks are among the earliest of the volcanic rocks of the BVG, and are part of a thick succession of andesite sheets which now outcrop in a wide band around the western and northern sides of the Lake District.
These sheets were formed by successive eruptions of mobile andesitic lava from shallow-sided volcanoes. The composition of the erupting magma varied from time to time, with basaltic andesite occurring in a number of places. Individual lava flows may be separated by beds of volcaniclastic sandstone, sedimentary deposits formed from the erosion of the volcanic rocks.
Dod or dodd is a dialect word of unknown origin, but common in hill names in the Lake District and the Scottish Borders for bare rounded summits, either free standing or subsidiary shoulders to higher neighbours.
Image gallery
<gallery widths="190px" heights="180px" >
Image:Stybarrow Dodd summit ridge.JPG|Looking along the summit ridge, from the cairn on the south top. The north top is on the skyline
Image:Stybarrow Dodd summit wall.JPG|Broken-down wall on the summit of Stybarrow Dodd
Image:Summit Cairn, Stybarrow Dodd - geograph.org.uk - 649223.jpg|Cairn on the north top of Stybarrow Dodd incorporating the slate marker. Beyond is the intermittent pool, and the remains of the wall
Image:Stybarrow Dodd from Gt D.JPG|Stybarrow Dodd, seen from Great Dodd, with Green Side to the left
</gallery>