Height: 2040 feet above sea level.
Volume: Book 1 (The Eastern Fells)
Date climbed: First visit: 19th August 2010 (walk 23). Second visit: 19th April 2019 (walk 161).
Bagged as number: First round: 76 out of 330. [ << St Sunday Crag (75) (77) Arnison Crag >> ].
Second round: 194 of 330. [ << Catbells (193) (195) St. Sunday Crag >> ]
Route of ascent and descent: First visit: Approached down the ridge from St Sunday Crag. Descended to Trough Head and on to Arnison Crag.
Second visit: Came up from Patterdale via the Thornhow End path. Went on to St. Sunday Crag.
What Mr Wainwright says (from page 1 of his chapter): “The northeast shoulder of St Sunday Crag falls sharply to a depression beyond which a grassy undulating spur, featureless and wide, continues with little change in elevation towards Ullswater before finally plunging down to the valley through the enclosure of Glenamara Park. Although this spur lacks a distinctive summit it is sufficiently well-defined to deserve a separate name; but, being an unromantic and uninteresting fell, it has earned for itself nothing better than the prosaic and unassuming title of Birks. It is rarely visited as the sole objective of an expedition, but walkers descending the ridge from St Sunday Crag often take it in their stride.”
What I say: Birks is, indeed, “unromantic and uninteresting”, at least when compared to the much better things all around it. It does provide good views of all these other sights, however: this picture of Nethermost Pike from near the summit remains one of my favourites.
Otherwise there is not a great deal to say about it except to speculate on just how it ended up with its curious name. I mean, you can’t imagine, say, the Italians calling a mountain ‘Birks’, can you? It sounds like a belch.
The 214 Wainwright fells: without a car 