Skiddaw in Snow

Distance 14 miles
Ascent 1125m
Weather: cold and clear

A birthday weekend stay at the Keswick Hotel, it had snowed recently but the weather forecast was for a clear, dry day, so we packed up a million coats and masses of packed lunch and headed off up to Skiddaw to enjoy the snow.

The path out of town was dry, becoming a little icy through Latrigg Woods and then pretty much snow covered by the time we reached the car park and gate on to the fells. A steady stream of walkers were heading up the path alongside Whit Beck, there were less takers for the path over to Little Man. Here it began to get windier and much, much colder. From Little Man we dropped down and up to Skiddaw summit, which was shrouded in a cold cloud of wind-blown snow.

Continuing northwards, the way was much less travelled and we followed deep footholes in the snow by the side of a white snow covered fence to the edge at Bakestall. Here we were at the edge of the hills, with views over to the sea and Scotland. The descent down Birkett Edge was very snowy, very steep. Once at the bottom we walked along the easy path for a while before stopping for lunch by the side of the path, the shelter from the wind and sun on our backs very welcome. I didn't eat much as I was feeling a bit queasy, possibly from the exertion most likely from my cold that with great timing had just started yesterday.

Setting off again after lunch it took a while for feet to warm up again. We passed Skiddaw House hostel and then along the Cumbria Way south. It was somewhere along here at nearly 4pm that we passed a group of walkers coming the other way, and the leading walker with a mobile phone in her hand asked us how long it would take to get to the top. What top? Skiddaw. I don't think they appreciated our answer.

The sun was setting and the snowy hills glowing pink as we came around Lonscale Fell and down the path back to Keswick. We kept our spikes on a while as the path was frozen and icy. I thought that I'd lost the lens cap off my new wide angle lens but by some miracle someone found it in the hotel and left it on a windowsill.