Grey Cragg (Sleddale Fell)

Yesterday we walked from our base, Meadow Cottage in Staveley up to Brunt Knots and looked across the Longsleddale valley to toady's fell. A good walk to keep away form the bank holiday crowds in the central fells. We started in the afternoon, a glorious day the aim being a short stroll up Gray Crag and then across to tarn Crag and down the quarry road. Unfortunately this was not to be. A combination of underestimating the effort required to reach Grey Crag, a rapid darkening of the skies and the knowledge that being caught up here in mist would have been quite a challenge, meant that only our first summit was attained. Set off from Sadgill and headed straight up Great Howe initially keeping to the left wall as suggested in the Wainwright book. After a steep grassy climb we reached the upper corner of the field on our left and could see the hurdle that Wainwright had described as 'difficult to negotiate' now had a stile.
Heading up through the easy gully another wall was reached with paths both right and left. We took the left which took us above a rocky outcrop and eventually had to scramble over the wall to reach the upper fell. Heading up , no path now we reached Great Howe and joined the correct path we would have been on if we had taken the right hand fork.
Moorland opened up in front of us but it took us quite a while to be able to identify the summits across the boggy expanse. In hindsight I can now confirm Grey Crag is to the right, The pointy crag directly in front is unnamed and the higher summit to the left with the obvious pillar, is Tarn Crag.
Quite hot now after the struggle up the grass we crossed the flat very boggy moorland becoming more tired. The clouds had darkened giving a thundery, sultry feel and we both felt that we probably had overestimated the time it would take to get around both summits. Once over a stile just below the climb up to Grey Crag, the path headed right directly for the summit. It had taken us 2 hrs to get here (with stops). Tran Crag seemed a good way in the distance the weather was potentially changing so, without any argument we decided to retrace our steps back to the valley.

Time 3 hrs
Grade Potentially excellent
Memories

• Away from the crowds on Bank Holiday Monday
• First walk of the year in shirt sleeves
• Underestimating the effort required

Completed 42 To go 172