It was still very overcast and cloudy so I delayed my start till just before 8am so I had enough daylight to see. The path was on the other side of the wall but fortunately there was some loose wire fencing across a gap of collapsed wall so I used that. I was now on familiar territory as I walked this path a couple of weeks ago. There was swirling mist as I followed the wall to the Crowd Stones where the wall turns to the left. The stones are fairly insignificant but there are a couple of small quarry pits that would have been used to supply stone for the walls.

Rock outcrops on the way to Raven's Castle

The Cross base at Cross of Greet

The descent to the Cross of Greet was very wet and I had to make a wide detour to get round a deep wet area. I reached the deserted Lyth Fell road and had a quick look at the stone cross base before crossing over and heading into new territory for me. I was heading for the trig point on White Hill but couldn’t find any discernable path along the way. The ground conditions could only be described a horrible and unbelievably wet. I would recommend anybody only to do this route during a drought. Eventually I reached the trig point and continued along the fence to the rocky outcrops at Botton Crag. I turned right to follow the fence to a point above Shooters Clough where I took a direct line down the hillside to the Hornby Road track.

I turned right and followed it to the gate near the summit. It was nice to walk on firm ground for a while but that was about to stop as I turned left and followed the fence first down then up the hill towards the mist. It was very wet underfoot and didn’t improve until I’d reached Wolfhole Crag.

The triangulation plate on the Wolfhole Crag post

Trig post on Wolfhole Crag

The mist had now lifted a bit and I followed the wall to the track at Brown Syke. I crossed the track to follow the fence towards Grey Crag. It was interesting walking across an area of totally bare peat with nothing growing out of it. I can’t imagine how such a large area of ground could have its entire surface heather etc stripped off.

Desolate moor on Brown Syke

Queen's Chair on Ward's Stone

I followed the fence but the ground continued wet. The climb steepened and I came to the rock formation called ‘Queen’s Chair’ with a bench mark chiselled on the top. Also cut in the rock were the initials WM. I made a bit of a detour from the main path to visit the trig point which is one of two on the summit of Ward’s Stone plateau with less than a kilometre between them and only 1m in height I set off through the mist to the second trig point and came to the small tarn that is shown on the map. My planned camp was further to the west and off the summit but as the wind wasn’t too strong I decided to camp here and hope for a clearer morning and some views. For this walk I have been using my Peak2 petrol stove as I was expecting cold weather and petrol performs well no matter how cold it gets. I’ve always found gas quick, clean and odourless but a complete pain in cold weather. However, because of the fumes from the petrol stove I can only use it outside the tent, which wasn’t much of a problem as I could operate it through the open door. If I’d had heavy rain that could have been a problem so I think in future the petrol stove will have to be consigned to none back-packing camping.