Blencathra

As you can see, Bruno was delighted to find a patch of old snow on Blencathra. He ate quite a  bit of it and then started on the ice on a puddle.
Old snow in November eh? Must be that terrible global warming….

I met the bro at Threlkeld in spring sunshine  frosty November sunshine and we wandered off along the intake path to the foot of Doddick Fell – a way up Blencathra from the South which doesn’t involve any derring-do or the potential for falling off anything. I hadn’t been this way before, so that was good and, it has to be said, it’s quite a nice way to get up the hill. Its also quite a good way for people who don’t like to be scared by their hill. Nobody dies on Doddick Fell, unless they weren’t very well when they set off. Or they’re standing in the way of a large inheritance.

Or they get struck by lightening, briefly, very briefly regretting that blasphemous outburst at the road works on the A66….
Somewhere after passing Sharp Edge, we started to come across patches of old snow. And then, a bit higher, there was a general but thin cover of icy new snow. There were also some decent-sized patches of hard neve. There’s not enough yet, though to warrant getting the crampons out. The ground isn’t frozen either, so you’d just end up sticking to the mud.

The top of the hill was shrouded in mist when we arrived, but cleared almost immediately whereupon it began to snow. This was not a good place to sit and eat a wensleydale cheese and tomato butty – nor a banana…. so we descended the North side a bit.

We lunched at the top of Foule Crag in a not very cosy spot and in a snow shower.

A short time later, we discovered that the cairn on the top of Mungrisdale Common is nowhere near the top of Mungrisdale Common, not that anybody is all that bothered.
Alf Wainwright’s inclusion of this bit of watery moorland is a puzzle. It has, though, resulted in a soggy path of a type more often found in my home Pennines to a small cairn in the wrong place.


We proceeded to the Cloven Stone – a distinctive rock used as a boundary marker – and then, with a bit of contouring, to a sheepfold. You can only fold a sheep eight times, apparently.

The track to Skiddaw house brought us back to Threlkeld.
Its cold up there folks. Take a hat and gloves. We did 8 miles and 2500 feet of mainly quite steep upness. Nice to see a bit of snow again. It’s almost time for that Slade record.
and here it is, merry christmas everybody’s having fun. look to the future now it’s only just begun –un –un…