There are many routes up. Probably the most direct is from the National Trust car park at the top of Honister Pass. The longer route from Gatesgarth at the end of Buttermere, up over Haystacks gives fanstastic views, with chance to observe some of the birds that make the high fells their home.
At Green Gable you are standing on one of the first mountain summits given to the National Trust to protect for the nation. In 1920 all the land above 3,000ft on Scafell Pike was sold to the National Trust for a nominal sum as a memorial for the men of the Lake District who had fallen in the First World War. Then in 1923 the Fell and Rock Climbing Club presented to the National Trust all the Great Gable fells above 1,500ft, including Green Gable, Brandreth, Base Brown, Grey Knotts, Great End, Lingmell, Seathwate Fell, Glaramara, Kirk Fell and, of course, Great Gable. The Graphic magazine described it as 'the world's greatest war memorial' and Geoffrey Winthrop Younge, the leading mountaineer of his generation, gave an address on the summit in which he said 'we dedicate this space of hills to freedom'.