A good day today climbing Harrison Stickle and Pavey Ark from the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel in the Langdale Valley.
We set off from the New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel at 10am and headed up the path alongside Stickle Ghyll, crossing the footbridge and climbing up to the copse of trees above. Here we took the higher path, up the zig-zags towards Tarn Crag and then traversing below the crag, this path is always a good alternative to avoid the crowds when it is busy, it also avoids crossing Stickle Gill twice, quite useful when the gill is in spate.
We were soon up by Stickle Gill, the tops were clear of the cloud and there were good views across Stickle Tarn to Pavey Ark and Harrison Stickle.
We followed the path around the eastern side of the tarn, crossing the muddy section and crossing to the path alongside Bright Beck.
Bright beck was a little fuller than usual, but it didn't cause a problem and we were soon across and climbing up towards the North Rake on Pavey Ark. There were a few patches of snow on the path but nothing yet that couldn't be avoided and we were soon up above the op of Easy Gull climbing up towards Pavey Ark.
There was a little more snow towards the top of the North Rake but nothing difficult and we were soon climbing out of the rake and crossing to the summit of Pavey Ark.
There were some good views from up here today, only the highest fells were in cloud and there were good views down towards Wintermere and across to Fairfield.
From the top of Pavey Ark we took a fairly direct path towards Harrison Stickle, there wasn't much shelter from the wind to be found from the paths below the ridgeline so we opted to climb up and follow the higher ground on easier paths towards the summit of Harrison Stickle.
We were soon up on top of Harrison Stickle, the highest of the Langdale Pikes the views were good today, particularly down into the Langdale Valley, but the wind was a little chilly so we dropped down below the summit to find a little shelter to eat our sandwiches.
After lunch we followed the older path down into Harrison Combe and crossed to the path up towards Pike O'Stickle, after a short climb up the path it was decided that we had done enough for the day and that we would prefer to get out of the wind so the decision was made to turn around and take the path down by Dungeon Ghyll.
We crossed the beck below Loft Crag to meet the path below Harrison Stickle, descending by Thorn Crag, out of the patch snow and onto the grassy slopes down towards Pike Howe.
There were some good views over Dungeon Ghyll as we dropped down and we were soon down on the path back to the NEw Dungeon Ghyll Hotel.
A good day with just a little damp snow on the tops.
