A 35-year-old hiker fell one hundred metres to his death while walking a well-known route up Helvellyn in the Lake District with a friend, an inquest has heard.

Fraser Tait, of Whitley Bay, fell from Striding Edge on his way up the mountain on July 28, 2023.

In a statement submitted to Cockermouth Coroner’s Court, Mr Tait's friend Robert Scott said he had asked Mr Tait to accompany him on his first ascent via Striding Edge as Mr Tait had done it 'two or three times before'.

He said that the pair, who had been friends through playing football together, had driven to Keswick from Whitley Bay on Saturday, July 27, and checked in to the Highfield Hotel in Keswick before going out in the town for food and drinks.

He said Mr Tait was in a 'good mood' and was 'laughing and joking around as usual'.

They began the ascent from Glenridding car park the following morning on a  'sunny and very warm day' with 'good walking conditions'.

Mr Scott said he was around twenty metres behind Mr Tait on Striding Edge above Red Tarn and heard a 'scream'.

He said because he was in a dip he did not realise that it was Mr Tait who had fallen at first.

He then saw him lying around a hundred metres below and climbed down.

Mr Scott said his friend was conscious at first and tried to speak.

Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team received a call about the incident at 11.34am.

A volunteer doctor with the mountain rescue team said in a statement he was in the first vehicle that deployed 'very quickly' and received a call at 12.23pm that a mechanical CPR device was required, indicating a cardiac arrest.

He arrived at the scene at 12.30pm where Great North Air Ambulance paramedics already were and Mr Tait was pronounced dead at 12.33pm.

Mr Tait’s wife of eleven months Jenna Tait said in a statement that the last call she had received from her husband was at 7.45am on the morning of his death, saying that he was about to have breakfast before driving to the mountain.

She said she had expected him home at around 5pm that day but received a call from Mr Scott saying that her husband had fallen and that an air ambulance was on its way.

Mrs Tait said she called back for an update and somebody else answered the phone, telling her that her husband had died.

Assistant Coroner for Cumbria Dr Nicholas Shaw said a post-mortem examination revealed 'extensive trauma to the body' and was offered a cause of death of multiple traumatic injuries caused by a fall from height.

Mr Tait had a four-year-old daughter with his wife and a six-year-old daughter from his previous marriage.

The couple had married at Low Wood Bay near Ambleside in 2023 after getting engaged at the same venue in 2021.

Dr Shaw said: "The fells are dangerous even to people who are experienced, but happily, tragedies such as this are very rare and we get two or three cases each year of somebody falling.

"Striding Edge is very well known as a walk with some danger attached and you have to be careful.

"I've walked Striding Edge before. It is rough and has some erosion from people walking on it every year.

"It's quite possible to stumble and quite possible to fall.

"There is a risk there but there is always a risk when going into the hills.

"It must have been absolutely awful for poor Jenna to be sitting helpless at home getting these messages that her husband had died.

"Perhaps the only comfort she can really gain here is that Fraser died while he was doing something that he clearly really enjoyed and that the end when it came will have been extremely quick."

Dr Shaw concluded Mr Tait's death was by misadventure.