Full Winter Gable - Photo Gallery

After a week of heavy snow across the country I was pleasantly surprised that the roads were ice-free all the way to Borrowdale; I parked at Seatoller and walked up the road to Seathwaite. I climbed up by the side of side of Sour Milk Gill; the impressive waterfall was almost completely frozen, it was likely to be a challenging day. Once I reached the top of the gill I decided not to attempt the gully ascent to Base Brown that I had planned, it is wet and slippery at the best of time and would almost certainly has been dangerously iced-up. I walked to the head of Gillercomb, I shouldn't have been surprised by the amount of new snow, but I was; in places the hard old snow and ice showed through the slightly softer covering of new stuff.

The climb out of Gillercomb was even more difficult than last week, I had to kick into the snow with my crampons and my ice axe went two-feet down into the snow without meeting any resistance. The climb to the summit of Green Gable was as steady as can be on snow-covered bouldery ground and the descent to Windy Gap wasn't as slippery or as windy as I expected. The scramble up to the summit of Great Gable was strenuous, as usual, with the added complication of wearing crampons, trying not to spike myself and not trip myself up. Having decided not to descend to Beck Head in the conditions, I walked down to Styhead Tarn, wearing crampons almost all of the way; the tarn seemed to be frozen solid, and Styhill Gill was almost completely iced up. I had to walk back along the road from Seathwaite to Seatoller, another good plan defeated by the weather.

Full story to follow

© Andy Wallace 7th February 2009