We (Joe and myself) set off at 08:50hrs from the car park area at Seathwaite and followed the Taylorforce Gill path to Sty Head Tarn.
- Sty Head Tarn and Great End.
From the tarn we took the Great Gable Girdle route from the stretcher box as far as Napes Needle and climbed up to the shoulder of the Needle where there were 3 climbers setting up a complex set of ropes to allow one of them to do a tightrope act from Needle Ridge to the top of the Needle itself.
- Napes Needle.
They told us that they had been there since 09:00hrs Thurs 27th July setting up their ropes for the event. We climbed down the other side of the Needle which has to be done by feeling for a foothold as it is a bit of a stretch to the first toe hold. From there we climbed up to the dress circle to watch the show, taking photos as it happened. One of the climbers walked across the rope and back again to a round of applause from the four of us. There was only Joe and I plus the other two climbers taking photos watching this event, so quite an exclusive audience! We can only presume that it was a photo shoot for some magazine.
- Napes Needle - 1
- Napes Needle tightrope walk.
- Napes Needle tightrope halfway there.
- Now to get back.
- Leaving Napes and doing well.
- Having a rest on the rope.
- Wast Water from Napes Needle.
Apologies for the quality of my photos but they are decent record shots of a unique occurrence.
Leaving there we then proceeded to the Sphinx from where we made our way up the front of Gable to the Westmorland Cairn which was built in 1876 by two brothers of the same name - the story of this is in A.Wainwright's book The Western Fells, Great Gable 28 - and then the summit cairn on which is attached a bronze war memorial plaque courtesy of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club and dedicated in 1924. Every November on Remembrance Day many people find their way up Gable to pay their respects to the fallen of the 1st World War.
- Great Gables High Kern Knotts.
- Great Gable - The Sphinx.
- Great Gable - the Sphinx and Wast Water.
- Great Gable war memorial plaque on summit cairn.
- Wasdale from Great Gable.
- Lingmell Beck and Scafell Pike from Great Gable.
- Great Napes from Westmorland Crags.
Having heard much about Moses and his nefarious activities of distilling illegal whisky and rumours of an old still somewhere on Gable Crag - which is on the North face of Gable - we elected to try and find it whilst in the area. We went down the crag a fair way and was working our way westwards when Joe shouted that he had seen something like a ruined building about 50ft below him. As I joined him I saw what was indeed the ruins of a stone building sat right under the crag but on a level area of grass covered ground.
- Is this the remains of Mose's whisky still?
- Mose's whisky still?
It has been said that Moses used the water from off Fleetwith Pike for his whisky making and also a suggestion that that was where he also did his distilling. This could make sense as I don't know who would want to cart water from Fleetwith Pike onto Great Gable along with all the other ingredients. As far as we could see Moses would have had to do a fair bit of climbing to get to his still and let's not forget the materials required to build the hut. On the plus side it is well hidden, a lot quieter than Fleetwith Pike would have been in those days, and he would probably have ended up in an Australian penal colony if found out.
From Gable we then descended to Beckhead Tarn, (which was dried up) electing to use the screes as our way down and that is where we had our lunch break. We wondered about having an early day due to the rigours of climbing around Great Gable but after we had eaten, rested, and me looking longingly at Rib End we decided to climb Kirk Fell.
- Kirk Fell and Rib End from Beck Head.
- Pillar - Seat and High Stile from Kirk Fell.
Kirk Fell was conquered and we returned to Beck Head from where we took off to pick up the Gable Girdle path at the bottom of the Great Gable route which runs up the rocks at the extreme north of Gable Crag, following it as it went under Gable Crag and then on to Windy Gap from where we then proceeded to the summit of Green Gable.
- Great Gable from Green Gable summit cairn.
- Scafell Pike from Green Gable.
Leaving Green Gable we then took the path down Gillercombe but broke off to the right and took the path to the summit of Base Brown.
- Base Brown summit.
We then had to retrace our steps back to the Gillercombe path and then descended back down to Seathwaite via Sour Milk Gill. A bit of a steep and rocky descent down the gill but there wasn't much water about and the slabs were nice and dry making for an easy drop off.
When I got home I did find a path marked on the OS Map that would have taken us down the North face of Base Brown and therefore saving quite a lot of mileage but, it is now in the memory banks for future visits to the area.
A very good exciting walk made all the better for the scaling of Great Gables flank from Napes Needle to Westmorland Cairn.
The day started off sunny and cool but soon warmed up to a very hot mid-morning and lasting through the rest of the day. As we arrived on the summit of Great Gable the mist came down from Scafell Pike and settled itself upon Gable for a while but the sun soon burnt it off.
Length of walk was approx 10 miles and took 7¾ hrs to complete including watching the tightrope act, looking for the old still, rest periods, and stops to take photos.
As for that guy on a tightrope 
I'm all for a narrow ledge and a bit of excitement but that's taking it too far 
But hey ho at least I got a record of the event 
