Helvellyn

Helvellyn from Red Tarn

The Helvellyn is with 950 m height, the third highest peak in both the Lake District and elsewhere in England. He belongs to the 214 Wainwright called Bergen ( fur ).

Geology

The rock of Helvellyn and the adjacent areas is part of pyroclastic rocks in conjunction with tuff breccia and lapilli. In the deeper layers can be found dacite.

Topography

The Helvellyn is the highest point of a HEVELLYN Range called Mountain train that runs in a north -south direction between Lake Ullswater in the east and Thirlmere in the west and to the north with the mountain Helvellyn Lower Man, White Side, Raise, Stybarrow Dodd, Great Dodd and Clough Head, and south with nethermost Pike and Dolly Waggon Pike continues.

However, the summit of Helvellyn forms an approximately 500 -meter-long, relatively flat ground back, which slopes down to the west side in grassy slopes, to the east very steep and rocky. The highest point is marked by a stone pillar ( Cairn ), north of it is a little deeper in 949 m height, a measurement column of the Ordnance Survey.

Two well-defined ridges running from Helvellyn to the east, south and Striding Edge Edge Swirral north. Connect with the Ostabfall of Helvellyn a one valley, where the small mountain lake Red Tarn lies. Striding Edge offers one of the best known and most airy mountain tours in the Lake District, which can be done even without technical backup. Swirral Edge connects the Helvellyn with the conical Catstye Cam.

Red Tarn is about 25 meters deep and got its name because of the surrounding red gravel. One finds in it brown trout and coregonids. In the mid-19th century, its capacity was increased with a dam of rocks, so as to form a water reservoir for the Greenside lead mine in the valley of Glenridding.

In Brown Cove Tarn there was a second, which was also dammed by a dam built in 1860 to serve as Wasserrevoir for the lead mine. The dam is leaking and the Tarn today, however, is gone. On the northern slope of the Catstye cam you can still find remains of the aqueduct, which led to the lead mine.

The water from Red Tarn and Brown Cove flows over Glenridding Beck, who produced on the north side of Helvellyn, in the Lake Ullswater.

Striding Edge

Striding Edge is the connection between Helvellyn and Birkhouse Moor and Fell walkers generally is one among the best known scrambling in the Lake District. As a " scrambling " is generally referred to climbing in the lowest difficulty. From the general coat walking to scrambling differs only in that occasionally the hands must be taken to help. Major technical difficulties are not included. A security cable is not performed in most cases, but may, under certain conditions (snow, ice) make sense.

The route starts at the Hole-in -the-Wall, a prominent location that is most walkers fur a term. This is simply a breakthrough in a dry stone wall, which is already clearly visible from a distance and serves as a landmark for the ascent to Helvellyn from the Grisedale.

The ridge leads to a length of approximately two kilometers to the summit of Helvellyn. After a wider passage with a well defined path he is above nethermost Cove at the highest point at High Spying How noticeably narrower and runs for the most part no apparent path over a ridge that slopes steeply on both sides. At the end of the ridge this is true after a short steep section, which can be easily climbs into a fireplace, on the steep eastern flank of Helvellyn, which is also relatively easily achieved. In winter often forms at the edge of the summit plateau after heavy snowfall a cornice, which represents the biggest obstacle to a climb.

History

The counting of the Lakeland poet William Wordsworth wandered regularly to the summit. The painter Benjamin Robert Haydon it created the portrait of William Wordsworth on Helvellyn. The poem Fidelity wrote Wordsworth after the death of Charles Gough of Kendal, who during a walk on the icy rocks of Striding Edge fell to his death in 1805 and whose body was three months guarded by his dog Foxie. Even Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1813 regardless of a Wordsworth poem called Helvellyn about this incident and the painter Edwin Landseer was inspired to 1829 resulting image attachment.

Canon Hardwick Rawnsley, founder of the National Trust was set up in 1891 on the summit of Helvellyn a plaque commemorating this incident.

John Leeming and Bert Hinkler landed and launched successfully in 1926 with an airplane on the summit plateau. Also thereto remembers a badge

Another memorial stone erected in 1858, the Dixon Memorial High Spying How below, reminiscent of Robert Dixon, from Rooking in Patterdale, at the November 27, 1856 crashed at this point in a fox hunt to death.

On the west side there are numerous testimonials from mining activity. The Helvellyn (or Wythburn ) Mine was in operation from 1839 to 1890, but was abandoned in the enlargement of the Thirlmere reservoir, since the operation was not a particularly great commercial success.

The Helvellyn is one next to the Scafell Pike, Great Gable and the Old Man of Coniston the most famous and most climbed mountain in England own. Besides the possibility to reach the summit by mountain bike, there are every year a triathlon, the run course of Patterdale to the summit and back leads.