Scafell Pike from Great Langdale - 14th February 2011

We headed down to the Lake District early on Sunday to join up with my Sister's family and celebrate my Mum's birthday. My Dad had kindly agreed to drop us off at the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel very early on monday morning. Our plan was to head up Langdale and ascend the winding path of Rossett Gill and hopefully explore the surrounding crags and peaks before summiting Scafell Pike.

The weather forecast had seemed promising. Although from 700m up was covered in cloud, we were pleading that as the sun rose, the clouds might dissipate and allow us to get some trad-climbing pitches in where Alfie could run up at the side. It wasn't looking great, and as we neared the upper end of the Langdale valley, the clouds grew dark and began dropping hail stones upon us.

We stopped for a bit of breakfast at the sheep fold below Rossett Gill. Armed with our helmets, axes, rope and climbing rack, we were going to need this energy boost to help us haul our gear up to Angle Tarn. By the time we reached the top of the Gill, the hail had turned to a steady flurry of snow and the ground up at this altitude was now covered with a thick layer of soft snow.

We trudged on past the tarn and noticed that the two hikers that had been ahead of us on the path were turning back with their little springer spaniel in tow. They had got up as far as the first of the X stone shelters according to foot/paw prints. Here, we decided to take another snack break, and some shelter from the now heavy snowfall. It was looking less likely that we would be able to do any climbing on the crags further up with weather closing in so quickly.

Passing through Esk Hause we continued upwards through driving wind and snow towards the second X stone shelter below Great End. From here we veered southwest and climbed up onto the boulder strewn ridge to Broad Crag. At this stage visibility was next to nothing. Strong winds were whipping up spindrift from the south and I was worried that the thick snow covering these boulders might cause Alfie some difficulty, as deep gaps were being filled in like hidden leg breakers.

He seemed to cope ok, although he clearly wasn't enjoying the spindrift, and low temperatures were causing his whiskers and ears to form icicles. At this stage now it was really just a case of navigating from one cairn to the next, I was trying to peer for the next cairn through orange brightened goggles which helped a bit. Shona was doing her best to shield Alfie from the elements while bearing the brunt of the frozen, whipping spindrift.

The top of England could quite easily have been missed out altogether had it not been for the fact that there didn't appear to be any higher ground. searching around for the summit shelter in this whiteout was comical! A quick photo of us and snow cloud and it was about turn the way we had come. I really didn't want to stop for even a photo as Alfie looked as though he could literally freeze solid if we did.

Finding our way back to Broad Crag and Great End was a chore also, as our tracks had since been covered with more snow. Cairns and boulders were a saving grace and once we got our heads below the line of whipping ridge winds, we were able to take in our surroundings a bit better even though visibility was still only a few metres in any direction.

Our original plan to descend via Esk Pike and Bowfell was totally out of the question. The winds from the south were too strong and it became important for us to get to lower altitude with Alfie. I was quite relieved when the X stone shelter at Great End came into view. Striding on downwards to Esk Hause it was  great to feel my fingers again aswell as my nose.

We stopped at the first X stone shelter to catch our breath and snack on some chocolate. You would never have known that we had stopped here a little earlier on from the smooth covering of snow. Slightly warmed up we headed back down to Angle Tarn where we came upon a lone hiker making his way up the way we had come. His axe, boots and waterproofs indicated that he was experienced, so I didn't wish to patronize him with weather warnings. I did however wonder as we continued down to Rossett Gill what he might be thinking as he followed our diminishing footprints upwards onto the ridges, and hoped that he had good gloves and goggles in his pack for his own sake.

Once over the brow of the Gill we descended the winding path again towards Langdale. Snow was now covering much more of the lower hillsides than we had noted on our walk in. The snow had turned from sleet to rain here and we took on a real soaking as we made our way back along the valley to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel.

A post walk pint and warm bowl of soup was most welcome as we warmed up in front of the hikers bar fire. After a while even Alfie began to cheer up a bit. (apologies to anyone who wanted soup after us as we had the last two bowls of the batch.)