Blowing in the wind
The weekend pretty much panned out how I had wanted it to, and it was very similar to what I stated at the end of Friday's post. Saturday saw me blast through an assignment analysing and evaluating the performance of one specific area of an established expedition, and today, I ventured into the Lakes as a reward for the work I had put in yesterday.
I had been watching the weather forecast pretty religiously over the last week, more as a means of seeing what was in store for Friday's climbing, but also for what would be the best activity for a weekend jaunt. I had decided upon walking by Friday morning and when I woke up this morning it looked like I had made the right decision; there were patchy skies, some sun and no sign of the strong winds that had been forecast. More importantly, there was no rain or any sign that it had fallen overnight, which would have put that little niggling thought in the back of my head; "should I of gone boating."
The aim for the day was to traverse the Coledale Valley starting from Braithwaite and taking in Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head, Crag Hill and Sail.
On the summit of Grisedale Pike.
It was all going well until we started to make the descent from Grisedale Pike to the col before the ascent to Hopegill Head. The strong winds had kicked in and were certainly impeding walking. We put our heads down and carried on; it wasn't that bad.
Looking across to Hopegill Head.
We reached the next summit and then turned to make the descent to the col between Sand Hill and Crag Hill. The winds really had picked up now and walking was almost becoming impossible. If you wanted to rest you had to sit down so that you were not blown across the fell side. At this point I quickly scanned my map and found a route, which would get us quickly down into the valley, and away from the really strong winds; we sacked off our plans of reaching Crag Hill and Sail.
Looking down into the Coledale Valley. Force Crag Mine is in the bottom left.
The route from up high was quite testing at first in the extremely strong winds, but as we dropped lower and lower into the valley we felt the winds less and enjoyed some nice views down into the Coledale Valley and across to Low Force tumbling down the face of Force Crag.
Walking along the Coledale Valley on the mine road.
Looking back up the valley to Force Crag and Crag Hill behind.
We soon arrived back in Braithwaite and headed for a quick potter around the shops of Keswick.
More pictures can be found here.
I had been watching the weather forecast pretty religiously over the last week, more as a means of seeing what was in store for Friday's climbing, but also for what would be the best activity for a weekend jaunt. I had decided upon walking by Friday morning and when I woke up this morning it looked like I had made the right decision; there were patchy skies, some sun and no sign of the strong winds that had been forecast. More importantly, there was no rain or any sign that it had fallen overnight, which would have put that little niggling thought in the back of my head; "should I of gone boating."
The aim for the day was to traverse the Coledale Valley starting from Braithwaite and taking in Grisedale Pike, Hopegill Head, Crag Hill and Sail.
On the summit of Grisedale Pike.It was all going well until we started to make the descent from Grisedale Pike to the col before the ascent to Hopegill Head. The strong winds had kicked in and were certainly impeding walking. We put our heads down and carried on; it wasn't that bad.
Looking across to Hopegill Head.We reached the next summit and then turned to make the descent to the col between Sand Hill and Crag Hill. The winds really had picked up now and walking was almost becoming impossible. If you wanted to rest you had to sit down so that you were not blown across the fell side. At this point I quickly scanned my map and found a route, which would get us quickly down into the valley, and away from the really strong winds; we sacked off our plans of reaching Crag Hill and Sail.
Looking down into the Coledale Valley. Force Crag Mine is in the bottom left.The route from up high was quite testing at first in the extremely strong winds, but as we dropped lower and lower into the valley we felt the winds less and enjoyed some nice views down into the Coledale Valley and across to Low Force tumbling down the face of Force Crag.
Walking along the Coledale Valley on the mine road.Looking back up the valley to Force Crag and Crag Hill behind.We soon arrived back in Braithwaite and headed for a quick potter around the shops of Keswick.
More pictures can be found here.
Good lines, stay safe and see you on the wet stuff...
Iain
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