Denise and I were joined by our youngest, Richard, and with him volunteering to be the driver this was another incentive to get into the fresh air.
Sadgill was our destination and is basically a farm and a bridge at the end of a narrow road along Longsleddale, there is parking for about ten carefully placed cars where the tarmac ends at the bridge and the track over Gatescarth Pass begins.

Our intended hills were Branstree, Selside Pike, Tarn crag and Grey Crag leaving a steep descent at the end instead a steep ascent at the start, anything to lessen the impact of inactivity these past few weeks, I know I'm soft but it's an age thing (well, that's my excuse).

We start the walk on the track which is a nice steady gradient to begin with, just right for getting the legs used to walking on rough ground again.



This we followed all the way to the head of Gatescarth pass. The sky was cloudy in parts but the sun was shining, it was cold and dry, just right for blowing the cobwebs away and the tops had snow on them. The hills were attracting the cloud which was a shame and as we were getting closer to the head of the pass the hope that they'd get above the tops was fading.
Higher up the pass, we walked above the snow line, by the time we'd got to the point where we left the track for Branstree there was a reasonable amount of snow and the cloud was still bothering the tops with not much hope of it clearing.

There's a fence to follow from this point which is handy as it stays with you more or less the whole trip, it was helpful in the mist but that said you do leave it in parts but its never hard to pick up again.

The pull up to Brantree summit is a plod over grass (or snow in our case) never steep just a wee bit monotonous as there were no views by now, the summit is a short step away from the fence but you can see the cairn even in the mist.



From here we set off for Selside Pike, you leave the fence for a while to pass two tall and well made cairns,

beyond these we joined the fence again and this is what we used to get to Selside Pike and once there we stopped for a quick bite and photo's and were off again because the wind was a bit raw to be still for too long.


We went back to Branstree in order not to loose too much height

We then set off for Tarn Crag which involves a 180m drop into a very boggy coll where the path up Mosedale goes over to meet the Gatescarth Pass track, none of it was frozen so bog hopping was the order of the day, still following the fence which itself is following a boundery line we went up the other side to Tarn Crag which is a 150m pull over peat hags and then good ground.
Still in cloud on the summit, the views were in the imagination only, ah well, at least we're out.

Grey Crag was next so it was back to the fence, we followed it to the point it changes direction towards Harrop Pike which we decided not to bother with and turned right to Grey Crag. As we were getting to the summit the cloud started to thin so we started to get some views, just typical, right at the end and, as we were leaving the summit, the cloud released the views, not extensive but we did manage something.




The descent goes over Great Howe and then down Easy Gully which is pretty steep and hard on the knees, the path down leads you onto the Gatescarth Track a short distance from the car.




We had a great day, it was cold but it is winter after all, the cloud was a pain but so what?, it was just good to be out, all we've got to do now is get over the achey knees.