Winter Visit to The Lakes; Blea Tarn and the Langdales.

We had arranged to have coffee and cake with Thomas before we left, but after packing and loading up we drove up the Langdale Valley to Blea Tarn for some photographs of the tarn with the Langdale Pikes behind.

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Winter Wainwright Challenge Day 3: The Dodds and High Rigg.

A clearer day again today and the cloud base remained above the summits all day.  Our route for the day was The Dodds and High Rigg.  We began the walk from St John’s in the Vale Church dropping down into the valley and then climbing very steeply up to Clough Head at the start of the Dodds Ridge.  The ridge was a rolling whaleback taking us over Calfhow Pike, Great Dodd, Watson’s Dodd and Stybarrow Dodd before dropping down to the head of Sticks Pass.  Views from the ridge were expansive from Bencathra and Skiddaw in the north to Helvellyn and Thirlmere in the south.  The wind had increased to gale force again, though nothing like as bad as Tuesday and was merely invigorating.

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Winter Wainwright Challenge Day 2: The Greater Fairfield Horseshoe.

Different weather today.  Gone was the wind to leave us with low cloud.  The itinerary today was the Greater Fairfield Hoseshoe; the basic horseshoe with a diversion to pick up the insignificant top of Stone Arthur, perched above Grasmere.  Insignificant, but a Wainwright nonetheless.  Once we had bagged this it was on up to Great Rigg and into the cloud which continued until lower down on the far side of the horseshoe.  Visibility on the summit of Farifield itself was very poor and with the pristine white snow, it was difficult to tell where ground finished and cloud began and, with the edge being corniced, navigation needed to be spot on.  We continued from the summit, up and down over, first, Hart Crag and then Dove Crag before dropping down to High Pike and then, finally out of the cloud , to Low Pike.   From here we dropped steeply towards Ambleside, but turned off to return to our starting point of Rydal Mount through the grounds of Rydal Hall.

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