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" Great Gable from Honister "

Date & start time: Tuesday 31st May 2011, pm start.

Location of Start : The Honister Slate Mine, Cumbria, Uk ( NY 225 135 )

Places visited : The Dram Road, Moses Trod, Green Gable, Great Gable, Beck Head and back via Moses Trod.

Walk details : 6.1 mls, 2200 ft of ascent, 5 hrs 30 mins.

Highest point : Great Gable, 2949 ft - 899 m.

Walked with : Cathy and Sam, Paula and Tom.

Weather : Overcast but some sunshine, with a little rain just at the start.

 

" Great Gable from Honister " at EveryTrail
 

[ Alter the settings to zoom or change the Map, use Everytrail to download the Gps route ]

 

Today, while Ann and Jenna took the younger children to Eskdale and La'al Ratty,

Cathy and Paula took the older boys up onto the high fells.

The weather wasn't quite so sunny but it was still relatively kind to them as they climbed Great Gable from Honister.

   
Cathy, hood up because of a brief shower . . .
. . . Tom and Sam, the weather catching up with them too.

Our two older girls wanted an outing onto the high fells so they chose to park at Honister and climb up through the mines

to the two classic high fells we can see from our garden here in Loweswater.

Tom leads his mum up the pitched path out of the mines.

   
Smiles now as it had stopped raining.
" Say Cheese "

The rain has passed over and is now filling the famous rain gauge in the Borrowdale Valley.

Ahead of them at the far end of the Dram Road,

they got a clear view of Pillar Rock, the famous climbing crag on the northern side of Pillar Fell.

The sunshine and dappled cloud illuminates the Buttermere Valley,

all the way down to Loweswater and out to the Solway Coast.

A brief stop on Moses Trod to enjoy a biscuit and check the map.

   
Paula brushing up on her D of E navigation.
Climbing up to Green Gable leaving the Trod below.

Sam doing a Kate Winslett on the approach to Green Gable.

Zoom on the camera foreshortens the path

as the boys climb up past the cairns towards the summit of Green Gable.

Touching the top, perhaps even adding a stone to the summit cairn.

   
Tom on Green Gable.
If I'm not mistaken, that's another chocolate bar gone.

Venturing higher onto Great Gable

there were patches of mountain mist which added to the atmosphere of the climb.

Gable Summit attained.

The view from Gable down into the Wasdale Valley.

Ann and Jen are down there with the two little ones at the coast, enjoying the sunshine and blue skies.

From Gable they descended to Beck Head, cutting the corner slightly to reach Moses Trod below Gable Crags.

The views down Ennerdale include Pillar, High Stile and the remote Black Sail Youth Hostel in the valley below Haystacks.

Moses Trod leads from Honister under the crags of Great Gable and over to Wasdale,

It is a well defined path and one which takes them back to their starting point at Honister Mines.

Dubbs Bottom.

The hanging valley that drains the slopes of Brandreth and Fleetwith Pike has the Dubbs Quarry spoil heaps to the right.

These are part of the Honister Slate Mine and the old quarry building is now a mountain bothy.

- - - o o o - - -

A good walk under their belt, Cathy, Paula, Sam and Tom return to Loweswater to tell us all about their day.

- - - o o o - - -

The following evening, the holiday week continued with a family visit to the Bamboo Restaurant in Cockermouth.

Jenna with the two younger children.

   
The view north . . .
. . . and then south along the length of the table.

We had the choice of excellent Chinese or Thai food and shared a large table for eleven at the back of the restaurant that night.

- - - o o o - - -

 

Technical note: Pictures taken with either Cathy or Paula's digital cameras.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . An extra day off work so that I could have joined them.

Go to Top . . . © RmH.2011 . . . Email me here

Previous walk - 31st May 2011 La'al Ratti with Abi and Alexander

A previous time up here - 30th May 2006 Gable with Cathy and Richard, and the boys

Next walk - 2nd June 2011 Mellbreak with the Family