"We headed into the Lake District, to do a walk on the hills in Mardale, by the head of Haweswater. However on arrival, the weather remained dull and hazy and the 4 miles of road to the head of Mardale was closed, so after some quick map reading we diverted to the nearby remote valley of Swindale, on the edge of the Lake District. We set off from Swindale Foot with a 2km road walk to Swindale head, before walking up "The Old Corpse Road", an ancient by-way that was used in the 1700's to transport bodies for burial from the old, now flooded village of Mardale, across the moors to Shap Abbey. Mardale village was flooded in the late 1930's to create Haweswater, a water supply for Manchester. The village re-emerges from the lake during times of drought. Our walk took us steeply up the old byway, onto the moor, then up on a broad ridge, past some craggy outcrops to the summit. The view from the summit was restricted, because of the hazy weather. From here we descende SW to a col then over the NE top of Branstree, here there are some tall pillars that were used as survey posts for the Haweswater construction project. We then descended to another col and up to the summit of Branstree 713m..." — davidlong • Mar 23, 2012