Sour Howes, Sallows

We tackled these two summits from the Dubbs road. The morning was bright and clear but there were warnings of wintry showers later on. Parking on the road between Ings and Troutbeck we walked the gentle track passed Dubbs reservoir (beware, an Adder breeding gound!) heading for the junction with the Garburn road heading up from Troutbeck. Just before the junction a style over the wall on our right lead on to the open fell. Although this was not our intended route it seemed a good option, to head up to Sour Howes first.
The weather began to change and as we climbed the slopes, the wind got up and the snow came down wiping out the view across the valley. The path was variable but soon we reached the ridge, cross a wall via another style and struggled in the now near blizzardconditions, north, on to the summit of Sour Howes. Sheltering from the wind Sallows seemed a good distance away through the snowflakes but it didn’t take long to drop down to the wall at Moor Head and follow the wall up the slopes crossing it and then heading west to the summit. The snow had now eased but the wind was still high and the sun was appearing.
Didn’t linger on Sallows but got good views of the left hand fork of the Kentmere Horseshoe before heading west back to the wall but this time instead of turn back towards Sour Howes, we followed it to the right to meet the Garburn road further up (at the gap in the wall described in Wainwright).
Fortunately we resisted the temptation to head straight down the hillside to meet the Garburn road lower down as we were later to discover that barbed wire would have prevented us from getting on to the track.
Had a super lunch stop by the gap in the wall, sitting against the corner of two wall, sheltered from the strong cold northerly wind but with the warm sun in the south, on our faces.
The route back was straight forward following the track towards Troutbeck and then bearing left back on to the Dubbs road.

Time 3hrs 15minutes

Grade Excellent

Memories
Snow

Completed 37 To go 177