Route: from the Lorton cottage up the Boonbeck road to turn right on the fell road towards High Swinside Farm. Just at the start of the right to roam land, climbing a gate to walk uphill parallel to a wall to the corner of the field. Here crossing an implicit stile in the wall and continuing beside it to reach the ridge and up this with a fence and collapsed wall to the right to gain altitude eventually reaching Ladyside Pike. Low cloud obscuring the onward route, deciding to change plans (from going on to Hopegill Head, Whiteside and Dodd) and descending instead on a faint path near Hope Gill into the valley (the path itself being narrow and partly flood damaged causing TT some vertigo issues). Then returning to Lorton via the footpath from High Swinside Farm to Scales.
Conditions: after a morning of prolonged thunderstorms, initially hot but giving way to cloud, wind and a threat of rain.
Pub? no, in order to keep the cats company, but bottled beer at the cottage.
