Feb 2023 - (with Gemma) Ascent from Bowness Knott. Lovely to be walking with Gemma again and I chose a route aiming for Pillar, mindful of the fact that Gemma hadn't walked for a while. She did really well; it was a longish walk with plenty of ascent and simple scrambling. Her legs were really shaky as we climbed steeply up through the 'lost world' below Pillar Rock. After lunch at Robinson's Cairn with fabulous views of Great Gable and across to the High Stile range, we picked up the high-level route to ascend up to the Shamrock Traverse, a route Gemma had done before. Here, Gemma unfortunately became really dizzy and felt giddy, so the slippery slab at the exit of the traverse was too risky. I crossed it a few times but couldn't persuade her. She was on the verge of a panic attack just considering it. After descending the traverse, we explored another route up to the left of the traverse, but ultimately settled on descending back down to the tree line the way we'd came. Sensible in the circumstances, but really tough on the legs. Lovely day out.