We all went up in Mark's car. It was a good journey up with no hold-ups, and arrived in time for a pint in the D&G followed by some chips. How unusual!
I thought I had forgotten my thermal gloves, and bought some fleece ones from Mountain Sports. This was bound to guarantee good weather. To avoid mentioning the weather again, it was hot and sunny all week!

We decided to avoid the weekend crowds and do something out of the way. We parked near Orthwaite, intending to do Great and Little Calva.
We went up past Dash falls and followed the bridleway towards Skiddaw House, but couldn't see a path up - it was all thick heather and although it was a very warm day the top was covered in cloud.
We ended up walking all the way round the bottom and not going up! It wasn't a bad walk though, and we saw hardly any other people, although we did get sunburnt.
On the way up we had a break at a small bridge over a beck. Jerry lay on his back in a slight hollow and couldn't get up again. He did a very good impersonation of a stranded beetle.

We stopped off in Keswick to buy sun hats before driving to the top of Honister to climb Great Gable by the usual route.
We found that we now had to pay for car park! Not that I mind, actually, because the National Trust are doing splendid work repairing footpaths which I have helped to erode.
Everything was very dry, even on the slopes of Brandreth which are usually quite boggy.

Jerry and Mark went via Striding Edge while I went via Greenside mines. I'd forgotten what a never ending slog it is up out of Kepple Cove, and when I eventually got to the top the others were just going down Swirral Edge towards Catstye Cam. We eventually met up as arranged at the summit shelter.
We went back the way I had come up, the trudge down to Kepplecove brightened by the young lady in front, who was wearing extremely tight blue lycra shorts.
We stopped just before Greenside to bathe our feet in the invitingly cool stream.

We decided on a small one, and so drove to Grasmere and went up Silver How. It was a very pleasant walk, and easy walking on top with excellent views.
We returned to the Red Bank road and so to Grasmere, where we bought some ginger bread.

This was my second attempt at Crinkle Crags, and I certainly wasn't going to try from Cockley Beck again! We parked at the Old Dungeon Gill and walked back up the valley to Stool End.
The path up by Browney Gill was very well made up, and the ascent was much easier than I had anticipated. I avoided the 'bad step' on the second crinkle by taking the 'easier grassy rake' (Wainwright) to the left. It turned out to be very eroded with no signs of grass, but easier than the scramble round to the right.
We went along the ridge and down to Three Tarns, returning to Langdale by the Band. It was much more eroded than I remembered from previous visits, and very unpleasant in places.

We decided on another small one. We went by boat to Hawes End and along the lakeside to Grange for a cup of tea. We crossed the bridge to the road and turned right up Troutdale to climb up to Kings How and Grange Fell.
We joined the Rosthwaite path and went down to Watendlath for another cup of tea and then back to Ashness to catch the boat back to Keswick.
It wasn't such a small walk as we had thought, and the ascent out of Troutdale was very steep (and in retrospect possibly not by the right path!!). (P.S. having now down it by the right path, I can tell you that the path we took was a climbers path to Black Crag. From this direction it is much more trodden than the path up to the head of the valley).

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