Coniston fells,wild camp.March 23

The Forcast was naff at best ! “The temps at height 1-3c ,NW winds 25 too 45 mph cloud above 450m,heavy rain/sleet and or hail “

But with my opp date hopefully coming soon I wanted to get out while I still could,William was keen to collect more Wainwrights so we agreed to meet on Saturday morning 

As it was due to be so wet I left Maggie at home,but still took the Xmid2 as I wanted to try it some more

The waterfalls were impressive and the paths were all running in water or just sodden,it stayed dry from the village too close to Small water, when the weather found us,from there it was Full waterproofs  until pitching shelters at camp 

We chatted away as we finished the walked to the top of the Old man,from there we met the full force of the weather…toggles tightened…zips pulled up tight we followed the ridge Northwards 

With the weather being interesting we plodded on,then from Great How crags we picked up the west bypass path to Fairfield skirting. round to bag Grey Friar  “Outstanding in the panorama is the splendid eastern wall of the Scafell range “ Is how Wainwright describes it and I agree,sadly all I could show William was clag and the “Eiger stone “  

We then got a few small breaks in the cloud as i took William upto to look at the memorial crash site before,in strengthening even more,winds we got to Swirl how.We enjoyed the decent down the Prison band in a brief dry spell,before we started to ascend again on the last uphill 

Collecting water on route we summited our last hill of the day,Wetherlam,the wind and heavier sleety rain made finding a camp spot a bit more hurried 

Every where we looked the ground was sodden,boots sinking into pools of water and the wind constantly pushing us about….after a few loops of the area i took us down the East side a 100m or so and we found two okish pitches 

In our first good clear spell you could clearly see the white water of Henfoot beck,it must have been some site if you’d been in Tiberthwaite gill that day 

Our pitches were one above the other and after getting pitched and a nice brew on the rain eased of and we able to look around our camp area,before returning to our shelters for a well earned tea 

I now had chance to test drive my lovely new spoon,sold in the Ambleside Alpkit shop and made by the talented Aleks Kashefi 

Me and my spoon made short work of my tasty Real Turmat tea,one of my favorite with plenty of chicken chunks 

Now dry and warm and with a full tum,I looked out to see the skies had cleared so I snapped off some pics as I wondered at the wonderful starry sky above us 

A warm brew finished off the evening,the morning started of a bit meh,but then cleared out nice….proof the ground was completely saturated was evident by the amount of worms that had tried to save them selves from drowning by climbing onto the inner and outer of my shelter  

What a difference a night makes,it was still cool at 2c but the sun brought some heat,the wind had died,as we packed away and returned too Wetherlam summit

It was great to be able to show William the mountains we had crossed the day before including the views that he had been cheated off

I took us down to the old Red Dell mines as William was interested to see them,from there we cut down to the Cottages to see the big water wheel they have made,before a nice stroll down to the car

Tough day Saturday with very little to see,followed by a nice evening and some clear skies..an uneventful night…temps down to 2c …with a lovely morning and a nice back walk down to the village again