Weather Behaving Badly

Tuesday 21st January 2014
Lake District
I finally dragged myself out of bed at 7.45am this morning, after turning both alarm clocks off at 7.20 and thinking about getting up for what I thought was a couple of minutes. I kicked Claire out of the van at 8am with her camera, whilst I stayed inside and packed the bed up and mopped all the condensation off the windows (no small task in winter!). I don’t think it rained overnight, but even so, I didn’t sleep all that well. It took me ages to get warm, and it always takes me a night or two to get used to sleeping in George.

Claire got some good photos, then we had bagels for breakfast and set off for the Langdale Pikes. We called into the gingerbread shop on the way (good job we did as things turned out), and then drove George down a very steep, narrow, winding lane to Great Langdale. We were pleased to find that the car park was run by the National Trust so we could park for free with our car sticker. The car park was practically empty, a rarity in the Lakes, and I wondered if all the other visitors knew something we didn’t.
We set off on our walk just after 11am. The way up was via a relentless steep path alongside a river, in which some poor school children were being made to do canyoneering. Canyoneering is something which looks like good fun in, say, The Narrows in Zion National Park in summer. Not in ice cold Lake District rivers in January. We walked swiftly on as it was making us cold just looking at them.
At the top of the relentless path was a nice little lake called Stickle Tarn. It was too cold to stop and have a nice break there as was suggested on the route card, and the best we could manage was a five minute huddle in a slightly sheltered spot while we ate our chocolate cornflake cakes. We continued round the tarn and upwards to the summit of our first tick on the list for the day; Pavey Ark. About 5 minutes before we reached the top, the clouds came down, and unfortunately didn't lift for the remainder of the day. Not to be deterred by a bit of cloud, we continued on to bag the summit of Thunacar Knot, which was a bit tricky as we struggled to see where it was for the clouds. Then we continued onto summit number 3; Harrison Stickle. About 5 minutes before we got to the top, it started snowing. Claire was excited for a few minutes until it got more persistent and we were having to walk into it when it was blowing horizontally into our eyes.
We had a lunch break in our survival shelter, which is like a cross between a bivvy bag and a tent without poles, and folds up into a bag the size of a grapefruit. It kept us warm enough to eat our Lancashire pasties and Bakewell tarts mid blizzard, but we were soon on our way again, wondering what the weather was going to throw at us next.

Onwards to summit 4; Pike O’ Stickle, which was the only peak today that is also on our Trail 100 list. Had it not been both on the way back, and on both lists, we would have skipped it, as shortly after emerging from the survival shelter, the snow turned to driving rain, verging on sleet. We switched to waterproof jackets, but there was no stopping the rain gradually working its way in round the hoods.
Finally summit 5; Loft Crag, which was part of the route down. We thought we were nearly back until we saw through a break in the clouds that the valley floor looked miles away, and we had a long steep descent ahead of us.
We finally got back to George at 4.30pm, and by the time we’d got out of all our wet clothing, and tried to wrap everything up in bin liners to stop George getting flooded, it was too late to go back to Grasmere for a cup of tea or a browse round the shops.
We went straight home, and after we’d hung all our wet kit up to dry I spent a gleeful few minutes ticking hills off lists. Of the Wainwright’s, we have ticked off 15 to date leaving a measly 199 to do, and on the Trail 100 list we have now ticked off 12 leaving only 88! I suspect we will still finish the Wainwright’s long before though.

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A Whole New List

Monday 20th January 2014

Lake District

We were up and about fairly early this morning, and after packing our things up and having breakfast we headed into town to get some sandwiches. I also popped into a pharmacy to pick up a new lip balm I'd spotted the other day. It's a Kleenex lip and nose balm and I thought it would be perfect for a pocket in my new rucksack for those sniffly hill walks.

The weather seemed quite bright, but we could see quite a lot of low cloud, particularly towards the southern and eastern fells, so we decided to do a fairly local walk, up Causey Pike and back down through the valley. We had thought about going up Great Gable, but didn't see the point if we were going to be in a cloud all day. We'd seen Causey Pike from Skiddaw, and thought it looked like a really nice walk up and then along the ridge. Our only reservation was that it wasn't on the Trail 100 list that we are hoping to get ticked off before we die. But we thought, we're only in our thirties, we should still have plenty of time to tick everything off and fit in a few other hills in between.

It was a very steep climb up to the summit of Causey Pike, but once we were up there it was pretty easy going walking along the ridge, which was cloud free. It was even warm enough to sit down (quickly) and eat our sandwiches at the summit. As we ate, the cloud started clearing a bit from the eastern fells, and we had some good views of the snow capped Helvellyn range.

We walked as far as the summit of Sail, which was the turn around point for the walk. Just as we got there, the cloud descended and it started snowing so we decided to do what the walk card said rather than extend the walk further along the ridge. The route down was pretty easy, and we were down by 3.30. We went into Keswick, and had a cup of tea then a wander round the Cotswold store. While we were in there I spotted a "summit tick and date list" for all 214 of the Wainwright fells in the Lakes. Of course, it had to be purchased, as not only was Causey Pike on the list, but so was Sail and another point on the ridge, so that's three ticks in one day! When I have finished writing, I am going to have a ticking off session to include all our previous visits.

We have checked out of the B&B now and are spending our last night here in George. We picked up some supplies from Booths supermarket before leaving Keswick. Think of an independent version of Waitrose, and that will give you an idea of the store (and the prices).

We've parked George in a layby right next to Castlerigg stone circle. There's no one else here and although it's a bit closer to the road than we're used to, it's quite a small road so what passing traffic there is should be fairly slow. We are planning on getting up early enough for Claire to be poised with her camera when the sun comes up at 8.19am. Then we'll have a quick breakfast before heading over to the Langdale Pikes, which should offer a whole host of dual list ticking opportunities!

Then a quick trip to Grasmere to include the Cotswold Rock Bottom store, and the famous Sarah Nelson's gingerbread shop, and then home.

 

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Squirrel Hunting

Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th January

Lake District

It was Claire's birthday last week, and being at my usual loss of things to buy her so soon after Christmas, I decided on a weekend away in the Lakes. We're staying in a B&B in Keswick called Cherry Trees which is only a few minutes walk from the bright lights of the town centre.

We arrived at about 6pm on Friday, and on being shown our room, were given a slightly panicked look by Margaret (the landlady) who asked us if a double room was OK. Once that moment of awkwardness was out of the way we quickly unpacked our stuff and headed off into town with Jen and Andrew (Claire's mum & her partner). We had a pub meal and a few drinks in The George Hotel which left us all feeling full to bursting, before heading back to the B&B to try and sleep off the food. None of us slept very well, although my sleep improved a lot after Claire wedged a sock in the door at 3am to stop it rattling. We had an excellent cooked breakfast whilst watching the rain bouncing off the windows, and decided that maybe we shouldn't head straight out to the fells.

We had a mooch round town, and Claire and I bought ourselves some new rucksacks that were reduced in one of Cotswold's competitors. Then we managed to coax Jen and Andrew up Castle Head, which is a nice little hill overlooking Derwent Water. It was quite a steep, and rather muddy, slippery climb up, but we did have some views from the top despite the weather, and I'm 90% sure I saw a red squirrel in the trees. If it wasn't a red squirrel then I'm really not sure what it could have been, but it moved so fast that I couldn't really see it well enough to be sure. Possibly a dwarf bear I suppose.

We had some lunch and then went for a walk along the Keswick railway trail, which is supposed to be teeming with packs of red squirrels according to our landlord Jim. We didn't spot any, but Claire and I did take a rather long detour after spotting a sign for Castlerigg stone circle. We managed to get a few moody atmospheric shots of the standing stones with various backdrops of mountains and threatening clouds, and then hurried back towards town before it got dark.

We spent the evening at the Alhambra cinema in Keswick, which is an old cinema with only one screen, and a desk attendant who looks like he's been around for nearly as long as the cinema has. We watched The Long Walk To Freedom, which is about the life and times of Nelson Mandela. It was a good film, and for £10.50 including a drink and a giant tub of popcorn, was much cheaper than our usual cinema experience.

Today Jen and Andrew had to head back home so we decided to try and tick another mountain off our list. We decided to go up Skiddaw, which is the mountain looming over Keswick. We thought it would be a good mountain to do in the winter as there aren't many dangerous ridges on it. Our route up was a bit of a dull slog to start with. We parked at a little car park at the end of a road that had more potholes than tarmac and followed an obvious rough track pretty much to the summit. The final third of the climb was more interesting (not to mention less steep), and there was much more snow left than we though there'd be. It got very cold all of a sudden when we walked into the cloud surrounding the summit, but I'd come better prepared than last weekend and had enough layers to keep the cold at bay (including this season's favourite - my down filled gilet).

We reached the trig point, took a couple of photos with white cloud background, then as if by magic, little windows started appearing in the cloud cover and we finally got a view down to the town and realised how high up we were.

We didn't linger at the summit too long, as the cloud droplets on our clothes were starting to freeze, and I didn't want to be turned into an ice statue. We headed down into the swirling clouds, had a quick sandwich stop, and then started a long, steep descent down to the road (including an unplanned slide down a very steep and slippery grassy bank for Claire). The walk concluded with a not particularly pleasant walk along a 2 mile stretch of uphill road back to where we'd parked.

Despite the snow, we didn't need our ice axes and crampons today. Which was fortunate, because we hadn't taken them with us, being confident that there wasn't enough snow up there. It would have been nice to have the axes for the summit photos, but their time will come I'm sure.

We've enjoyed pizza and wine for tea this evening and are now both struggling to keep our eyes open.

Tomorrow the forecast predicts little or no rain but low cloud and a close to 0% chance of cloud free summits. We've got a couple of ideas for walks but will make our mind up in the morning when we've assessed the weather and our legs.

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Location:Keswick

 

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Windy Weather

Sunday 12th January 2014

Snowdonia Winter Skills Course

We slept like the dead last night. After another fry up we piled into the mini bus and were on the road by 9.30am. Dave had worn trainers to drive in today so the journey was a lot smoother. We parked a mile or two further down the road than yesterday and set off up the neighbour of yesterdays hill, Carnydd Dafydd.

The weather started off OK but started closing in a bit by late morning  The clouds were rolling in and as we got higher the wind started picking up. This was exactly what the BBC said would happen, but we were hoping it might be wrong.

By the time we’d made it into the corrie the wind was blowing so hard that we were overbalancing. Especially Sarah, who is like a waif and could do with a bit of meat on her bones. We abandoned the plan of going up to the summit and then down the ridge, for fear of getting blown off and into the lake hundreds of metres below. There wasn’t really much snow left so we spent a while walking on frozen swamps with our crampons on, then when we got too cold headed back down. I was quite relieved as I was wearing all my clothes and still wasn’t warm enough.

When we got back to the Plas Y Brenin centre we had a hot drink whilst watching another group practice ice axe arrests on a muddy snowless slope, and then went to the woods over the road to do some crampon work in a warmer, less windy environment. We were half expecting the session in the woods to be rubbish compared to real snow, but it turned out to be quite useful. There were lots of old slimy railway sleepers leaned up at various angles which we had to cross, using between 2 and all 10 spikes of our crampons. No one had any unfortunate accidents, although there was a near miss when Claire fell over a tree root and then slipped on a muddy rock in her rush to get back to tea and cakes. 

After our chocolate brownies we set off back home. We popped into the Cotswold store in Betws y Coed on the way back and bought ourselves some ice axes. All the purple ones were a bit too technical for me (designed for climbing giant icicles and suchlike), but I settled for a two tone gun metal grey one with a slimmer head to fit my dainty little hands. 

An ice axe could be a devastating weapon in the wrong hands, and I hope that the Staffordshire crooks stick to their rolling pins which seems to be the street fighting weapon of choice these days.

We were glad to get home as we are both tired out, and my eyes were hurting from the cold wind earlier. After draping all our damp gear over the radiators we collapsed onto the sofa and haven't moved since.

We’ve had a really good weekend and hope there’ll be a bit more snow before spring arrives so we can test out our new toys.

Thanks to Darren for being the group photographer and supplying the photos in this and yesterday's blog!

Snow Hunting

Saturday 11th January 2014

Snowdonia Winter Skills Course

We had a surprisingly good nights sleep last night considering we were in a strange bed and had eaten too much dinner. We enjoyed a cooked breakfast before meeting up with our coach (Dave) and the rest of our group. We didn't really know what to do about the Darren and Sarah wager, as it turned out that we got Sarah right but not Darren! All three of the other people in our group have come on their own.

We started off with the usual 30 second introduction to ourselves in the context of a winter skills course. Sarah sounded like she was going to wipe the floor with the rest of us, after her 30 second whistle stop tour of living in Switzerland and "just wanting to make sure she knows what she's doing on the glaciers". Everyone else sounded like they liked going up hills in the summer but found them scary in the winter.

We went to the Plas y Brenin store to get everyone kitted out. We were quite smug because we already had our own crampons and winter boots. And even smugger to have got the boots as eBay bargains. Once we were weighed down with ice axes and helmets as well as everything else, we got into our mini bus and off we went. Well, after a few false starts as Dave was having a spot of bother with the clutch. He blamed the seat position, whereas I would have laid the blame firmly on the stiff soled winter boots, but we got going eventually.

Dave seemed pretty confident that he knew where there'd be some snow, and pulled up a few miles down the road, just before Tryfan. We set off up a lane towards a mountain called Carnedd Llewelyn. Dave had warned us that we'd have to walk for about 2 hours before we got to the snow, but it didn't seem long before we could see plenty of snow on the higher slopes!

After we left the lane we made our way up to a ridge towards the summit. We were surprised (and a little bit smug) to find that Sarah wasn't quite the action woman we were expecting, and that we were actually far more confident scrambling over snow covered rocky ridges than she was. Anthony was pouring with sweat and had to push himself to keep up, but was obviously pleased with his efforts when we made it to the snow. Darren took everything in his stride despite having confessed earlier that he was afraid of heights. Dave was of course skipping from rock to rock like a mountain goat.

We got our ice axes out fairly early on, quite soon after leaving the lane. An ice axe is mainly for three things. Posing with at the summit, using as a sort of walking stick, and stopping yourself sliding back down to the bottom of the snow line if it all goes terribly wrong. In extreme cases they can also be used for chopping steps in snow, climbing frozen waterfalls and as a weapon if things turn bad on the hill. We will be purchasing our own ice axes ASAP, mainly for photo opportunities. I hope they do them in purple, to match my waterproof jacket and new hat.

A bit further up, we got our crampons on. Ours had come highly recommended by several of Claire's colleagues, and seemed much better than the ones everyone else had rented, as theirs kept falling off! Ours stayed firmly attached to our boots, and were yellow and shiny. It was much easier walking in crampons than I expected. I'd been particularly concerned about walking on rocks with them, as I expected to go skating across any smooth rock surface to a certain death below, but the crampons actually gripped the bare rocks better that our boots did.

When we were a few metres from the summit there was enough snow for us to practice some winter skills. Which meant that we spent an hour doing "ice axe arrests" sliding down the snow covered slope on our bums, backs and fronts, like children, and stopping ourselves from falling into the corrie below at the last minute by jamming our ice axes into the snow and grinding to a halt inches from the edge. When we were satisfied we'd got the hang of it, and I could no longer feel my hands and some of my toes, we set off back down for tea and cakes.

The way down seemed much further than the way up. I managed to get far enough ahead at one point to eat the rest of my packed lunch, which had been weighing my rucksack down in quite a taunting manner for some time. The lane seemed to go on forever and we were all relieved to get back to the minibus and to a change of shoes.

After tea and ginger cake we struggled to stay awake through a PowerPoint presentation about avalanches, and then it was dinner time. We shared a bottle of wine and chatted to some other students for a couple of hours, and are now in our room comparing aches and pains. Claire has hundreds of blisters and I have hot restless legs, which is far more serious.

Tomorrow we are doing more of the same on a different hill I think. Hopefully there will still be some snow left for us.

PS - for any mothers reading, the bit about the ice axe arrests was very slightly exaggerated. Please do not panic, I think our lives were more at risk in the minibus.

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Location:Snowdonia

People Watching

Friday 10th January 2014

Snowdonia Winter Skills Course

We're spending the weekend at Plas Y Brenin in Capel Curig learning how not to impale ourselves on our crampons, how to stop ourselves sliding down slopes using ice axes, and how not to get lost in the hills in the winter. We're both very much fair weather walkers, but it would be nice to be able to do some hill walking in the winter without the fear of sliding down the side of the hill to a certain and painful death, or getting lost on a snow covered peak because we end up following another lost traveller's footprints (like last year). So we've come here to get some proper instruction.

The course is on Saturday and Sunday and includes overnight accommodation on the Friday and Saturday nights. So we arrived late this afternoon, and after we'd dried out after carting all our kit from the car to our room in the pouring rain, and I'd broken the safe in our room within minutes, we decided to retreat to the bar where hopefully I would cause less trouble.

We inspected the course notice board on the way, and found that there are only 3 other people on our course, Anthony, Darren and Sarah, and couldn't help wondering if it would be Tony and Daz or if we'd be on full name terms.

The bar was quite busy, and there were no free tables, so we gate crashed onto the table with the most room to spare, which was occupied by a lone bearded man, studiously tapping away on his MacBook Pro. I was a bit peeved because everyone in the bar seemed to have better gadgets with them than me. I'd left my iPad in the safe (after dragging the receptionist up to the third floor with the master key to fix it I felt obliged to leave something valuable in there). I'd brought my Kindle and iPhone, but they're ten a penny these days and I felt quite inferior. Claire sat there reading a "Mountain Leadership" book and looking like a right swot.

We had a pretty average steak, but things improved when we got a free pudding as a result of sitting next to the kitchen door when the cook emerged with surplus food! We wouldn't have stood a chance if we'd been at the other end of the room. I read a few pages of a book about an American assassin but found myself people watching instead. I was trying to figure out who Anthony, Darren and Sarah were, and while I was at it couldn't help noticing there was a far higher proportion of beards in the room than I'm used to. Something to do with hillwalking folk I think. And that I work in a team of 7 women too.

After a little while we got chatting to the bearded man with the MacBook, who turned out to be Anthony! Not Tony, and definitely not Tone, but Ant is OK. We spent quite some time discussing Darren and Sarah, and narrowed them down to a couple sitting in the middle of the room, on the basis that all the other couples seemed to be part of a larger group, and none of the men in the other couples looked like a Darren, or fitted Anthony's socio economic profile for a Darren (he has previous experience in these matters).
None of us wanted to go and ask Darren and Sarah if they were indeed Darren and Sarah, or even Daz and Sarah. We decided to leave it until tomorrow morning as a surprise. A small wager is in place though.

Breakfast tomorrow is at 8am, collection of packed lunch at 8.30am, tea and cakes at 5pm, and dinner at 7pm. Somewhere in between all those we will be learning some winter skills and eating the packed lunch. And finding out who the real Darren and Sarah are.

All we need now is some snow.

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Location:Plas Y Brenin, Capel Curig