I had a few chats with Darron Linney (@hillwalker66) through last week, he was out over the wknd so i arranged to meet up with him early on Saturday morning
I arrived early and parked up in Langdale,i quickly got changed and had my breakfast and was soon heading upwards in the early morning light
Turning around revealed some lovely dawn light hitting the peaks on the other side of the valley
Darron had camped on Cold pike and had brought his new Hilleberg tent with him, its a fine looking beast of a shelter...he kindly offered me a brew and then we were on the off, to walk along snow covered ridges
The views from the summit of Crinkle crags was a fine one indeed, as the fresh wind whistled the clouds over head...nice short clip of it on the video at end of this post
It was to be a spind drifty sort of day with the windchill up in the -10c range
After a lunch stop near Three tarns we plodded up the next slope to gain Bowfells summit, after a chat we decided to head down past Angle tarn and try a find a pitch along form Rosset pike summit
Its great to eat warm food when camped and wrapped up in nice down items
Dawn was late and bit muted but still gave some nice light at times
Sadly it never cleared out properly through the evening and night and we were treated to some hail and snow showers,hammered home on a hard wind, gusting 45-50 mph at time
Trying to leave no trace at our camp spot
The wind Sunday morning was a fresh 40 mph with gusts to 54 mph which gave a mean windchill of -14c,but the views were still good
With Darron having a long drive home we decided to stroll along the ridge then drop down Stakes pass and the stoney valley walk back out to the cars,a nice winters wild camp trip, done in good company
With my furry friend not able to make the fells anymore, i had to put up with my friend Lee's company for this trip, but he is very good company
We didn't meet till 9-45, but once parked up we were soon off, to make it a bit longer we walked down and then up over Snarker pike and then onto red Screes summit, before a drop to the pass and a last pull unto to the main ridge again
We saw and caught the edge of a few of the showers you could see roaming over the fells with many rainbows to be seen near and far. Once back up onto the main ridge of Dove crag the Northerly wind made itself known and had us reaching for gloves and zipping up tops
We picked up water close to camp and were soon brewing up each in our own shelter
There was some great light but sadly some cloud out in the west closed down our view of the sunset,so i wondered back to my shelter and had another brew watching the clouds race over the top of us
You could tell that the clouds were full of snow by the dark colour of them coupled with the falling temperatures.The first came in around 7pm and for a few hrs they were really heavy and intense.The hard North wind hammered them into our shelters as we sat and scoffed our tea , i had another excellent pasta meal form Bla Bland bought from Basecamp foods
A full moon could be seen behind the clouds so i tried to get a few night pictures as the wind did its best to numb my finger ends
In the distance and carried on the wind could be seen and heard the fireworks displays going off at various points of the compass
Dawn came late,as is the way of the short Nov/Dec days so id had a few brews before some colour had me leaving my down bag, and trying to capture some pics, sadly not much snow had fallen
The temp was just above freezing but he wind was up a bit and had a real bite to it
It was a nice dawn,until i walked over to Lee,s shelter to find him cooking bacon ! being a good sort i did get a nice bacon wrap of him
Leaving no trace of my camp was a little hard to do this morning
We wondered up and over Fairfield,suprised at the lack of people then we followed the ridge and met the first of the other hill folk near Heron pike,racing to catch the first of this seasons white dusting,the wind was still biting but the views were good
And then we were on Nab Scar and the sharp drop down towards the roads and as we dropped the temp rose up and it was a warm walk back to the cars
Heres a screen shot of the route and a short video of the walk, sadly it looks like not many of these blog posts or videos will feature my faithful hound Oscar anymore,as arthritis has taken a strong hold of one of his front legs, but i hope to get him out for a short walk and wild camp in a wk or two.....safe travels Peter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SouzESX3Fgs&t=28s
Ive put two links to video ups that at least one should work on whatever device your viewing on, as always best viewed in HD,for some reason you-tube seems to default to 480
