Raven Crag

Post published:12th July 2026
Reading time:4 mins read
Post category:2026 / Cumbria / Lake District 2026 / Wainwrights

Raven Crag

Sunday began slowly. After a long, warm, and slightly draining Saturday, I let the morning unfold at its own pace. Keswick was hotter than I ever remember and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself at first, but eventually settled on a quick and easy Wainwright: Raven Crag.

Raven Crag is one of the smaller Wainwrights, sitting above the western shore of Thirlmere at 461 metres. It’s a compact, steep little fell rather than a sprawling mountain, rising sharply from the forested slopes below. The ascent is short but punchy, climbing quickly through woodland before emerging onto a rocky summit platform. Despite its modest height, the views are surprisingly dramatic: Thirlmere stretches out below like a long, dark ribbon, and the skyline is framed by the bigger neighbours — Helvellyn, High Rigg, and the central ridge. It’s one of those fells where the effort‑to‑reward ratio is unusually favourable.

I parked on the A591 and walked across the Thirlmere Dam. I could have driven closer, but that would have involved my least favourite part of the Lakes: a long single‑track road. So I stayed out on the main road, adding about 600 metres at each end of the walk. Thirlmere looked quite empty — unsurprising, given the recent dry spell.

Up We Go!

The climb up Raven Crag is short but steep. It really is quite steep. On the way up I met a bunch of people coming down. One of those was a Dutch gentleman who was walking (that day) from the Youth Hostel in Borrowdale to the one at Helvellyn. That meant he’d already climbed over two mountains to get here and still had to walk a couple of miles along Thirlmere and then climb up and over Helvellyn ( or one of the other mountains in that range ).

At the top of Raven Crag there was a geocache. It took ages to find because I needed a hint photo but didn’t have enough phone signal to load it. Once I finally coaxed the photo onto my phone, it still took a couple of minutes to locate the right spot. A proverbial “behind a bit of moss on a mossy tree stump” job. The area was essentially a sea of mossy stumps amongst mossy rocks. Could have been anywhere. Fortunately I managed to stand myself in an appropriate position to say “err, maybe” once I’d got the spoiler photo up.

What goes up must come down

For the descent, I opted for the “long” way round via the forest road. It added maybe 3–4 km to the walk but avoided the steep downslope and conveniently led me to another geocache. In total I walked 8.5 km and spent about three hours out. I carried loads of drinks but no food ( deliberately ). Because I hadn’t left Keswick until around midday, it was getting on for 4pm when I returned.

Keswick Caching Event

For dinner, I wandered over to Bar eS to make a reservation. But first I had a caching event to host. I’d set it up just across a different road at the War Memorial. One cacher had promised to attend, and she was already there when I arrived. We sat and chatted for most of an hour. She also does a bit of hill walking and runs parkruns, so there was plenty of fertile ground for conversation.

About half an hour in, a teenage girl who’d been hovering earlier reappeared and asked if we were the caching event. So that made two attendees, although she didn’t stay any longer than needed to sign the postcard I’d brought as a log.

By the time we’d finished discussing caching, hills, and parkruns, it was pretty much time for dinner. I dropped my bag off at home and walked over to the tapas bar.