A wild one!

There's nothing like an impending assessment to get one out when everyone else is tucked up at home!

I headed up into Brown Cove Crags today, the plan being to solo some gullies and see where the day took me.  50mph winds and a blizzard, with pretty much no visibility, put pay to that!

Brown Cove Crags in a blizzard

There is ice and old neve in the gullies, but it's lean and the guidebook grades probably don't apply.

There were a couple of keen beans heading up Central Gully which was in very lean conditions.

So i headed into the craziness and spent a good few hours navigating by compass, timing and pacing alone, coupled to that winds of 70mph, made it was a brilliant day!

The snow was being shifted around at a fair old rate, and any banks quickly had drifts behind them.  (Not in front of them as I always thought!)  Finding a reasonably deep one, I set to and dug myself a quick, little snowhole to get out of the elements.  I ended up getting my body out, but not my legs, I am 6ft 2".

Improvised shelter 'Lake Distict Stylee'

 ie: i reached grass before i could dig a good shelter!

Fisherplace Gill on the way down

It has been cold...these are rimed up blades of grass!!

And a rimed up tree.

Once again the Lakes has shown me that with enough motivation to get out, the worst days can be the best.

Ski Touring on Skiddaw in the Lake District

It absolutely dumped with snow here in the lakes last night, so we had to struggle out an get some skiing in.  The snow was to a low level, but with temperatures rising had gotten very heavy.

We managed to park on the Latrigg road and skinned from there up to the road and up to Little Man.

The snow was at first heavy and deep and then cold but hard to soft windslab which at times made turns pretty tricky (well for me!)

Heading up Slat gill and then down to the Lonscale traverse was a stroke of genius as all was skiable with care and enthusiasm.

 

Top day, not sure it’s gonna last though with temperatures rising.  Still you never know….

Ski Touring in the Lakes

It’s taken me a little while to write this up, but me and Stu had a proper mountain day ski touring in the Lakes last week.
There was really good snow cover, a bit hard, due to freezing conditions, but great fun non-the less.  The best and definitely funniest bit was skiing and navigating in a complete whiteout.  At one point i skied headfirst into a big bank of snow I just didn’t know was there.

Skiing up onto Stybarrow Dodd…we could still see at this point!

Looking West towards Keswick.

The Back (north) face of Stybarrow Dodd.  It was ICY!!

Stu looking very relaxed as always.

River crossing on skies…how did it all end?!

It’s gotten warm and wet since, but it’ll be back for sure and we’ll keep posting when it does.
Cheers
Mark

Keswick Mountain Festival

It's here again! The Keswick Mountain Festival is back and we're up to all sorts of cool stuff.

Ali was up Blencathra via Sharp Edge yesterday, and it even stayed dry! Today she's on Helvellyn via striding edge (in the drizzle!) and I'm off up Blencathra in the dark later with 12 keen beans for a night walk. Then off to the pub for chilli after...lovely!

Tomorrow there's canoeing in the morning and afternoon and later a moonlit (well probably cloudy!!) canoe treip on Derwent Water.

There's still spaces on stuff and it's a great chance to snap up a bargain and have a great adventure.

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.keswickmountainfestival.co.uk%2Factivity-providers%2Fquest-4-adventure%2F%23activities&h=_AQE4BT6y

There's also all sorts of cool free stuff to see and do in and around Keswick, so come along...it is going to get drier on sat and sun I promise!

Mark

Castle Rock of Triermain

Had a great evening at Castle Rock near Keswick.

We climbed a whole heap of great routes.

Via Media S 4a - a brilliant introduction the the style of climbing and amazing rock.

Gazebo HVS 4c 5a - a real delight of a HVS, well protected and a bit more strenuous at the start, then much bolder but slabbier and technical at the top, and if done as a single pitch 40m long.

Failed Romantic E1 5b - superb face climbing on amazingly rough and knobbled volcanic rock. Exciting and not laced with gear; but just the best.

and there's a whole heap more here to go at for all grades.

Enjoy!