A View from Alcock Tarn: Grasmere and Helm Crag

Another view from our recent trip to the Lakes. This surprisingly hibernal scene of the Grasmere valley, with Helm Crag taking centre stage, was captured from Alcock Tarn below Heron Pike. The green pasture fields in the valley provide a pleasant contrast to the lifeless, bracken-covered, rock-strewn hillsides.

Helm Crag is often called “The Lion and the Lamb,” though from this angle, the resemblance is far from obvious. Other names exist, depending on where you stand.

Wainwright, never one to miss a chance for poetic embellishment, rhapsodised about the summit, correctly noting that the rock fissure was caused by an ancient landslip—due to an earthquake or, as he rather dramatically put it, a “natural convulsion.”

In geological terms, a large chunk of ground slid a short distance down a weak plane in the rock, coming to rest lower on the slope. Such rockslides are not exactly rare in the Lake District and often leave behind a steep headscarp—a cliff or crag a few metres high where the rock sheared away. Sometimes the rock shattered as it moved, creating the usual collection of boulders, pinnacles, and deep crevices that is best avoided unless you like a challenge.