Beneath the Surface Traditional Cache

Cache placed by National Trust. Hopegill Head is one of those fells that seems to have a very different personality, depending on which angle you approach it from. From the south, it feels like a benign grassy sweep up to a peak, from the east you get the dramatic sweep of a sharp ridge above Hobcarton crag and from the north it looms up out of the ridgeline like a fearsome rocky tooth.

Whichever way you approach it, you're going to have quite a walk from the nearest parking point, and a chance to enjoy the interlinking ridges of the 'Buttermere Commons', a stretch of common land with no walls or fences which stretches from the fell wall above Crummock Water to the fell wall above Derwent Water. It's no wonder that traditional fell farming relies on heafed flocks - flocks which have learned which fells are 'their' grazing area and don't stray off into other places.

The whole area - particularly around the head of Coledale - bears the scars that are evidence of a long mining history

As the summit of Hopegill Head is really a trio of narrow ridgelines stretching west, north and east, hiding a cache there is a bit challenging, so we've taken the pragmatic view that when you're up there Hopegill Head and Sand Hill, it's close smaller neighbour to the south, feel very much like two parts of the same peak.