Gabbro Buttress: accessing the climbs on this buttress from the top of the crag. Looking from above there are two gullies, one on the left of the buttress and the other on its right. The left hand one looks very unappealing so we descended the right hand one, this is the easiest way to reach Gabbro.
In Lake District Rock (2015) the start of Gabbro is described as follows. ‘Start just above a large embedded boulder in the scree gully.’ In the 2016 Borrowdale guide this has been changed to ‘Start just left of the toe of the buttress’, however the toe of the buttress is not obvious when descending the scree gully as there is a lot of broken and scrambly rock just below the route. The location of the first belay is not clear in both descriptions.
An alternative and description could be:
Approach: from the top of the crag. take the righthand (west) scree gully and descend until you are about 10 metres above a very large boulder/slab of rock embedded in the scree. On the left is an obvious mossy corner and to its right a small pinnacle. The route starts up the left side of the pinnacle.
1 27m Climb the left side of the pinnacle and at the top climb a small V-corner on the right, continue up another corner and head towards the belay which is in an obvious corner with two off-width cracks visible. The corner is actually formed by a large flake resting against the buttress.
2 20m Climb up and swing rightwards around the large flake, continue up pleasant slabs to the top.
NB. Borrowdale 2016. page 290. Gillercombe. The guidebook says ‘Approach: from the top of Honister pass.’ It should mention that you can approach from the top of Honister Pass or from Seathwaite.