Great Gable

There are three usual starting points. Honister Pass gives you the most height for free. From the top of the pass, follow the old quarry track to the Drum House, then either traverse on Moses Trod or go over Grey Knotts and Brandreth to Green Gable. The Honister Rambler bus (77) stops at the pass in season. From Seathwaite in Borrowdale, where you park on the roadside lane, a steep path beside Sourmilk Gill involves a little scrambling on the way to Base Brown, Green Gable and Windy Gap. From Wasdale Head the direct way is Gavel Neese, a relentless slope between Lingmell Beck and Gable Beck.

Every route ends on steep, rocky ground. From Windy Gap the path climbs through boulder fields that need your hands in places but never feel exposed. The stepped path down to Sty Head, the busy crossroads of paths below the south-east ridge, is an easy descent, and from there Styhead Gill and Grains Gill lead back to Seathwaite.

The war memorial

The summit is a rocky dome with a bronze plaque on the rock, the Fell and Rock Climbing Club's First World War memorial. A service is held beside it every Remembrance Sunday. About 100 yards south-west, the Westmorland Cairn stands on the edge above the Napes. Two brothers built it in 1876 to mark what they judged the finest view in the district, straight down to Wast Water. Ennerdale, Buttermere and the Scafells are all in sight from the summit.

Below that cairn is Napes Needle, the pinnacle Walter Haskett Smith climbed in June 1886. That climb is widely taken as the start of rock climbing as a sport in England.