Great Gable to ourselves!

Sour Milk Gill in spate

By choice I probably wouldn't have chosen Great Gable - but the plans had been made and the Weatherline forecast said the wind was expected to drop and the cloud to lift!  So using a route which should keep us sheltered from the predicted 40 to 50mph south westerlies we set off from Seathwaite Farm alongside Sour Milk Gill. The waterfalls were impressive and the path was running with water too. Into the cloud by the time we reached Gillercombe but the rain stopped and we just felt damp from the cloud.  Green Gable summit to ourselves - Great Gable too - but we met one couple ascending as we went down towards Sty Head. I spent a lot of time pointing at invisible hills, calling to an invisible Skye in the mist and admiring geological features which were accentuated by the water!!

Here is a view of Scafells from the top of Great Gable to remind me of what we missed this time!

Misty Barrow



Little Braithwaite Bridge on the day it reopened

 Skye and I ran up Stile End and Barrow today with a friend and her Border Terrier Oscar - well, I walked uphill rather than ran; still suffering from the remains of a chesty cold!.  Oscar is just a year old and Skye is just two so they enjoyed themselves and were able to be off the lead quite a lot.  No views today I'm afraid since there was low misty cloud on the tops of even these little hills.
It's much easier to reach Barrow from Portinscale now that the bridge over the Newlands Beck has been replaced. It was one year to the day since the floods when the bridge reopened in November.  At the moment the footbridge over the beck a bit closer to Braithwaite is in the process of being rebuilt which will reopen another path for Skye and I to trot along.  What we really want is the path along the side of the beck up the Newlands Valley to be repaired because it is a very popular path. I'll keep you updated on progress.

Freedom of the Forests




Lord Clark and speakers

Saturday saw Skye and I along with several hundred others outside the Visitor Centre in Whinlatter Forest celebrating the Governments about turn. Short speeches from Lord Clark of Windermere, Chris Bonnington, Leo Holding, both our local MPs and Friends of the Lake District reminded us that we had pulled this off by expressing our strongly felt views and making a fuss.  However we must remain vigilant; the government still has the right to sell off 15% of woodlands and this could include many of the smaller Cumbrian woods.

dispersing after the rally, signing the petition

Welcome

Welcome to Lake District Walkers blog.  I hope you like the panoramic view.  If you are a regular walker in the Lake District I am sure you can recognise some of the peaks. Do you know where I took it from?

I took this photo on one of those wonderful autumn days that started wet with low cloud. Then windows gradually appeared and eventually all the tops were clear!