Friday 5 December 2008

Lakes, 3/12/08


Up early to a beautiful day, snow on the peaks. 

Set off from Braithwaite and hiked up Stile end and Outerside. Icey to begin with, gradually turning to more ankle deep snow. Saw a couple of locals who were coming down the hill with walking axes, and saw the prints of a fell runner in mudclaws, who had evidently been coming down Stile End at one hell of a pace. 

Going across the valley from Outerside to the saddle between Sail and Causey Pike was really like being in the Alps, knee deep snow, and proper heavy footing. 

After getting to the saddle, we headed east to get Causey Pike, and then retraced our steps to get to Sail- which was a heck of a snow slog to get up- but made much much more easy by the fact it was a perfectly glorious day. 

After Sail, we headed up to Crag Hill summit where we sat down and admired the view, saw a guy with a pug that was scared of heights, and another local who came up, took a couple of pictures and then had to get off on the school run(!). 

Lunch was pitta and cheese, also oat bars, which we are trying as opposed to geobars- quite good, but harder to break in the right place, we went off west down into the valley- again knee deep snow, you could have boarded on- good powder as well, then north up sand hill to Hopegill Head, again, beautiful views. 

Finally took in Grisedale Pike on the way back down to Braithwaite.

An immensely delightlful day. Beautiful weather, a good 6 hours on the hill, about 18km, snow on the ground, and not a bad thing to say about any of it. 

Excellent.

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