Great End summit

[rsk]

Which is the true summit on Great End? OS and Wainright say it's the southeast one, Harveys have it as the northwest one. While supporting a recent round I was told that BG convention is to go for the NW one. Is it ultimatley up to the runner to choose?

[Hank]

I've always taken it as being the NW, whether it's 'true' or not I don't really know.

In the spirit of the round I think if you've made the effort to get up there and tagged whichever you believe to be right then that should be sufficient for anyone's criteria.

This reminds me of an idea I had once to make a round or traverse of Lakeland fells where there's some doubt as to which is the true top. It'd finish with Melbreak and then a pint in the Kirkstile Inn. The Wainwrongs.

[ydt]

Do the SE one in the BG round and the NW one in the Joss Naylor challenge!

[Bob]

I once spent a while on the summit with a GPS - I couldn't determine which was higher though that might have been due to the accuracy (or lack of) of the unit I was using.

I had similar problems on Nethermost Pike, all three of the largest cairns were the same height.

Just choose whichever you want.

[andy k]

I went for the SE based on deciding that it looked higher from Scafell Pike.
But with this and with Nethermost and even Fairfield I don't think it matters if you touch one rock or another.
Get up there and once you think you have got as high as you can then move on, don't waste time swithering, don't save time by cutting short - just be honest with yourself.

[Eddie D]

If you do both, or rather, tell your pacers to run you over both, you can forget it forevermore. If you're in time trouble, SE 'summit'.

[Stolly]

I've always done the furthest away one on Great End as, if in doubt, the furthest/most inconvenient seems best. As for Nevermost Pike, the route clockwise pretty much takes you past all of the cairns anyway. And I always visit the biggest cairn/windshelter on Fairfield but the two main cairns there are within spitting distance of each other anyway.

That said I still remember four us searching for the top on Fairfield after dark in god awful weather on my very first attempt and very first anti-clockwise failure. The fog was horrendously thick with maybe a 10 ft field of vision at the very best. It took us 10 minutes of looking to find one of the cairns and I suspect that at any stage one of us was within 15 feet the buggers!

[Bob]

The other one that's <ahem>interesting</ahem> is Brandreth - three potential tops, two of which look higher from any of the others

[Martyn P]

The other one that's <ahem>interesting</ahem> is Brandreth - three potential tops, two of which look higher from any of the others

I was up on Brandreth the other day and stopped for a while on what OS mapping say is the summit and the one that I've understood to be so .... but you're right, look over to the East and somebody has built a cairn on ground that *appears* to be higher. I should have gone over and checked, as I did have a barometric altimeter with me.

Oh, and I agree with Hank