This little expedition was part of a day of explorations which also included a visit to a graveyard, trying to spot Ospreys and sitting in the warm sun in a pub garden in Braithwaite drinking shandies.
Me, Brian and Bruno set off from a Thirlspot layby and, ignoring the "footpath closed" sign, we followed the permissive path (which wasnt permissive today) around the base and up to the summit of Great How. Great Hw is a wooded lump sitting lumpily at the foot of Thirlmere and provides quite a good ariel view of the ;lake, it being so steep and all.
On the top we were greeted by a very loud robin who sat on a branch and was eventually hand-fed on chocolate cake - which is what he appeared to want. We also spotted (from above) an osprey who was patrolling the lake, but eventually headed off towards Borrowdale.
The path is followed back to the foot of the hill and then above the lakeshore to the dam - where we had a look at various bits of water engineering and plaques to various Manchester councillors who got the credit for building the dam.
We then headed across the road for the rocky lump of castle Rock of Triermain - which was occupied by half a dozen rock climbers.
This gives an easy but very steep climb with some optional very easy scrambling or some equally optional scary rock climbing - to a fine viewpoint with comfy grass overlooking St Johns in the Vale. It seems possible to climb on to the Dodds and Helvellyn from this point - but we went for a pint instead.
4 short miles after previous efforts - but 1100 feet of ascent (which is quite a lot for 4 miles, really) - in fine and warm spring weather...