After a weekend away I'm back on the Lakeland fells today retracing Birketts traverse of the High Stile ridge, a route that I haven't been back to for over twelve months. I'm out in force today while being joined by not just David and Rod but Tim and his twelve year old son James. The weather has been widely spoke about this last week with unseasonal warm air not just over the North West but over most of the UK too, with this it would seem that Spring has come early but there's a part of me that still thinks we're gonna get more snow before Winter is finally over.

Todays walk takes in one of the best ridge walks that Lakeland has to offer, a classic traverse of the High Stile ridge starting where else than Gatescarth Farm, this particular route can also be enjoyed from the village of Buttermere, in fact most walkers I presume would prefer it that way including myself which offers the best views not forgetting to mention the ascents and descents but today who are we to argue, we are merely following in one mans great footsteps.

We had all agreed to meet at 09:00am based upon the distance and time involved to reach Gatescarth (Buttermere). I arrived after David at the off road parking just under half a mile from Gatescarth soon followed by Rod who was showing off his very tasty new Nissan Qashqai. The off road parking is only wide enough for four well parked cars and with one car already there when David arrived we were now left scratching our heads on where Tim was going to park until we had the genius idea to park end to end thus blocking each other in, this now left enough space for Tim who arrived shortly afterwards.

It's a mild morning with clearing blue skies although it was forecast to cloud over later in the afternoon with high winds predicted over the summits, the latter I might add was confirmed well before any summit was reached. With the cars locked we strode out towards Gatescarth within the mighty shadow of Fleethwith Edge while I explained to young James today's route.

By the time we'd reached the top of Scarth Gap Pass we were starting to feel the affects of how gusty it was once the shelter of the pass was left behind and while for now we were pleased with the coolness that the wind provided we somehow knew we were going to be in for a rough ride. From the top of the pass we started the steep yet short ascent on Seat, todays first summit of the day. Again the path kept us away from the gust but once the summit was gained that coolness turned to windchill causing long sleeves rolled down instantly.

Despite by-passing Seat on several occasions I'd never taken the time to visit its summit which lay a few strolls westwards from which you do get a grand view over the Ennerdale valley although this morning the haze was so thick the likes of the Gables and Pillar appeared as silhouettes in the distance which was a shame but still spectacular to see, despite distant fells being hampered with haze, near visibility was almost perfect, and dare I say it, improving by the minute.

While Rod, Tim and James took on the ascent head on David and I held back slightly if only to give the war wounds (we both suffer from plantar fasciitis) which indeed gave us time to continue nattering sometimes stopping for conversation while the rest of the group continued up ahead, despite this we all found that we'd made the ascent in under twenty three minutes, young James, much less.

Well done that man.

By now the winds were blowing a right hooley across the ridge and on one occasion we were all caught by a sudden gust which caused us all to side step towards the right, this was all it took for us to take a few steps further left into the ridge whilst checking everyone was ok, particularly James who over the wind shouted it was the strongest wind he had ever experienced, not just you James, I think we could all vouch for that.

With this we continued and while we were crossing the ridge Tim for good measure, put Pearl's lead back on.