Dec 30th High Street, Blea Water Crag winter condions

CONDITIONS: The snow is soft and needs to freeze hard to get it into condition. The ground on the summit was not frozen and it was very easy to break through the snow and ice on the surface.  The snow down onto Long Stile Ridge was just right for a winter walk!

With the forecast for 80 mph gales, blizzards and white outs the temptation to venture out onto the fells was too great.  With the wind coming from the south west a walk up the “sheltered” north east side of High Street was the best option.

Hawes water from Small Water Beck

Harter Fell North Face

Nan Bield Pass

Starting from the car park at the head of Haweswater and making our way up to the shelter at Nan Bield Pass was very pleasant the crags are unfortunately showing too much wet rock to be of much use for winter climbing. 

Rough Crag, Long Stile Ridge

A quick stop at the pass and off to the summit.  The wind picked up as we left the security of the shelter and the spin drift stung our faces like needles, after 30 mins we were on the Summit of High Street and with wind on our backs made our way across to the top of Long Stile Ridge.


The top of the ridge is banked out with soft snow, and my new Yaktrax XTR walking crampons came into their own.  The best thing I’ve bought in ages.!

Is this Race Course Gully anyone?

Blea Water Crag Panoramic

Blea Water Crag

A great winter day out and made it back down in time to join the traffic on the A66!!!

Dec 27th Snow in the Lakes

A trip up to Stickle Tarn from the New Dungeon Gyll Hotel on Thurs showed how much rain there has been in the Lakes over the last few days.  The fields in the valley are either flooded or saturated, and there is a lot of water tumbling down the streams. The snow line on Bowfell is high and any snow is retreating into the sheltered north facing gullies.

Bowfell and the Band from Harrison Stickle

The high gullies on Bowfell appear to have retained a small amount of snow, but I'm not sure if it'll be good enough for any winter climbing and will need a good freeze to consolidate any of the small amount of fresh snow that has fallen on the tops.

Bowfell Buttress 27th Dec 2012

Helvellyn summit shelter in winter 2006

Staying on the summit to watch a winter sunset is a real treat, but once it's dropped below the horizon a speedy descent is best as the temperature plummets.

Dec 21st: Lakes past winter conditions

With the current wet weather showing no sign of stopping I thought I would go back through my image library to find some pics from previous winters walking and climbing in the Lakes and the Yorkshire Dales.

Harrison Stickle and a frozen Stickle Tarn

Taken in the winter of 2010/11 with  a Hasselblad Xpan Mk II on Fuji Velvia film.

Winter sun on the south face of Gavel Pike

I can't remember which year this was taken but it was probably around 2004/5.

The summit of Gavel Pike on the left with High Street, Thornthwaite Beacon and Hartsop Dodd.

Striding Edge February 2010

 What a great winter we had!

Arncliffe February 2012

A walk over to Malham Tarn from Arncliffe in the snow.

The Old Post Office, Arncliffe

The local inhabitants were lying in wait

They were very friendly, but expected to be fed!

Wet sheep through the car window

And then it started raining May 20112 

Dec 13th Brown Cove Crags winter conditions

On Thurs. I went up to check out the snow  and ice conditions on Brown Cove Crags and see what possibilities there were for some winter images from the summit.

The crags are were black and the gullies were well used, they are in need of a good snow fall and a hard freeze to bring them into better condition.

The turf wasn't as solid as it looked and could do with some really low temperatures to make it a bit more usable without causing damage.

Blencathra and St Johns in theVale

The top of Brown Cove Crags

Snow conditions in the gullies were very easy, the snow is well used.....

Half way up the far left gully

Near the top of the far left gully

Brown Cove Crags

Brown Cove Crags from the road

Great weather and conditions at the top.

Dec Sun 9th Bowfell winter conditions

On Sunday we set out to check out the possibility of climbing North Gully next to Bowfell Buttress.
The snow is soft and not very well bonded yet.  The turf isn't frozen and what ice there is, is very brittle and comes away from the rock without much effort. 

The Climbers Traverse

We crossed the Climbers Traverse which had good snow cover but was a little soft and could do with a good freeze.

The final exit

We arrived at the base of South Gully and decided that the gullies were not in a suitable condition for climbing and opted to climb up via a large bank of snow that had accumulated next to the rock face on the left side of of the gully.
 Nigel the snowplow was sent up to establish the route through the snow.

South Gully headwall and cornice

South Gully cornice

Keeping to the left meant that we avoided the cornice that is forming above head wall of the gully. which has a nice fracture line about a meter from the edge.

Red Squirrel shoot with Simon Phillpotts

On Sat 8th I was lucky enough to go out with Simon taking images of red squirrels.  Not having done any wildlife photography before it was always going to be a challenge for me, I'm used to taking ages to set up my shot then waiting ages for the right light, but nobody told the squirrels that, so to start with I was missing all my previsualised images.

After a couple of hours I started to get the hang of it and as the day drew on I managed to get a couple of nice shots.

Standing around on the snow for several hours though froze my feet and I was very glad to get back to the shelter of the hide and get a warm drink.
A fantastic day, one which I'll remember for quite a while...

Images from Sun 2nd Dec 2012

Images from a walk to the  summit of Fairfield on Sun 2nd Dec 2012

Reflection of St Sunday Crag in Grisedale Tarn

The Helvellyn range from Fairfield

Hutaple Crag

Gully to Cawk Cove

Hutaple Crag

www.escape2thewild.co.uk

This is the web site of photographer Paul Horsman