Having made a last minute decision to spend bank holiday in Wasdale with a friend, we headed off for the Wasdale Round, walking clockwise round from Yewbarrow right around to Great Gable.
Ascending Yewbarrow is a steep start to a walk but gets you high up quickly.
Many of the walkers we met on the top descended the same way, rather than the steep rocky scramble down to the north, but we were on a mission to go around so relished the scramble. We even made a friend.
From Yewbarrow we continued around up Red Pike and diverted off to bag Steeple, a rocky outcrop just off the horseshoe.
As we made our way around to Pillar across Windy Gap the wind certainly picked up and the top of Pillar was very cold, but surprisingly busy with other hikers. We stopped at the col before Kirkfell to refuel with chocolate and work out the way up. I’d previously been up Kirkfell and ended up in a gully around to the left of the first rock face which I’d found a bit hairy, so we decided to stick to the rock and headed straight up.
Ignore the path you can see on the photo below which heads left across the bottom of the rocks, and instead go right and you’ll soon find a way to scramble up to the summit.
From Kirkfell it was a straightforward but steep and rocky scramble up to Great Gable summit, before a descent down to the pub to rest the knees.
Since I’d had chance to have an hours walk up Illgill the day before in the sunshine here’s a couple of pictures:
