Borrowdale Fell Race
fell running competition in Cumbria, England
The Borrowdale Fell Race is an annual fell race held in August, starting and finishing in Rosthwaite. It is considered to be one of the "classic" Lakeland races and the route initially heads over Bessyboot before climbing England's highest summit, Scafell Pike. Great Gable is then scaled before a descent to Honister Pass and the final climb up Dale Head. The distance is approximately 17 miles (27 kilometres) and the route has around 6,500 feet (2,000 metres) of ascent.
History
The race, sponsored by Miles Jessop of the Scafell Hotel, Borrowdale, and the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, Langdale, was originally intended to link those two establishments. However, Chris Bland, Andy Ewing and others decided on the route via Bessyboot, Esk Hause, Scafell Pike, Great Gable, Honister Hause and Dale Head. The inaugural race was held in 1974 and in that year only, there was an extra checkpoint in Tongue Gill on the descent to Rosthwaite.
In 2001, a foot-and-mouth outbreak led to the cancellation of many fell races. Borrowdale was one of the first to take place as the access restrictions were reduced, and Prince Philip presented the prizes to the leading runners that year.
In 2003, the route to the first checkpoint on Bessyboot was changed following concerns about the possibility of serious injuries due to falling rocks on the steep climb.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q28402689. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974, 2001 and 2003.
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This entry incorporates text from “Borrowdale Fell Race” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.