Dave Hewitt: Looks reasonable to start at the road junction to the north - under 100m ascent and along limestone pavements. Not so easy - plenty of limestone about but very bitty and completely clogged with shrubbery. Hardly any proper trees but lots of tiny ravines such that almost every direction felt like going across the grain of the land. Undergrowth was very tricky, plus several quite good paths all eventually disappeared into it very abruptly. We had started by heading along the Limestone Link path SE, and eventually found ourselves on the high ground SW of the 262m spot height - only a few metres lower than the summit but with the worst looking ravine this side of Borneo between us and the top. Gave it a halfhearted go but time was running out and we eventually had to cut back down. Even getting off wasn't easy - underfoot tended to be either slippery limestone or dense brambles/bracken - in the end followed a poor path down to Hutton Roof itself and walked back round by the road. At least we only got one drenching. Not even sure that the main top would be easy to locate - the Landranger still shows a trig but it has gone from the OL. Strange place - makes Torr Achilty look trivial. Next time I think I'll start from the south such that the main top is the first one reached. That whole plateau area where the name Hutton Roof Crags is on OS97 is as near as anything gets to being unwalkable. You'd never guess from the map that HRC is so difficult from this side.
David Purchase: I made the mistake of setting out for this hill from the north, in mist. This was not a good idea, as the terrain made any attempt to follow a bearing quite impossible. Keep this for a clear day, and keep as close as you can to the wall that passes west of the summit.
Peter Wilson: January 6th dawned overcast and wet in Grasmere so we headed south to the M6 and Hutton Roof village. Good path initially, then much scrub and limestone pavement caused a circuitous route to the trig column. But what a viewpoint. With the cloud easing from the Lakeland fells and the low lighting it seemed as if all the detail of Dow Crag's gullies and buttresses was visible. Within ten minutes of summit arrival, all the southern Lakes fells had cleared - Conistons, Langdales, Fairfield, Kentmere. We could even see the upper few hundred feet of Helm Crag above Grasmere. Then the Howgills cleared. Other Yorkshire and Bowland fells were reluctant to clear but the lower limestone hills around Morecambe Bay were all revealed and fortunately the M6 was hidden from sight. A really magnificent viewpoint.
