Great Gable 30th October 2010

Well it has been a while since we have been for a walk so we were all looking forward to this one. I picked Steve and Peter up at 5.45 am and 6.00 am respectively, as I had forgotten to fill up with petrol the night before, we called into the petrol station and we were on the road by about 6.20 am.

The weather forecast was a fine day - everywhere except the Lake District!! Although it was supposed to dry up after about 9.00 am. Also it was supposed to be slightly better in the Northern Fells than the Southern Fells so we decided to head to the North and the first top

mentioned was Great Gable. As we chalked off a top ten last time out it seemed a good idea to do another one this time as well. We arrived at the Honister Mine car park just after 8 and tucked into the Angus steak and kidney pie, (I had bought 2 the day before so was looking forward to one for tea as well!) and got ready for the walk.

It was quite misty as we set off around 8.30 towards Fleetwith Pike. As the car park is around 1000 feet we had already taken out quite a bit of height but there was still plenty ahead. It was a very steady walk up to our first bait stop around 10.15 seen on the right. It was a shame it was so misty as we could not see the top of Gable and it is such an impressive mountain.

We could see the path we were going to take from the bait stop and set off towards the more

strenuous part of the walk. When we reached what we thought was Windy Gap we could not see very much at all and were unsure which direction to take.

After much discussion and compass viewing, the mist cleared very briefly, giving us a better view and we decided to turn to the left. With hindsight that was the right decision as the other option would have taken us to Kirk Fell. However it was a very steep climb from here and I was regretting missing some stepper sessions!! There was a fair bit of scrambling over large rocks and apparently we had taken the hardest route to the top. Well I suppose if you are going to do it you might as well do it the hard way!

We reached the summit about 12.15, there is a WW2 memorial at the top with a plaque and a basket of poppies. We stopped for a couple of photos and then set off back down. As expected as this is a top 10 mountain the descent was not the easiest on the knees. Also the promised weather forecast did not come true, in fact it got wetter and wetter!

We stopped for another bait stop on the way down and a chance for another couple of pictures as the mist cleared occasionally. We got back to the car about 3.00pm and headed for home. We have arranged a date for the Christmas walk of 11th December and everyone has their list of stuff to bring.

Great to get another top 10 chalked off despite the weather and looking forward to the next one.

See you in December.