Crinkle Crags

The Bible

The first walk of 2013 is here and with a fair bit of snow fall, even at ground level, over the past few weeks, it suggested it would be a good one.  Just me and Peter on this one and he came to pick me up at 6.30 am. Peter had bought me a copy of "The Bible", the book we were basing all of our walks on, with the definitive list of the 71 mountains we were walking. I was chuffed with that, cheers Peter.

We set off for the Lakes and the first topic of conversation was where we would go.  We had discussed earlier in the week the possibility of around Coniston or High Spy.  We narrowed it down to Wetherlam or Crinkle Crags.  Whilst I had done Crinkle Crags before, I had not dated it so would have to do it again for the record.  The route around Wetherlam may be difficult in bad visibility and as we got further west, the cloud was lower.  So we decided on Crinkle Crags.  We headed towards Ambleside and then took the turning towards the Langdales.  We parked at the Dungeon Ghyll Old hotel, had a quick pasty, put the boots on and set off just after 9.00 am.  There was low cloud and we couldn't see the tops so it looked like this was the better option to choose.

We walked through the gate and set off towards the farm a half mile or so along the road, through the farm and out the gate on the other side of the farm.  Just after the gate we could choose to take a right up The Band or straight on into Oxendale.  We chose Oxendale and walked into the valley.  We eventually reached a footbridge which again presented us with a decision to cross or go straight on.  We went straight on beginning to climb slowly.  After a short while we reached another footbridge and decided to cross this one and took a right up the hill after the footbridge.  Just a little further up the path we took our first bait stop overlooking a waterfall with a nice pool at the bottom.  Even though we only stopped for 10 minutes or so, we were getting quite wet with the fine mist that was in the air.

We set off again, climbing further and crossed the stream twice.  After only half an hour or so we were reaching the snow line and the path became difficult to follow.  Very soon we had lost the path altogether and we were walking on virgin snow.  We were continuing to go upwards though so in the right direction!  By now we were in quite deep snow and each step was taking its toll, onwards and upwards!  We could hear voices off to our right and knew this was the main path higher up the Band so we were veering over towards that direction.  Eventually not far from the summit we joined the path and reached the pass where we could turn right to Bow Fell or carry on through Shelter Crags onto Crinkle Crags.  

We stopped for some lunch and I strapped on some Yaktrax I had bought the previous week.  They are ice grips for your boots to help you get a better grip.  

We reached the summit on the second Crinkle at 12.45 but not even time for a quick photo as it was freezing cold, so we turned back and headed for the path we had come up on.  As we were descending now the snow was taking our weight and it was much easier on the legs.  However I looked down and noticed I had lost a Yaktrax off my right boot!  I had only had them on about 20 minutes.  Peter kindly offered to back track and have a look.  It was gone though!  They were only a tenner from Go Outdoors so I will go back and get the Pro version which has a little strap to hole them in place!

We continued to descend for another 20 minutes or so and came across quite a large number of people ascending with quite a lot of children.  It was the start of half term but a few of them didn't look too happy to be climbing in that tiring snow.

By now we had been walking in snow for about 5 hours and eventually we reached the snow line on the way down.  I seemed to get a better grip on the wet rocks with my Yaktrax (well my left foot was) so I think I will bring them for wet walks in future as well.  We got back down to the bottom of the Band and back to the farm for just after 3 pm, so quite a long walk but the longest part was ascending.  I was quite pleased with my knees on the descent today.

A good, snowy walk with a hard ascent in deep snow but an easier descent today. This time Crinkle Crags has a date against it and its officially number 41 out of 71.

See you on the next walk.

Pike O Blisco

With 3 tops down in January we didn't have a walk in February so it was good to get out again. My turn to drive so I picked Peter and Steve up at Steve's house at 6.00 am. It was wet at the moment but the forecast for the west in particular was good so we set off for the Langdales. I had read about Pike O Blisco in my Wainwright book last night and he described it as one of the few tops you could actually make out the summit from the valley floor with its clearly visible cairn. When we arrived at Old Dungeon Ghyll just after 8.00 am we could not make out the summit this morning. Whilst it had stopped raining by now, there was very low cloud over the tops. We had our Angus steak pies which Peter had picked up yesterday and began walking just after 8.30 am.

We set off along the steep road and began to climb quite quickly. After a couple hundred metres we turned off the road and followed the path up towards the top.

When we turned around we could see Pavey Ark appearing through the mist and Steve and Peter explained what a difficult walk that one is, taking in Jack's Rake. We stopped for a sit down and a cuppa. The cloud was still low but we were hopeful it would clear later.

I had in my mind that Wainwright had said you could see the top all the way up the walk which was clearly not true. In fact he had said it was visible from the valley floor (which it was, had it been clear) but not all the way up. The higher we got the thicker the cloud gotand it felt that the top was more and more elusive.

The last 200 or 300 feet were a scramble up short rock steps which added another dimension to the walk. When we reached the top it was very cloudy and sadly we could not see what would have been a fantastic view. It was just after 11.30 now so we dropped just off the top and had lunch, facing Crinkle Crags had they been visible.

After lunch Steve checked the map and we set off in a southerly direction looking for the path, switching to south westerly and we eventually picked up the path. As we descended it started to clear up again and the Crinkles were visible now. We had to decide whether to take on the Crinkles or head back to the car. Time was beginning to go against us and we knew that if we did the Crinkles it would be another late one.

We had 4 tops under our belts and it was only early March. We had also descended quite a bit to get to this point so it made sense to go back to the car.

I had done the Crinkles back in the 90's but I did not have it marked off my list so we will have to return soon. I hope it is a clear day next time however as the views will be spectacular.

It was a steady descent to the valley and looking back we could see Paragliders hovering over Crinkle Crags and Bowfell. We got back to the car about 2.30 and had a couple of pints in the Hikers Bar. On the way home Peter suggested a bag of chips in Kirkby Stephen, a great end to another good walk.

Next one planned for the end of March.