High Pike is a fell

Fell

“Fell” is a word used to refer to mountains, or certain types of mountainous landscape, in Scandinavia, the Isle of Man, and parts of northern England.- Etymology :...

 in the northern part

Northern Fells

The Northern Fells are a group of hills in the English Lake District. Including Skiddaw, they occupy a wide area to the north of Keswick. Smooth sweeping slopes predominate with a minimum of tarns or crags...

 of the English Lake District

Lake District

The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...

, it is located 4.5 kilometres south of Caldbeck

Caldbeck

Caldbeck is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Allerdale, Cumbria, England. Historically within Cumberland, the village had 714 inhabitants according to the census of 2001. It lies on the northern edge of the Lake District. The nearest town is Wigton, 6 miles north east of the village...

. It has a height of 658 metres (2159 feet) and is the most northerly of the Lakeland fells over 2000 feet. It is a large fell with its northern slopes falling away towards the lower ground between Caldbeck and Carlisle. Like the neighbouring Carrock Fell

Carrock Fell

Carrock Fell is a fell in the English Lake District, situated in the northern region of the national park 13 kilometres north east of Keswick. The fell's name means "Rocky Fell" and comes from a combination of the Old Welsh language with the word "carrec" meaning rock and the Old Norse language...

 it has been extensively mined and the wealth created by the abundant variety of mineral

Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...

s on High Pike led to the saying "Caldbeck fells are worth all England else". This fell should not be confused with another Lake District High Pike

High Pike (Scandale)

High Pike is a fell in the English Lake District, located five kilometres north of Ambleside. Situated in the Eastern Fells, it can be confused with another Lake District High Pike in the Northern Fells. High Pike reaches a height of...

 situated in Scandale near Ambleside.

Summit

High Pike’s summit is of some interest, it is used as a beacon

Beacon

A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location.Beacons can also be combined with semaphoric or other indicators to provide important information, such as the status of an airport, by the colour and rotational pattern of its airport beacon, or of...

 by the population of Caldbeck and a fire is lit to celebrate important events such as the Millennium

Millennium

A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....

 and coronation

Coronation

A coronation is a ceremony marking the formal investiture of a monarch and/or their consort with regal power, usually involving the placement of a crown upon their head and the presentation of other items of regalia...

s. The summit also has a massive cairn

Cairn

Cairn is a term used mainly in the English-speaking world for a man-made pile of stones. It comes from the or . Cairns are found all over the world in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, and also in barren desert and tundra areas...

 which was originally a shepherds cottage and has become a ruin. There is a trig point

Trig point

A triangulation station, also known as a triangulation pillar, trigonometrical station, trigonometrical point, trig station, trig beacon or trig point, and sometimes informally as a trig, is a fixed surveying station, used in geodetic surveying and other surveying projects in its vicinity...

 which has been mounted with a plaque which says “To Celebrate Caldbeck Parish’s Millennium Celebrations”, there is also a substantial wind shelter nearby which has also been built from the stones from the ruined cottage. However, the most unusual of High Pike’s summit fixtures is a slate

Slate

Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. The result is a foliated rock in which the foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering...

 bench which bears the inscription “In memory of Mick Lewis who loved all these fells”, he died in 1944 aged 16 and a small add-on is in memory of his mother who died in 1970. Famous mountaineer Chris Bonington

Chris Bonington

Sir Christian John Storey Bonington, CVO, CBE, DL is a British mountaineer.His career has included nineteen expeditions to the Himalayas, including four to Mount Everest and the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna.-Early life and expeditions:Educated at University College School in...

 lives in nearby Caldbeck and is he is often to be seen walking his dog on High Pike, he told a local newspaper in May 2005

“This (High Pike) is a hill I feel truly at home on, It has always been one I can return to after climbing some serious peak in the Himalaya or Alps and return to earth. It has the most wonderful changing moods. The light is ever-shifting across the fell making a kaleidoscope of colours, and its wildlife is fascinating.”

Mining

The mines of High Pike, which all lie on its northern slopes, have yielded numerous minerals since the 16th century, in fact, the most famous, Roughtongill is reputed to have yielded 23 different ores. Copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...

 was extracted at the Sandbeds mine while lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 and copper was mined at Driggeth mine. Latter some of the mines were reopened during the second world war for the extraction of barytes

Barium sulfate

Barium sulfate is the inorganic compound with the chemical formula BaSO4. It is a white crystalline solid that is odorless and insoluble in water. It occurs as the mineral barite, which is the main commercial source of barium and materials prepared from it...

 which was needed for the production of munitions, the last mine closed in 1966.

Ascents

A direct ascent of High Pike is usually done from the north, starting around the Caldbeck area, however the fell is often climbed in conjunction with the nearby fells of Carrock Fell, Knott

Knott

Knott is a mountain in the northern part of the English Lake District. It is the highest point of the Back o'Skiddaw region, an area of wild and unfrequented moorland to the north of Skiddaw and Blencathra. Other tops in this region include High Pike, Carrock Fell and Great Calva. The fell's slopes...

 and Great Calva making a circular walk that starts and finishes near Mosedale to the south of Carrock Fell.

View and Summits

High Pike’s position on the northern perimeter of the Lake District gives a fine view of the Solway Firth

Solway Firth

The Solway Firth is a firth that forms part of the border between England and Scotland, between Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway. It stretches from St Bees Head, just south of Whitehaven in Cumbria, to the Mull of Galloway, on the western end of Dumfries and Galloway. The Isle of Man is also very...

 and the Scottish Border

Scottish Borders

The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...

 hills to the north. However the view south is severely curtailed by the bulks of Skiddaw

Skiddaw

Skiddaw is a mountain in the Lake District National Park in England. With a summit at 931 m above sea level it is the fourth highest mountain in England. It lies just north of the town of Keswick, Cumbria, and dominates the skyline in this part of the northern lakes...

 and Blencathra

Blencathra

Blencathra, also known as Saddleback, is one of the most northerly mountains in the English Lake District. It has six separate fell tops, of which the highest is the Hallsfell Top.-Name:...

 and the main body of Lakeland is not seen well. High Pike has two subsidiary tops which are also classed as Nuttall fells, Hare Stones (627 metres) and Great Lingy Hill (616 metres) lie to the south west of the main summit at a distance of 600 metres and one kilometre respectively.