At Last! Eel Crag by the Ledge Route

There were ominous omens for this walk. It appeared, at first as though the curse of the ledge route was about to strike again. The MET office, at first, said “Little chance of rain” This soon changed to “light rain and strong winds” and then, a bit later to “heavy rain and gales” MWIS said “rain spitting in the wind and went on to describe, in blowy and scary detail about “ferocious gusts” of wind and an intimation that to venture anywhere near a ridge would be foolish in the extreme.

I called in the “Knipes Gambit” move. This is where the walker turns up in a different, less weather-affected place in reasonable travelling distance to the target hill and, if the weather proves fine (because it thinks you’ve gone somewhere else) - you can make a quick dash to the correct place.
Readers should note that this was not the first attempt to do this route and would, in fact, be the third within the year… (see, for instance, 3/9/2009 – Eel Crag You Jokin Innit?”)
In the end, by actually looking at the weather chart and ignoring the weather girl’s inane dribblings about it being a “wet old day” tomorrow, I discerned that the wet stuff shouldn’t arrive at Eel crag till well after lunch by which time target number one will be waiting in the bottom of the bag for target number two.. I might be wrong. It could be a gamble. But I called the walk “On”. I could have called it Dave or Norman, but no, it was “On”. No bimbling up Great Mell Fell for us. It had to be Eel Crag by The Ledge Route. Oooer.

Martin Banfield would be there, and two of R Kidd’s pals – Ian and Brian – so there were others to consider.

As it happened, it was a bit windy, furtlingly cold in the wind-chill department, but it only drizzled a bit just after three o’clock and it didn’t really start raining properly till I got to Penrith. There’s a lesson to be learned here. I must try to decide what it is.

But what of The Ledge Route? Well, its OK. It’s a good way to get up a hill – quiet, steep, a bit of a slog in places, good views, a bit of a drop at one point if you were to trip over your shoelaces…

We lunched out of the wind, monitored by a pair of ravens who were seen to investigate our lunch spot for scraps just after we’d left. As it happens, I’d contributed a few bits of Wensleydale in anticipation. (Cheese, not Hawes and Redmire….) and after paddling around the summit of the subsidiary top called Sail, we trotted off down a little corrie and bagged Outerside and Barrow – two little wainwrighty things which lurk in the undergrowth of the Coledale Round.

And so, after a short visit to the Coledale Inn, that was that. Superdawg didn’t attend as he really really hates wet and windy weather. Now he hates the weather girl and will bite her skinny old shins if he ever meets up with her.

8 miles and 3200 feet of uphill.

Why do BBC weather peeps use the word “old” all the time anyway? It will be a wet old morning, a foggy old night a windy old afternoon and a dirty old man looking through the window.

Thanks to Martin, Ian, Brian and John for the all the fun. I expect that Martin will likely blog something about this on his Postcard from Timperley blog at http://phreerunner.blogspot.com/

As Slippery as Eel Crag

As there’s been much ado on the news, most of it pretty hysterical, about some snow taking bits of the UK by surprise and giving the people who manage our education system an excuse to order a National Holiday. I thought I’d travel Northern England’s roads for, say, a 160 mile round trip and play in some snow with my crampons at the same time.

The results in some ways were a bit disappointing. The A66 was promising with ploughed-up snow walls on either side of the road just a tad over the roof height of the knipemobile. By Warcop, though, the landscape was green and in the Lake District there was just a light covering of fresh snow and some fairly big patches of old frozen snow. At low levels, it was green.

I met my brother at the little car park up the hill just outside Braithwaite and we marched off manfully, ice axes swinging in the light breeze to tiptoe up the Ledge route – a way named by that bloke Alf as a more interesting way to get up Eel Crag. Alf also mentioned an "easy" scramble just next door called Tower Ridge.

The route went fairly well for a while and we soon found ourselves floundering up thin snow with frozen plantlife underneath. There were times when the struggle became desperate and just a bit dangerous, so we strapped on our crampons and continued.

Somewhere quite close to the top, we bottled it at an exposed steep snow slope and retreated with some difficulty down steep frozen snow for a lunch by an old sheepfold.

Plan B was hatched. This involved a diversionary raid on the summit of Grisedale Pike via some lovely stretches of neve and quite a few bare patches.

On the way we met Ann and Alvar, my 2008 TGO Challenge vetters on their way down after traversing the hill we were struggling up. Nice to have a little unexpected encounter like this. We had a TGO challenge chat.

Grisedale Pike was hard work but uneventful and the path descends to the car park which avoid plodding back up the road out of Braithwaite.

The roads home were quiet and fast although I did get gritted three times altogether.

We’ll be having another crack at our abandoned route later in the year. Just didn’t feel right at the time. You have to follow your instincts sometimes. Due to the series of warm winters we’re badly out of practise with the crampon and axe thingy and just remembering how to strap the things on was difficult. But, if the winter continues in it’s current vein, we should be quite expert by April.

Incidentally, a few years ago my old dog Jenny chased a meadow pipit over the crag on Eel Crag. I had to carry her back to the car afterwards. She “fell” about 600 feet altogether and then climbed back up again. Remarkable. Cost me loads of money at the vet’s and I did learn the doggy word for B****X. Is it a plane? Is it a meteor? Is it a black and tan mongrel?