It was going to be a lovely day. I parked at the car park by the Wasdale Head Hotel and walked up to the hotel. The path to Black Sail path goes off left at the hotel and passed round the back of Row Head Farm. Soon after that the path turns left and I had to decide whether to get onto Kirk Fell by the Black Sail Pass or the masochistic but direct assault straight up the nose. Sensibly I chose the latter and plodded slowly the long way to the cairn at the top. There were loads of other folk going this way but I the top of the pass they all disappeared in the direction of Pillar leaving me tackling the craggy north ridge of Kirk Fell in solitude. This looks decidedly daunting from below but there turns out to be an improbably straightforward way more or less straight up it. There’s a path of sorts and a few cairns as well as a row of fence posts which I more or less just followed. Soon enough I was up on Kirk Fell enjoying some stunning views of the surrounding hills. None of them looked more impressive than Great Gable. Indeed the way up the NW ridge from Beck Head looked quite infeasibly steep from here. Perhaps it was. I remembered one report I had read online where the author had traversed from Beck Head to Windy Gap and gone up from there. That seemed a bit of a palaver but maybe the thing to do. Then there was the young man I chatted to on the summit. He had come down by the NW ridge and said he’d found it pretty hairy. He was ever so young and lean and fit-looking so I guessed too hairy for him would be way to hairy for me.
But off I went and bagged to East Top before heading down to Beck head on a steep but straightforward path. From here there were a good few people to be seen heading up the NW ridge without any obviously difficulty or terror so I thought I would just follow them and see how it went. It went fine. A stuff but straightforward climb up a good stony path up a rib then steep but easy ground to the top with a little delightful but easy and avoidable scrambling if you fancy it. I guess especially at the start it might be a little intimidating in descent as might the way up Kirkfell Crags so probably the clockwise direction I had picked is the best way to take this little circuit. The top of Great Gable was busy and breath-taking. From there a long but straightforward path took me to Sty Head. Wainwright tells us this path is “very bad underfoot” in places but I think there has been a lot of engineering on it since he wrote that and it’s basically a staircase. A long walk back along the foot of Great Gable in the afternoon sunshine rounded things off. It had been a lovely day.
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