Saturday 5th March 2011 - Leg 4

I arrived at Honister slate mines in the morning to find the cloud base was down below the car park!
I set off as planned up the old Tramway and then to follow the path below Grey Knotts and Brandreth. Visibility was down to less than 30m/100' and was good map and compass practice. Good navigation got me into the Loft Beck valley and good descent down to the River Liza and over the foot bridge to follow the path along Sail Beck over the Black Sail pass to continue down to Wasdale head. Only 6.5 miles done in a steady 1h 45 min's with only 610m of ascent. Cloud base was lifting by now. A quick bite to eat before the start of Leg 4 of the Bob G.
The ascent of Yewbarrow was a killer and will be a real tester on the full round in June. The cloud was now touching the summit of Scafell. The path that misses Stirrup Crag was well marked with a cairn and rocky descent to pick the path up again to ascend Dore head to Red Pike. On to Scoat fell and I missed the direct path to Steeple and had to back track to the summit of Scoat fell and onwards to Steeple. Again another rocky descent to pick up a good path on to Pillar and then mixed descent down to the path Junction with Black Sail pass. I followed the old fence posts up a gulley on Blacksail buttress and was quickly on what I thought was the way to the summit of Kirk fell. I had gone 200/300m past it so had to back track to gain the summit before continuing on the route to start the ascent of Great Gable. No problems with the route continuing on to Green Gable Brandeth and Grey Knotts to the final decent straight down to Honister.
The surprise for me was the fact I didn't feel well from leaving Wasdale and felt I had made a steady and slow pace and found my legs didn't want to work round this leg, but to find I completed the 10.5 mile leg with 1847m of ascent in 4 Hours 18 Min's shaving 30 minutes off my schedule time.

So another good day out on the fell not feeling 100%, but the weather was on my side for the leg with good sunshine, very good visibility after what was looking like a not so promising start. A short day compared to last saturdays 27 mile run but 17 miles with over 2000m of ascent on another solo run.