Atop Striding EdgeA little late with the blog and the photos will be even later, but what a fantastic day Sunday was. Allan and I were back in the Lakes, Glenridding this time. Breakfast in Kilners Cybercafe is to be recommended. Could do to open a bit earlier but we were still off up the hill by 10 o’clock. At £7:50 a day, the pay and display is less welcoming. However, out of season, it’s OK to park on the adjacent coach loop for free.
The plan was to do the Helvellyn horseshoe scramble with a slight variation. We extended the normal plods up and down to include Catsycam and Birkhouse moor and also did it anti-clockwise. This makes a nice 8 mile trip with 3 Wainwright’s bagged for the day. The snow line extended all the way down to the shores of Ullswater and we encountered a fair few cars slipping and sliding their way up to the ski club hut. It looked like it was going to be a busy day on the Raise ski tow. Surprisingly, there weren’t that many walkers and climbers about given the brilliant conditions.
.JPG)
Allan ticks Wainwright No 30Although Allan has done winter walking before, he has never actually ‘tooled up’ before. This was to be his first experience of technical winter walking using ice axe and crampons. As he does not intend to graduate to winter climbing as such, he was reluctant to invest in B2 / B3 footwear and technical crampons. I was equally reluctant to take him on the edges in summer footwear. We could both see the validity of each others view and needed to find an acceptable solution.
The solution was to borrow a suitable axe off a friend and Allan popped off to Hathersage and invested in a pair of Kahtoola MicroSpikes. These were about 10% of the cost of a B2/C2 combination and transformed his bendy boots into useful footwear. Apart from cutting a couple of notches for added security on the steep bit of Swirral, they provided perfectly adequate traction for the whole trip and didn’t require the usual moving in crampons learning curve. In fact, on the final part of the descent where my 12 points became a bit of a liability, I was a bit envious of his effortless progress!
The solution was to borrow a suitable axe off a friend and Allan popped off to Hathersage and invested in a pair of Kahtoola MicroSpikes. These were about 10% of the cost of a B2/C2 combination and transformed his bendy boots into useful footwear. Apart from cutting a couple of notches for added security on the steep bit of Swirral, they provided perfectly adequate traction for the whole trip and didn’t require the usual moving in crampons learning curve. In fact, on the final part of the descent where my 12 points became a bit of a liability, I was a bit envious of his effortless progress!
So, I managed two cooked breakfasts, three Wainwright’s, two classic ridges, found a nice solution for introducing people to winter walking economically and experienced virtually alpine scenery. Not bad for a Sunday stroll.
