A great day climbing Scafell Pike from Seathwaite today.
Starting from Seathwaite Farm we made our way to the Stockley Bridge. The weather was currently dry and a bit blustery, but the forecast was for thundery showers, so we thought we had an interesting day ahead of us weather wise! We climbed by Taylor Gill Force and up to Styhead Pass. The tops of the highest fells were sitting in the cloud, but we were remaining optimistic that it would clear (a key piece of hillwalking equipment!) From the pass we joined the Corridor route which traversed up the fellside, and on which we gained great views down into Wasdale.
As we climbed higher the cloud did seem to lift, and the top of Scafell Pike did emerge from time to time. Soon enough we were at Lingmell Col and making our way up towards the summit. As we got closer to the summit we were walking on more and more snow, and it was actually still quite deep in places. We emerged on the blank windswept summit plateau, followed by the summit, where we did get views! Yay!! We hid behind the summit platform out of the wind, and to warm up a bit quicker we got into our big orange group shelter for our lunch.
After our lunch we descended the steep slope to Broad Crag col, and then climbed over Broad Crag, Ill Crag and down Calf Cove to the top of Grains Gill. All along this stretch we had fine views of the rest of the Lakes.
We descended Grains Gill back to Seathwaite Farm, and just as we got back into the cars it started spitting with rain, excellent timing if you ask me!
