High Rigg on a Very Icy Day

Thu 18 January 2024

During the last cold snap I met up with my friend Simon to do some hills.  We set off hoping to do ‘The Dodds’ near Helvellyn but with the option to downgrade if we didn’t feel up to the very icy conditions.  Unfortunately, when I saw the icy and steep starts to the likes of The Sticks Pass up to The Dodds, I’m afraid I chickened out and so we opted for High Rigg instead – a grandstand view of all the snowier stuff around us.  Luckily, this day I made sure I took my Zenith film camera for an outing!

Great Weather in the Connies / Merry Christmas

Tue 12 Dec 23

Our second and last trip away this year (what a poor year for trips!) and we were blessed, for a change, with superb weather on our single walking day 🙂

Not the weather on the day but the same walk…

Wasdale’s Greendale Round

Tue 3 Oct 2023

This was our first trip away this year!  And all because I’ve been having to clear out my mother’s house every fortnight since March (and am still doing so)…

We’d decided we must make the effort and get away and decided we just had time for a short 3-night trip to Boot in Eskdale.  The weather was fairly bad but it was nice to have a change in walking area as I’ve pretty much stuck to my own patch all year.  Due to the iffy forecast and it being mid-week, we decided that Wasdale might be quiet enough to get parked for a change – we hadn’t been to Wasdale for years!

Newlands Beck Gill Exploration

I’d been eyeing up the top (exciting) parts of this gill for ages during my ascents and descents from various parts of the Newlands Round.  Last year I finally got around to having an explore – I’d waited for a dry spell but it didn’t help with some of the waterfalls!

Hope Beck Exploration and Round

On many walks last summer, I was doing an exploration of Hope Beck and the round of hills above centring around Hopegill Head.  There was one completely awful route where I tried to follow a rake onto the ridge before Ladyside Pike which was visible from across the valley but, once underfoot, ended up disappearing into thick heather in which I had to flog my way steeply uphill.  The routes I took up the gill, however, were good…

Foaling Around on Walla & Blaeberry

I’ve recently re-discovered Walla Crag as an after-work walk (I hadn’t been up it for years) after I went up Cat Gill which was a completely new route for me.  Of particular interest to me though were two craggy-ended hills I could see from Keswick which I suspected were a trespass but wanted to bag!  This round has become a favourite of mine – not totally because of the mountains as you’ll see towards the end of the post…

The distant ridge of Dodd Crags

Place Fell a Different Way

Autumn 2020

Quick apology for the total lack of posts recently but, I’m getting so bogged down in running both mine and my mother’s house and affairs, I have virtually no time for anything of my own outside of essentials (and often not even those!) 😦

In Autumn 2020, Richard and I managed to actually get booked into the Patterdale Hotel (something which is getting harder every year now – even mid week) to walk my favourite Lakeland fells in my favourite Lakeland valley.  This particular day it poured down until at least midday but then cleared up – we waited till the sun came out and then set off!

Place Fell from Arnison Crag

Sheffield Pike & Glenridding Dodd

Tue 20 October 2020

In the short window when we were allowed to travel last year, Richard came up and we had a few days at Patterdale Hotel – this was really well-run with respect to Covid regulations and we enjoyed our break.  It was nice to get further afield – the Northern and North-western fells are local to me so I can do them all year but I was dying to get back to the more serious fells elsewhere – the Northern fells are pretty tame grassy affairs.

Steel Edge, Wetherlam

Wed 14 July 21

On our recent trip to the Southern fells, staying at Broughton-in-Furness, we decided to have an ‘easy day’ as we’d done 7 fells the day before on the main Coniston ridge.  I said that, as we hadn’t done it more than once (and that was years ago when I was still cowardly), it was time we revisited Steel Edge on Wetherlam – providing we could get parked!  Below is a film photo I took after our first ascent…

Eagle & Sergeants Crags, Borrowdale

Richard and I had a trip back to one of our favourite hotels for a short break when the lockdown ended.  The weather was mostly dire and Richard’s legs were very unfit so we stuck to short walks between the showers where possible.  This was one of the shortest mountain walks I could think of in the area and, as I hadn’t done Eagle Crag for years but had been looking at it each time I was down Borrowdale, I thought it would make an excellent choice for our second day!