Monday 20th December 2010
After more than three months without a mountain walk I finally got my walking boots out of the cupboard and came to the Lake District for Christmas. This was the fifth year running that I had been to the Lake District at Christmas and the second year with a lot of snow on the ground. There may not have been as much snow as there had been the year before, but it seemed a lot colder as I drove to Mardale Head at the western end of Haweswater Reservoir. I had been concerned that I would be unable to drive along the Mardale road, but in the end it proved passable with care. I started off walking on a great little path that I’d never taken before and passes the lovely Small Water, and the path was made even more enjoyable by the snow underfoot. After rounding Small Water I climbed up to Nan Bield Pass where I turned left onto the rocky ridge that leads up to Harter Fell. This was a tricky climb where crampons would have helped, but by careful manoeuvring onto easier slopes I eventually managed to reach the summit of Harter Fell. When there is snow on the ground I usually try to abide by a two thousand feet rule, but this mountain breaks that by more than five hundred feet. I may have got away with it on this occasion, but I shouldn’t really have been doing ridges like that up to Harter Fell in those sort of conditions.
After passing the summit I stopped by the viewpoint of Haweswater that Wainwright famously drew a picture of himself viewing. There I stopped for lunch looking out on the same awe-inspiring views as Wainwright saw more than fifty years ago. The snow, which wasn’t there when Wainwright was there (he wasn’t that stupid), and the clear blue skies just made the scene even more idyllic. Moving on I descended the slope to the Gatescarth Pass and continued up to Branstree opposite. This was an excruciating climb up a big grassy mound of a fell that made me feel all four months of my mountain famine. Eventually I reached the summit and explored a couple of brilliantly built cairns on the nearby Artlecrag Pike. A third stone structure, a survey post leftover from the building of the reservoir, is over a fence near an insignificant, unnamed top. Rightfully avoiding this worthless top I left the cairns and followed a path beside the fence all the way to Selside Pike, my second new Wainwright of the day.
Most of the snow that I encountered on this walk was dry and powdery (due to the cold temperatures), but occasionally I came across a mass of hard snow. At first this puzzled me until I remembered that there had been a heavy fall of snow in November which had subsequently melted except, perhaps, on the higher fells. These patches of hard snow were clearly the remains of the November snow and had to be treated with care as they could easily be very slippery. If I stayed below two thousand feet I would avoid all traces of this old snow. From the summit cairn of Selside Pike I followed a faint path down a vague ridge to an old corpse road where I turned left to descend all the way down to the Mardale road. This was a fantastic, but cold and tiring, walk, with weather that was wonderful, little wind and clear, blue skies that would remain for the rest of the week.
After more than three months without a mountain walk I finally got my walking boots out of the cupboard and came to the Lake District for Christmas. This was the fifth year running that I had been to the Lake District at Christmas and the second year with a lot of snow on the ground. There may not have been as much snow as there had been the year before, but it seemed a lot colder as I drove to Mardale Head at the western end of Haweswater Reservoir. I had been concerned that I would be unable to drive along the Mardale road, but in the end it proved passable with care. I started off walking on a great little path that I’d never taken before and passes the lovely Small Water, and the path was made even more enjoyable by the snow underfoot. After rounding Small Water I climbed up to Nan Bield Pass where I turned left onto the rocky ridge that leads up to Harter Fell. This was a tricky climb where crampons would have helped, but by careful manoeuvring onto easier slopes I eventually managed to reach the summit of Harter Fell. When there is snow on the ground I usually try to abide by a two thousand feet rule, but this mountain breaks that by more than five hundred feet. I may have got away with it on this occasion, but I shouldn’t really have been doing ridges like that up to Harter Fell in those sort of conditions.
After passing the summit I stopped by the viewpoint of Haweswater that Wainwright famously drew a picture of himself viewing. There I stopped for lunch looking out on the same awe-inspiring views as Wainwright saw more than fifty years ago. The snow, which wasn’t there when Wainwright was there (he wasn’t that stupid), and the clear blue skies just made the scene even more idyllic. Moving on I descended the slope to the Gatescarth Pass and continued up to Branstree opposite. This was an excruciating climb up a big grassy mound of a fell that made me feel all four months of my mountain famine. Eventually I reached the summit and explored a couple of brilliantly built cairns on the nearby Artlecrag Pike. A third stone structure, a survey post leftover from the building of the reservoir, is over a fence near an insignificant, unnamed top. Rightfully avoiding this worthless top I left the cairns and followed a path beside the fence all the way to Selside Pike, my second new Wainwright of the day.
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