Saturday 1 July 2000

Seat Sandal

A wintry Seat Sandal
Height: 736m (2,417ft)
Prominence: 151m (498ft)
Region: Eastern Fells
Classifications: Nuttall, Hewitt, Wainwright, Marilyn, Birkett
Summit feature: Cairn
Times climbed: 1
Related trip report: 
A cairn marks the summit
What Wainwright said:

"Prominent in the Grasmere landscape is the soft outline of Seat Sandal, soaring gracefully from Dunmail Raise to the flat-topped summit and suddenly falling away in a steep plunge eastwards. This view reveals its character well: smooth curves of grass and bracken, and rough slopes of shattered cliff and tumbled rock".

Seat Sandal tends to be overshadowed by its more illustrious neighbours in the Eastern Fells. The hill's unusual name comes from the Norse language, meaning “Sandulf’s Hill Pasture”, Sandulf being a Nordic personal name.

Seat Sandal is distinctive in that its drainage reaches the sea at more widely spread points than any other Lakeland Fell, with Raise Beck going through Thirlmere and Derwent Water to reach the Irish Sea at Workington, Tongue Beck going through the lakes of Grasmere and Windermere to reach Morecambe Bay and Grisedale Beck draining into Ullswater and then to the sea at the Solway Firth. However, this is only true as a result of the diversion of Raise Beck north to feed Thirlmere Reservoir.

The view from the top is limited by the nearby Helvellyn and Fairfield ranges although there is a good view of Lakeland to the west, the Solway Firth and Criffel are viewed on a good day as is Morecambe Bay to the south.

Return to Lake District – Eastern Fells

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