Long Crag, Greenup Edge, Coast to Coast
More Articles in the Rosthwaite to Grasmere subsection
Long Crag appearing over the top of a Drumlin traversed by the Coast to Coast path en route to Lining Crag.
Long Crag, Greenup Edge, Coast to Coast
Long Crag is a rugged outcrop forming much of the upper wall of the Greenup basin, lying around the 600–620 m contour on the northern side of High Raise. It stands at the lip of the basin below Low White Stones, a companion outcrop north of the summit plateau.
High Raise itself crowns Greenup Edge — a broad mountain crest rather than a distinct peak — marked by a cairn and a scatter of stones thought to be the remains of an old wind shelter. The Coast to Coast path, climbing up from the Stonethwaite Valley, curves around Lining Crag before crossing Greenup Edge and skirting just below Long Crag. From Lining Crag, however, Long Crag dominates the head of the Greenup basin, its rock face overlooking the birth of the Black Gills.
Long Crag Greenup Edge
Long Crag forms part of the High Raise massif, sitting about 90 metres below Low White Stones and overlooking the Greenup Basin. Few walkers visit it, as it lies off the main route, poised above the nascent Black Gills. The basin beneath it almost became a true corrie during the Ice Age; had the glacier deepened its hollow, Long Crag would now stand as the corrie’s plucked back wall.
Lining Crag Greenup Basin
Lining Crag rises as a small pyramidal peak on the eastern rim of the Greenup glacial basin. The Coast to Coast path climbs beside it on its way to Greenup Edge, threading through a tangle of lateral moraine — parallel ridges of debris once heaped along the glacier’s edge. From below, the crag seems to spring from the very bones of the Ice Age landscape.
Long Crag and The Black Gills
Below Long Crag, the Greenup Basin dissolves into a maze of water channels known as the Black Gills. These rivulets twist through hummocky moraine — ridges and hollows left by retreating ice — before uniting below Lining Crag to form Greenup Gill. The head of the basin, directly beneath Long Crag, remains a wet and intricate legacy of the glacier that once carved this landscape.
Drumlin Swarm below Long Crag
The floor of the Greenup Basin is strewn with glacial debris — ridges, mounds, and a remarkable swarm of drumlins below Lining Crag. Their smooth stoss slopes and tapering lee ends point down-valley, marking the glacier’s flow. Beyond them rise Low White Stones and the headwaters of the Black Gills, emerging from the rim above like veins of silver water across ancient ice-sculpted ground.
Hummocky Moraine and Drumlins
The basin between Long Crag and Lining Crag is scattered with scores of rounded hillocks — the mingled legacy of hummocky moraine and drumlins left by the last Ice Age. Drumlins are smooth, oval mounds of glacial drift moulded beneath moving ice, their long axes aligned with the glacier’s flow. Each drumlin is broad at its upstream end, the stoss, and tapers towards its lee. Hummocky moraine, by contrast, forms where detached blocks of stagnant ice melt in place, dropping their debris in a confusion of lumpy mounds. Together they create the undulating, chaotic terrain that defines the Greenup Basin.
Black Gills
Below Long Crag, countless small gills cut through the morainic ground, gathering to form the Greenup Gill. Collectively known as the Black Gills, these lively streams descend through a maze of drumlins before uniting at the basin’s outlet. Greenup Gill then carves its valley toward Smithymire Island, where it joins Langstrath Beck to become the Stonethwaite Beck — a confluence that marks one of Borrowdale’s most striking glacial landscapes.
Hummocky Moraine Greenup Gill
Looking down from Lining Crag toward Eagle Crag and Greenup Gill, the valley sides appear lumpy and uneven — a jumbled pattern of hummocky moraine left by a glacier long withdrawn. These mounds formed where warm ice within the glacier thrust forward against its colder, brittle margins, heaping debris into great irregular swells along the valley floor.
Hummocky Moraine near Lining Crag
Looking up from Mere Gill
The Greenup Basin is choked with hummocky moraine — relic mounds of debris left by the vast Greenup Plateau icefield, once one of Lakeland’s largest. From the basin floor below Long Crag and Lining Crag, countless gills thread through this uneven ground, their courses twisted and interrupted by the moraine. Together these tangled streams form the intricate network known as the Black Gills.
Take the Coast to Coast Guide With You
Available on Apple Books — £12.99
Hiking the Coast to Coast combines step-by-step route directions, interactive mapping, hundreds of original photographs and information about the landscapes, history and places encountered along the route.
© 2026 Roy McKee · Coast to Coast
Contact - Privacy. - Terms
