Sour Howes and Sallows

Friday morning the weather was icy cold but sunny. Me and my lovely wife decided to take our silly old pooch for a short walk in the lake district, ticking off two Wainrights, Sour Howes and Sallow.

Starting off from the village of Troutbeck we headed up an initially steep trail, which soon levelled out to a gentle slope up. We’d walked part of this route last year in the other direction. After a mile we turned off the track onto a very steep footpath, navigating a difficult ladder stile, difficult for Nelly, followed soon after by another tricky ladder stile. We were know up on the higher fells, enjoying great views over Windemere. We stopped for an obligatory selfie.

We continued up in the sun until we reached the summit of Sour Howe.

We then did a quick little detour to the summit of Cappel Howe, which isn’t a Wainright but it seemed a shame not to add in an extra mile.

We followed our trail back to the top of Sour Howe and continued in a circular route up the gentle slope of Sallows. At the top we again admired the views and had a snack. We then followed a steep path back down to a wider but very icy track.

We hadn’t seen another person all morning, until suddenly we were inundated. Two runners, chatting as they ran uphill, followed by a mountain biker and then loads more walkers.

We followed the track back into the village. Our six mile walk had taken exactly 3 hours with 500m of climbing. An excellent little walk where we were back home before 1pm, and two more Wainrights ticked off, only another 190 to go.