St Sunday Crag
There is limited parking by Patterdale church (weekdays) alternatively there is parking near the Patterdale Hotel.
The best way to do this circular walk is to approach via the Grisedale valley. On the way we pass the holiday cottages at Elm Howe, these used to be working farms at one time. Way up in the valley is the Ruthwaite Lodge once a shelter for ponies and passengers on their way to Helvellyn from Patterdale. The lodge is now looked after and used by the Outward Bound, for overnighting with small groups. There is a plaque by the door of the lodge to the memory of two tutors from the Outward Bound who were killed on Mount Cook New Zealand in 1988
Shortly after leaving the lodge we pass the Brothers Parting Stone, this can be seen down to the left just before the tarn. It is here that Wordsworth and his brother were last together as from here John Wordsworth left to take command of the ship Abergavenny which sank off Portland Bill in 1805 with the loss of all hands. Grisedale tarn is close by, it is the legendary resting place of the crown of the kingdom of Cumbria, after the crown was conveyed there in 945 by soldiers of the last king, Dunmail after he was slain in battle with the combined forces of the English and Scottish kings
The poet J.W.Faber wrote:
In yon pale hollow would I dwell
Where waveless Grisedale meekly lies
And the three clefts of grassy fell
Let in the blueness of the skies
And lowland sounds come travelling up
To echo in that mountain cup
Then it’s up and up to the summit on a faint contouring path across the face of Cofa pike.