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Birks is a fell in the English Lake District situated
two kilometres south west of the village of Patterdale in the Eastern
Fells. The fell summit sits on a shoulder of the north east ridge of the
higher and better known fell of St Sunday Crag, by which it is
dominated.
Walkers often pass over the top of Birks either
climbing or descending from the larger fell and the fells name means a
place where Birch trees predominate.
Birks reaches a height of
622 metres (2041 feet) and is characterised by a grassy summit ridge
which has precipitous craggy slopes to the north and west which fall
away to the valley of Grisedale.
Its southern flank is steep and
grassy and ends in the valley of Deepdale and to the north east the main
ridge descends towards Patterdale over Black Crag and through Glemara
Park.
Birks is regarded by guide book writers as an unspectacular
fell. It has 19 metres of prominence from St Sunday Crag and therefore
qualifies as a Nuttall, while Alfred Wainwright gives the fell a
separate chapter in his Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells because
"it is sufficiently well defined to deserve a separate name".
The
fell is always climbed from the Patterdale valley with no other starting
point being viable.
The ascent is a pleasant walk through the
wooded Glemara Park along a footpath which leaves Patterdale and follows
Hag Beck and then a ruined dry stone wall to the summit.
An
alternative route goes via Thornhow End and finds a way through Black
Crags at attain the top of the fell.
Most walkers who climb Birks
will continue on to St Sunday Crag which is a comfortable climb of about
240 metres with a few small dips on the ridge.
The highlight of
the view from the summit is a good view of the lower reach of Ullswater.
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