Walkers wishing to visit Side Pike from Lingmoor Fell are blocked by unassailable crags and must traverse round to easier slopes to the south.

The fell's northern and eastern flanks are clothed in deciduous woodland up to the 200-metre contour, and there are also patches of heather and bracken on these lower slopes.

One kilometre (0.6 miles) north of the summit of the fell stands another topographic feature; this is the detached rock pinnacle of Oak Howe Needle.

The summit area is formed from a large sill of andesite, overlying the dacitic lapilli tuff of the Lingmoor Fell Formation.

[1] Lingmoor Fell's north-eastern slopes above the villages of Elterwater and Chapel Stile have long been quarried for its high-quality Westmorland green slate.