Glaramara in deep snow

Saturday 24th January 2009

I was back in the Lake District to grab a chance of a weekend with relatively clear weather for a walk over the fells immediately south of Borrowdale, though with tops that I found were under snow with very deep drifts. It was really tiring trying to walk through the knee-deep snow and quickly wore me out; in the summer this would have been a short, easy walk, but in these wintry conditions it was long and exhausting. I parked just outside the small village of Stonethwaite (there’s nowhere to park inside the village), and after walking through the village I took a path that climbed steeply up the hillside beside Big Stanger Gill. This was the route that I'd tried to find last May but was unable to find it. Now I tried it in ascent and found that it is a fabulous route that climbs steeply up the hillside on a manufactured path that is old enough to be well bedded-in. It didn’t have the paving that they like to use these days, and is well-constructed as it zigzags up the hill. The path just got better and better as I got near the top of the huge gully where I was simply in awe of my surroundings and the path that weaved cunningly around the rocks below the crags, but all too soon the path emerged at the top of the gully and I was confronted by snow in abundance.

The path now disappeared and I had to try and make my own way to Bessyboot, the top of Rosthwaite Fell, but after a tiring climb up a shallow gully I realized that I was going in completely the wrong direction. It wasn't until I got to the top of a low hill that I was able to see that I had gone the wrong way and Bessyboot was still some distance away across the snow-blanketed, undulating terrain. It was at this point that I abandoned Bessyboot and settled for trying to reach Glaramara, bypassing the tops in between, but even that proved to be difficult. I have never done any serious walking in snow before and don’t possess any crampons or ice axe, which may have been needed at this point. While walking on level ground I had no problems, but trying to walk up a slope was very tricky as I kept slipping and my walking pole wasn’t much help, nevertheless I battled on and learnt to pick my route in such a way as to ease my progress. I found that the steeper slopes were actually easier as I could climb up them by forming steps in the snow and using my collapsed walking pole as a makeshift ice axe. The steepest section I had to climb was immediately below the summit of Glaramara where there is what Wainwright describes as a ‘rock-step’. Someone had been up there already and left behind steps in the snow-face, which I was able to follow climbing up to the summit.

This walk from Bessyboot to Glaramara was very difficult and could have been potentially dangerous. The terrain traversed is undulating, pathless and complex at the best of times and I was climbing it under snow of varying depth and varying solidity without the usual winter equipment of crampons and ice axe. Frankly, I may have been lucky, and if the snow had been just a little less soft I would not have been able to climb up to the top of Glaramara without having an accident. If I am to continue walking in such conditions I need to buy some crampons and an ice axe. I think one reason I managed to get to the summit safely despite travelling across such complex, pathless terrain was because I had waymarked the summit in my GPS last May so I knew where to head toward. Once at the summit of Glaramara I had my lunch, but it was so cold and the wind chill was so severe that by the time I left the summit my hands were painfully frozen and I had to keep them in my pocket until they warmed up. Another thing I should have brought was warmer gloves. Now I had a path to follow or I would have if I could see it, as there is an excellent path between Glaramara and Allen Crags, but I couldn’t tell where it went. Instead I followed the footprints of other walkers, but they sometimes didn’t go in the right direction, and at one point even led to the top of a ten foot drop. Generally this side of Glaramara was a lot easier with less undulation and shallower terrain, so in fact after what I had just been through, this was quite dull. I was able to follow the tracks all the way up to the top of Allen Crags and down to the false Esk Hause on the other side. There I turned left and descended the snow covered slope on the bridlepath to Langdale following the footprints of others through the snow to Angle Tarn where I turned off the main path and headed for the Stake Pass. Before reaching the top of the pass I turned off the path and followed my course of New Year's Eve by cutting the corner to the top of the zigzags on the northern edge of the pass. The snow had begun to deplete as I approached the pass and was thankfully almost gone by the time I reached the edge. Once on the main path through the pass I descended into Langstrath and after crossing the beck, I returned to Stonethwaite on the western side of the valley. I have taken the eastern side a couple of times before, including on New Year's Eve, but this was the first time I’d taken the other side and it appears to be the easier route, and certainly Wainwright agrees with me. This proved to be a very tiring walk on a complex fell, in very cold weather and with conditions under foot that I had not been expecting, and had never come across before. The ascent was great, but battling through the snow was just too tiring. I’m not a winter walker and I’m not used to walking in these sorts of conditions, so I should avoid them in future unless I have the right equipment.