Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Yesterday we spent the day walking in the Lake District. We'd camped over at the National Trust campsite in Great Langdale, which was quiet and almost empty (I expect the crowds will be turning up for New Year's Eve though) with only about 5 or 6 other tents on site. The morning dawned grey, but dry and not particularly cold. We set off to walk over Crinkle Crags (859m) at about 10:20am.


As we climbed up the (steep!) path passed Brown Howe up to Red Tarn (where we got 'meh'ed at by a local), the clouds began to look a bit thinner and we started to hope that there was a chance of some views after all.

Even so, I don't think either of us were quite prepared for this though...
Looking back to see Weatherlam and Swirl How rising out of the clouds.

Just the tops of Harrison Stickle and Pike O'Stickle were visible, so the top of the cloud layer was at about 690-700m. This is what is looks like on a clear day (photo taken on 4th October 2004).

Almost a White Christmas.

The Scafells

This was our view when we stopped for lunch on the highest crag on the Crinkles - we'd come up via the Bad Step. Although I know the Bad Step is not as bad as the name would make it out to be, it is something I've always avoided in the past, but decided to go and take another look. There was still a wobbly moment, but I hung on and, not looking down or thinking too much about the size of the ledge that the toes of my boots were on, I made it up.

Descending into the cloud as we came down The Band, back to the valley and home.

I took a LOT of photos, and this panorama video clip, although be warned, it isn't very good quality and is a bit sea sickness inducing as I couldn't turn round on top of the pile of stones I was balancing on very easily!!

Windy

Not me personally, but the weather!

The wind seems to have been a major feature of our weather lately, along with some clouds and rain. We had sort of planned to go away camping last weekend, but our usually apathy put paid to that and in the end it was probably just as well, I thought, as I lay awake in bed in the middle of the night listening to the howling gale outside.

We had gone camping a couple of weeks ago in the Lakes, with the idea of walking up on the Langdale Pikes but having nearly been blown over a dozen times when about half way up the hill, decided against it. This was then... That day, unfortunately, the batteries on Rob's windspeed monitor had given up the ghost, so we had no record of the actual windiness that forced us off the hill. It was probably slightly windier than Grasmore and definitely windier than Mam Tor (these are our previous 'very windy' experiences).

So, this Sunday we headed out for a walk around Dovestones reservoir (11.7miles) which is a local spot very popular on weekends and bank holidays as you can walk around for a couple of miles in the valley on the flat, but it is also possible to scramble up the hillside (if you don't mind steep slopes, rocks and a bit of slime and sheep poo at close proximity) to walk around the edge of the cliff-like edges overlooking the reservoir. We've been here loads, but it's still a nice place to come and blow the cobwebs away.

Blow is right, we measured a maximum windspeed of 51.2 mph up on the tops with an average blow around 20-30mph. These strength winds aren't enough to blow you over (unless perhaps you are a petite little thing, which I am not) but makes walking pretty hard work and I didn't want to get too close to the steep drop. I'm not scared of heights, but I am scared of hitting the ground at the bottom...