Great Gable is a pyramid-shaped hill lying at the very heart of the EnglishLake District. It is one of the most popular of the Lakeland fells, and there are many different routes to the summit. Great Gable is linked by the high pass of Windy Gap to its smaller sister hill, Green Gable.
Routes to climb to the summit start from all of the main dales that radiate out from central Lakeland. There are multiple routes from Wasdale to the southwest, Ennerdale to the northwest, Borrowdale to the northeast and Langdale a little further to the east. The most popular routes converge at Sty Head Pass and ascend the southeast shoulder of Gable. The hill does not possess any obvious ridgelines, save for the high link to Green Gable. All routes are steep and somewhat loose underfoot.
The summit of Great Gable is strewn with boulders. Due to its central position within the Lake District the summit has some of the best panoramic views of any peak in the area. There is a plaque commemorating those who died in the First World War; an annual memorial service is held here on Remembrance Sunday.
Rock climbing
This early photograph of climbers on the Napes Needle inspired many to take up rock climbing. (From the collection of George and Ashley Abraham.)
Great Gable has cliffs to the north (Gable Crag) and south (Westmorland Crags, the Napes, and Kern Knotts). The Napes are important in the history of English rock climbing: W. P. Haskett Smith's ascent of the remarkable detached pinnacle of Napes Needle in June 1886 (now graded Hard Severe) is thought by many to mark the origins in England of rock climbing as a sport in its own right, as opposed to a necessary evil undergone by mountaineers on their way to the summit.
External links
W. P. Haskett Smith's account of the first ascent of Napes Needle (http://www.frcc.co.uk/rock/history/needle/napesneedle1.htm) from the FRCC Journal, No.8, 1914.
GreatGable, Kirkfell, Pillar, Scoat Fell, Steeple and Red Pike
There are several routes up Gable from Wasdale Head but in view of the strenuous nature of the rest of the walk I chose the simplest.
This is the least visited of the peaks on this route and one can contemplate the best of the view, GreatGable (photo) and the Scafells, in relative peace and quiet.
Gable's marriage in 1939 to his third wife, actress Carole Lombard, was reportedly the happiest episode in his personal life, but it ended with her death in a plane crash in 1942.
She was the mother of Gable's posthumous son and only legitimate child, John Clark Gable, born in 1961; she also had two children from her third marriage, Joan and Adolph Spreckels 3rd known popularly as Bunker.
Gable died in 1960 of a massive heart attack in Los Angeles, at the age of 59.
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