A great day in good snow today climbing The Crinkle Crags from the Old Dungeon Ghyll in Langdale, great views early on before the cloud came in on the tops.
We set off from the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel in the Langdale Valley just after 9am and headed out along the track towards Stool End Farm, taking the path into the Oxendale Valley, through the sheepfold and over the footbridge.
There seemed to be a good covering of snow today on the fells, mostly fresh snow from last night, the clear views so far looked very promising.
We were soon up to the start of the snow and ice on the path, just a thin dusting to start with and a few icy patches but as we climbed higher the snow cover got deeper.
Once above Brown Howe the gradient of the path eased a little and we made good progress climbing up above Browney Gill to the path junction by Red Tarn. There were some cracking views over the Langdale Pikes this morning and now we had a great view over the Coniston Fells, there was a little cloud starting to roll over the high tops now though.
From Red Tarn we followed the track up past Great Knott, as we approached the First Crinkle the cloud blew in from the south blocking our views, with it came gusts of spindrift and a little fresh snow, quite unpleasant when we were in the full force of the wind but the sheltered spots came as a relief.
We were soon scrambling up onto the first Crinkle, not much in the way of views today but there were a few glimpses down the gullies into Great Cove below us.
We didn't hang around too long today, and were soon off, descending towards the north. The wind was really blowing across the coll between the First Crinkle and Long Top today, the bad step looked pretty icy so we took the path around to the west climbing up through drifted fresh snow to the summit of Long Top, the highest of the Crinkle Crags, yet again there was nothing in the way of views today so we pressed on, looking for a sheltered spot for our lunches,
We eventually found a good spot for lunch, in the lea of a larger outcrop, even then it wasn't somewhere to wait around for too long, so after a short feed we pressed on, dropping down from Long Top towards the final three Crinkle Crags.
It didn't take us too long to cross the final three Crinkle Crags, all that was left now was a few ups and downs across the Shelter Crags and we were soon down to Three Tarns and dropping down onto the path along The Band.
As we dropped onto the track above Hell Gill we passed a group of three, the first people we had seen since Stool End Farm this morning.
We made good progress dropping down The Band, soon coming out of the cloud. We were surprised to see how much the snow had melted lower down during the day, it was almost off the Blea Rigg ridge to the east of us and as we dropped down all the iciness of this morning had disappeared, tonight's forecast is for a hard frost so it will be interesting to see what has frozen tomorrow morning.
The path soon brought us back down to Stool End Farm and the walk back along the track to the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel.
A great day with good views early on and quite testing conditions on the tops.
