The initial ascent is crowned by the subsidiary top of Little Dodd (1,187 ft), before the ridge flattens out for a quarter of a mile.

There is a connecting depression on the south west flank which leads to Floutern Cop, an outlier of Gavel Fell.

Hen Comb has no direct topographical link with Mellbreak to the east, the two parallel ridges being separated by the wet valley of Mosedale.

This long slender pool has a grim quality in most conditions, being sandwiched between Floutern Crag and an embankment of giant boulders.

Further travel through the swamps of Mosedale or Whiteoak Moss can lead more directly to the summit, but rarely dryshod.

Not for nothing does Wainwright remark on Hen Comb as "rising...between side valleys that carry streams down from a wide upland morass, a desolate tract of marshland and bog encircling the extremity of the fell like a moat, out of which rise the summit slopes as an island from the sea.