Great Lakes - where did I go ?

[Mike T]

After inspecting a 1:25000 map in the pub last night it is fairly conclusive what happened to me. I was near the top of Stonesty Gill when I drifted too far right and got lost, I must have contoured around Little Stand and then descended out of the mist and found the ruin. I then took the path back up Little Stand walked around for a bit before deciding to follow the stream/river down to near Wrynose.

One thing I must say the 1:25000 map is so much more detailed than the 1:50000 race map I had.

Dan

I had a good look at this section on the ground yesterday - in good visibility - and can see that if you drift even just a little bit south of Stonesty Col that the terrain is very confusing and you could easily go wrong. The Col needs to be identified with absolute certainty - it is grassy, relatively rock free, has a small irregular boggy tarn at the very top on the south side,and like a true saddle, it goes up in both directions in one plane - north/south - and down in both directions at a right angle to that - east/west. There are three trods on it - one going north/south, and two going east/west. The E/W trods are at either end of the col. That at the southern end goes inches to the south of the tarn and then goes steeply downhill, across the very upper part of Gaitscale Gill and then up in almost a straight line just to the north of the rocky edge of Cold Pike, joining the path from Crinkle crags after crossing a section of boggy terrain. That at the northern end divides shortly after leaving the top of the col; if you go to the left - N/E - it contours on runnable terrain and joins the path from Crinkle Crags somewhat higher up. In good visibility the straight line route is probably best; in mist I would go for the latter.

I also had a look at the top of the Adam-a-Cove section: do people go up to just below the bad step - in other words just below and west of the gap between the first and second Crinkles, or do they follow the southern tributary of Swinside Gill up to the south side of the first Crinkle? The former seems to be longer and to involve more climbing, but I suspect the terrain will be more recognizable to many - the southern route was a bit vague at one stage.