Bowfell

Bowfell is a pyramid-shaped mountain in the Southern Fells of the English Lake District. It sits at the centre of a horseshoe of high ground that includes Scafell and Scafell Pike. The fell marks the boundary between three well-known valleys: Great Langdale, Borrowdale and Eskdale. From each valley it rises as a steep cone above a broad summit plateau. Ore Gap lies to its north-west, a col marked by reddish soil rich in haematite. Bowfell is the eighth-highest mountain in the Lake District and appears in Alfred Wainwright’s list of the best half dozen fells. Walkers value its clear paths and wide views, while climbers are drawn to its crags such as Flat Crag and Bowfell Buttress. The summit ridge runs north–south, ending in a pointed pyramid that reveals the Helvellyn range and the Langdale Pikes. Wainwright wrote that no water tastes better than the spring beneath the Great Slab. A narrow high-level route called the Climber’s Traverse winds beneath Bowfell’s eastern crags. It meets the summit via the River of Boulders, a jumble of rocks beside the Great Slab. The Band, a subsidiary ridge, divides Oxendale from Mickleden and leads down to Stool End Farm. Angle Tarn lies below the northern crags, its 15-metre depths hiding small trout. From the summit plateau the ground falls steeply to Three Tarns, a col named for its scattered pools after rain.