Red Screes is a ridge of high ground which runs for nearly 7 kilometres (4 miles) in a north north-easterly direction from the town of Ambleside, and reaches a maximum height of 776 metres (2,546 ft).

Red Screes forms part of the main watershed of the Lake District, which runs in an east-west direction across the summit and the two adjacent cols.

The lower slopes have been planted with small areas of mixed woodland and are extensively compartmentalised by an array of dry stone walls.

The western flanks are also rough, mainly grassy with some rock outcrops, rising steeply from Scandale and from Caiston Glen.

Prominent on Ordnance Survey maps is Kilnshaw Chimney, although in reality this is just a narrow gully beneath the summit.

Two unnamed corries are cut into the eastern face and between them a flat topped promontory juts out with the highest point on its northern edge.

A few yards to the south is Red Screes Tarn, a small permanent waterbody with no plant life in evidence.

From the south a track up the southern ridge gives convenient access directly from Ambleside, leaving the road towards ‘The Struggle’ about one mile north-east of the town.

From the west the path from Scandale Pass gives an easier approach, and may be gained from either Ambleside, or from the north via Caiston Glen.

A path appears near the top of Middle Dodd, and then leads along the northern ridge to the summit of Red Screes.

Interbedded pyroclastic rocks vary from thin beds of fine tuff to thick units of breccia, and reveal some ongoing volcanic activity during the period of deposition.

[8] Overlying those deposits are rocks of the Lincomb Tarns Tuff Formation, found on the eastern and western sides of the fell and the top of the southern ridge.

The highest and youngest rocks of the Borrowdale volcanic sequence found on Red Screes belong to the Middle Dodd Dacite Formation, on and north of the top of Middle Dodd, and with a small area along the edge of the northern corrie of Red Screes.

[8] Drift deposits of glacial till derived from the last ice-age have accumulated on the lower slopes of Red Screes, and on the top of the ridge.

This was used to extract stones for wall-building, and even the remains of a sled-track exist, leading down to a series of field walls in Scandale.

[11] There are also the remains of a trial for copper on the eastern flank, a 120-foot (40 m) level being driven into the fell from close to the modern road.

[13] Dod or dodd is a dialect word of unknown origin, but common in hill names in the Lake District and the Scottish Borders for bare rounded summits, either free standing or subsidiary shoulders to higher neighbours.