Whernside - absolutely the last PS

"The last PS" sounds like a 1960's Everly Brothers song.. Probably E, A and D with a middle 8 in Bm.

Anyway - My wife has just returned from a visit to her dad in Halifax and, as she does on some occasions, she came back to Durham by our favourite route through Skipton and the Yorkshore dales (8 miles shorter than the motorway and, generally more fun). And, as she does sometimes, she came back with a copy of the Craven Herald and Pie-on-Ear.

It would appear, from reading this paper, that two days after me and Mike climbed up the patch of snow, some poor lassie fell down it and ended up with a head injury and cracked ribs. It would seem that she fell doen the bit we'd climbed up.

I'm not all that surprised as the snowdrift building on the summit was filling in the gap between the wall and the steep scarp slope and, in hillfog and snowstorm, the boundary of the scarp slope was quite difficult to make out. I nearly blobbed off it myself. Its a bit unusual, though, to have this sort of accident on this particular hill which is generally considered to be fairly safe. Its also a bit unusual to attack it with crampons and ice axes....

Anyway, I hope she's all right.

Whernside - more pics

These are absolutley the very last you'll get of the Whernside pictures. These are some more sent by Mike from Go4awalk...

These could be the last snowy ones till next Christmas unless I can drag myself up to Scotland - nearly went a week or so ago... but didnt. But soon.

I think they're fab anyway.

Hands up who thinks I look a right wazzock in those goggles....

Whernside - another pic

Mike from the Go4awalk website took a bunch of pics on our recent Whernside "walk". This is one. If it's Ok with him, I'll post some more cos they're better than the ones I took....

But this is Whernside...y'know - the Three Peaks Peak. Its not somewhere up yer Cairngorms, its Whernside. Whernside!!!!!

This was a big snowdrift on the way down.... you had to slide down it.... I wish more winters could be like this - its 10 Centigrade now. Is the winter finished? (Not likely.....)

Anyway, I like the pic cos I look a bit relaxed and the snow looks a bit pure and white and cosy somehow.

And I've got me Aldi goggles on....

Whernside - in a blizzard

One thing you have to do with any skill is to practise. Practise practise practise.

And so, I steered the knipemobile to the layby quite near to Ribblehead to meet Mike from Go4awalk again for a bit of ice axing. The idea was to find a slope, slide down it in various positions, several times until tired and wet – and, incidentally, whilst trying to stop oneself sliding down the slope. And then climb Whernside.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of snow at Ribblehead. There was a lot of ice, but any snow seemed to be high up on the slopes. There was a fair bit on Ingleborough, but I just been up Ingleborough, see?

Anyway, so we walked up the path by Force Gill and then, at the foot of the last steep bit, we traversed along till we could see a likely looking bit of steep snow to climb in our crampons.

This we did. It was quite steep at the top and just scary enough to get the adrenalin glands doing a bit of squirting. Good experience, though, and if anybody had blobbed off, the run-out wasn’t too bad. I guess it was about three hundred feet or so.

At the top, it were blowing a right old hoolie and an attempt at luncheon in blocka/survival bags failed, so we determined to visit the trig on the top and then sod off forthwith. On the way up to the trig, the blizzard intensified into a grade 1 Class A sub class 7 industrial strength blinding blast. We tarried not at the summit, nor did we attempt a circular route, but put the wind behind us and went down the “up” path.

A lunch was had behind a wall and in a small snowdrift at about 500-ish metres.

We then sodded off and went home. At home, a further four inches or so of extra snow had come down. Wet, sloppy stuff, though. It’ll all melt.