Another Trip Along The Corridor

The route this weekend was a slight variation on something I had done a few weeks ago.

Start at Seathwaite Farm, up Sourmilk Gill, across the stream over the wall and up to Grey Knotts.Then along to Brandreth, Green Gable and down Windy Gap to Styhead Tarn. From the Tarn it was up to Scafell Pike via the corridor route and then down behind Great End back to Seathwaite.

Conditions for pictures weren't the best as it was quite hazy. That didn't stop me taking loads though!

Heading up Sourmilk Gill

Looking toward Green Gable whilst sneaking up the side of Grey Knotts

Looking toward Dale Head

Poking around near the top of Grey Knotts

Looking toward High Crag and Haystacks

Toward Dale Head again

Looking toward Green and Great Gable

Looking toward Kirk Fell and Pillar, close to Brandreth

Green Gable, Great Gable and Kirk Fell

On the way up to Green Gable looking back 

Great Gable is great!

A bit of a jump along the route, Scafell Pike and Lingmell just before the beginning of the corridor route

Great Gable from the corridor route

Almost at the tourist path on Scafell Pike, looking back toward Great Gable

Too many people on the top of Scafell Pike, I snapped this as I made a hasty descent

Looking back up at Scafell Pike

Another view of Great Gable

The first half of the walk was fun, but the second half was a bit of a let down beacuse of the amount of people. I guess that's to be expected at this time of year. You can't have the mountains to yourself all the time but it's great when you do ! I bagged a couple of new Wainwrights and was out for 6 hours 30 mins, good training and also more for my mountain leader log book. Job done !

Fairfield Horseshoe 30/08/10

Well I have been a bit slow in updating this blog, this time due to technical difficulties. I upgraded my PC with Windows 7 and I have had to reinstall my panorama software and photoshop so it's taken a while to get everything sorted.

So the weather was looking good and my Dad had called me and asked me to take him somewhere to get some nice photos. Now usually when I take my Dad to the Lakes we are doomed with bad weather, this time we got lucky.

The plan was to park up in Ambleside and to walk the Fairfield horsehsoe, the route is below, its a classic!

Blue skies, sunshine and only a little wind, we were in for a good day.

 My Dad near the summit of Fairfield hunting for photo opportunities.

This was an experiment with black and white, its not quite the way I wanted it, the light wasn't right. I guess I will have to go back and try again at some point.

The route took us about 6 hours and 9 mins so I was pretty pleased with our pace. I'm off for a whole week in September and I'm heading for a massive hill bagging session in Wasdale so I need to fit as much training in as possible between now and then.

14/08/2010 - Return To Lingmell

Well after last weeks errors, I spent a bit of time refreshing my map reading skills and wanted to get out and test myself again. The weather was looking pretty similar to last week, I was hoping for low cloud and hill fog again.

The route. Approx 15km, 6 hours and 30 mins.

Well my wish came true. I arrived at Seathwaite farm about  9am and as predicted the mountain tops were shrouded in cloud. I would get my navigation test on the tops.

 I went through the farm and set off up the side of Sourmilk Gill.

Here is a rather distorted image of the waterfall, I need to work on putting composite images like this together!

The next photos are taken just above the water fall looking toward Base Brown and Raven Crag.

As I climbed higher into the cloud the visibility dropped to about 100m so here are the views from Base Brown and Green Gable......not.

From Green Gable I descended to Windy Gap and from there to Styhead Tarn. At the tarn the cloud was still low but not as bad as last week, this time I could actually see it.

After a quick lunch stop at the stretcher box, I headed for the corridor route. The cloud had begun to lift and this had revealed a near constant line of people along the route. This was a bit of a shame, on the first part of my walk I had the hills all to myself, ah well good to see people enjoying the hills, I still like it better when i get them all to myself . At least there would be some views!

About halfway along the corridor route the weather really started to improve. Big gaps in the clouds developed and the sun started to poke through. There would be no chance of repeating the navigation errors of last week.

The following pics were taken from the top of Lingmell looking back the way I came and toward Wasdale.

I reversed my route and headed back along to Styhead Tarn and from there dropped down into the valley and back to the farm.

I took this just as I got back on the corridor route.

I think this was one of the best if not most tiring days I have had in the mountains. I'm a happy chappy!

08/08/2010 - Scafell Pike and Lingmell............Navigation Fail !

The weather forecast was looking good, broken cloud and sunny spells. However I have learned over the years that the mountains make there own weather and not to entirely trust the forecast. 

The plan was park at Seathwaite farm and get my Dad up Lingmell and Scafell Pike via the corridor route, which he had never done before.

Well low cloud and limited visibility was to be the order of the day. Visibility was down to between 50 and 100 metres this made navigation a lot harder, however I was pretty confident, confident but untested.

Dad and I got up to the corridor route and along it no problems, however I made some basic mistakes and couldn't find the path to Lingmell. I was really disappointed. Well looking back at it now I know where I went wrong and have learned my lesson, just shows I need a lot more practice of navigation in bad weather.

Dad and I just below the summit of Scafell Pike.

Looking back toward Scafell as we descended

Great End is in there somewhere !

This is how the day eneded. As we got to the end of our walk the mist and low cloud cleared, sun and blue skies......typical :P