Castle Crag

Castle Crag is a hill in the North Western Fells of the English Lake District. It is the smallest hill included in Alfred Wainwright's influential Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells, the only Wainwright below.Wainwright accorded Castle Crag the status of a separate fell because it "is so magnificently independent, so ruggedly individual, so aggressively unashamed of its lack of inches, that less than justice would be done by relegating it to a paragraph in the High Spy chapter." Subsequent guidebooks have not always agreed: Castle Crag is one of only two Wainwrights not included in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells.TopographyThe fell has an impressive appearance, a rugged height apparently blocking the valley of Borrowdale, which is squeezed between Castle Crag and Grange Fell, its neighbour on the other side. This narrow gorge known as the 'Jaws of Borrowdale', and is prominent in views from Keswick and Derwentwater.High Spy, the parent fell, forms part of the north-south ridge between Borrowdale and the Newlands Valley. The rough spur of Low Scawdel (1,709 ft) runs out due east from the summit, breaking steeply over Goat Crag and then falling to Broadslack Gill. This small tributary of the River Derwent separates High Spy from Castle Crag.