Steel Fell is a fell in the English

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

, lying between Thirlmere and Grasmere. It is triangular in plan, the ridges running north, west and south east. Steel Fell rises to the west of the Dunmail Pass road and can be climbed from the summit, or from Grasmere and Wythburn.

Topography

Steel Fell stands away from the main spine of the

Central Fells The Central Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Reaching their highest point at High Raise (2,500 ft or 762 metres), they occupy a broad area to the east of Borrowdale. The Central Fells are generally lower than the ...

, forming the end of one of the many east ridges of High Raise. Intermediate between the two are Codale Head and

Calf Crag Calf Crag is a fell in the English Lake District, on the eastern side of the High Raise massif. Topography The spine of the Central Fells runs on a north–south axis with the high point at High Raise. A complex system of daleheads to the east ...

. Steel Fell is bordered by Wythburndale to the north and the valley of Green Burn to the south-west. The eastern face looks down on Dunmail Raise. Being triangular in plan, Steel Fell has three principal ridges. The northern ridge drops quickly to the head of Thirlmere at Steel End, while that to the south-east falls gradually toward Grasmere village, beginning down Cotra Breast. The eastern ridge connects to

, the next fell in the popular circuit of the Greenburn valley, crossing a narrow depression with a scattering of small tarns. The southern face of Steel Fell falls over Blakerigg Crag to Greenburn, a feeder of the lake of Grasmere. Wythburndale marks the north western boundary of the fell, flowing to Thirlmere. The eastern face drops over Ash Crags to the pass of Dunmail Raise. Two streams, both named Raise Beck, flow north and south down the pass, following the main Keswick–

Ambleside Ambleside is a town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Lakes, Cumbria, Lakes, in Cumbria, in North West England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Westmorland, it marks the head (and sits on the east side of the northern ...

road. Steel Fell thus sits on the Lake District’s main north–south watershed. Water from the southern slopes reaches the sea at Morecambe Bay while rain falling a few yards to the north reaches the sea via the River Derwent at

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast in the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England. The town was historically in Cumberland. At the 2011 census it had a population of 25,207. Loca ...

Geology

The geology of Steel Fell is complex. The summit and Ash Crags exhibit the welded rhyo dacitic

lapilli Lapilli is a size classification of tephra, which is material that falls out of the air during a volcanic eruption or during some meteorite impacts. ''Lapilli'' (singular: ''lapillus'') is Latin for "little stones". By definition lapilli range f ...

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

and

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...

of the Thirlmere Member. The remainder of the fell is characteristic of the Lincomb Tarns Formation of dacitic lapilli tuff with andesite sills. A large sill is evident near the surface above Wythburndale.

British Geological Survey The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a partly publicly funded body which aims to advance geoscientific knowledge of the United Kingdom landmass and its continental shelf by means of systematic surveying, monitoring and research. The BGS h ...

: 1:50,000 series maps, ''England & Wales Sheet 29'': BGS (1999)

Summit

Above the steep faces the triangular plateau, half a mile across, is dotted with small tarns. The summit bears the name Dead Pike and carries a large

cairn A cairn is a man-made pile (or stack) of stones raised for a purpose, usually as a marker or as a burial mound. The word ''cairn'' comes from the gd, càrn (plural ). Cairns have been and are used for a broad variety of purposes. In prehis ...

of reddish stone. The best of the view is to the north, Blencathra appearing above Thirlmere. South-west there is a fine mountain panorama stretching as far as the

Coniston Fells Coniston may refer to: Australia *Coniston (Northern Territory), a cattle station **Coniston massacre, 1928 *Coniston, New South Wales ** Coniston railway station, New South Wales * Coniston, Tasmania, a town in the Derwent Valley United Kingdo ...

.Mark Richards: ''The Central Fells'': Collins (2003):

Ascents

The fell is most commonly climbed via the south east ridge, beginning at Gill Foot where the lane from Grasmere crosses Green Burn. From Steel End at the head of Thirlmere a way can be found onto the north ridge, or a longer route taken up the Wythburn valley to surmount the ridge to Calf Crag. Direct ascents up the eastern face from the summit of Dunmail Raise are also possible.

References

{{Central Fells Fells of the Lake District