A wonderful day today on Great End climbing by The Band to the summit, a good freeze overnight gave us good snow and there were some wonderful clear views.
We set off from Seathwaite Farm at 9am and headed up the path by Stockley Bridge taking the path up above Taylorgill Force towards Sty Head. There was a lot less water coming off the fells today and there were plenty of good views, although Skiddaw and Blencathra were in cloud this morning many of the high tops were free of cloud and there were breaks of sunshine mixed in as well.
We were soon up at Sty Head Pass and looking up onto The Band. There wasn't too much snow on the lower section of The Band today but it looked like once we were above the top of Skew Gill there was plenty of good snow to be had.
We were soon up into the snow and it was much better snow even from the start today, a good crunch to start with and soon enough we were up on some very deep but well frozen snowpack.
We climbed up towards the foot of Cust's Gully finding a good section of steep icy snow on the slope and climbing up, cutting steps at first and then putting the crampons on to climb up to the top of The Band.
The views today were awesome, the cloud had broken off all the summits by now and we were rewarded for the climb with some glorious panoramic views of a snow covered Lake District.
It was only a short walk over to the summit of Great End, there were a few climbers emerging from the top of Central Gully as we stopped behind the summit rocks for a quick lunch stop.
After lunch we crossed the summit plateau and descended towards Calf Cove, here we dug a few hasty pits and practiced some more ice axe arrests. There was much more snow here than yesterday, over a foot of fresh snow in places, but it was much better for sliding on today and we got up a bit of speed on the steeper sections of the slope.
We had a short practice of some belay techniques on the slope before calling it a day and starting to make our way down over Esk Hause.
As we dropped down below Esk Hause there were some great views up towards Great End, admiring the route that we had taken today.
We descended down towards the old drove road, the snow here was a little damp now, but still in much better condition than it had been yesterday.
We were soon down below the snow level and on the grassy ridge leading down towards the wooden footbridge and the Grains Gill path back to Seathwaite Farm.
