Hail Langdale - Photo Gallery

It was frosty at home and I had to scrape ice off my windscreen before setting off; there was a clear blue sky but there were big clouds on the horizon. It started to rain as I was still on the motorway, the rain got heavier and turned to hail showers in Cumbria making the road surface white and dangerous on a couple of stretches of the A591. It was raining hard as I got to Ambleside and turned left towards Langdale; when I got to Chapel Stile I had a tortuously slow journey for a mile following a group of young bullocks being reluctantly herded along the narrow road.

It was raining hard when I parked at the Old Dungeon Ghyll hotel and the hills were white from about half way up to the mist, It might be an interesting day; I was glad I packed my winter bag and brought along my ice axe. It isn't often I start walking in full winter gear but the conditions were pretty bad even at valley level. I started walking on the road and turned onto the path into the grounds of the Great Langdale camp site; the path goes around the edge of the field and exits at the back of the site before it starts to climb towards Side Pike.

It was raining hard and my gloves were in danger of becoming saturated; it was a good opportunity to see if my new over-mitts would keep my hands dry. I walked up the reconstructed zigzag path and at the top of the first rise I reached a stile where the path comes close to the road at a cattle grid. With the conditions being so bad I held a route-planning meeting; the weather was going to be atrocious all day so I had to revise my route and plan for escape routes in the event of having to cut short the walk.

I crossed the stile and the road to follow a vague path in the direction of the very visible path towards Pike o' Blisco; in trying not to lose height I had to cross very wet ground and swollen streams in order to get to the main path. As it starts to climb the path has been reconstructed; this route is always a plod but it was even more so with keeping my head down to keep the cold rain out of my face. The rain turned to hail but it remained exceedingly wet and my three pairs of gloves were failing to keep my hands dry.

I reached a point where there was hail lying on the path; I had to be careful on the wet, slippery rocks and walking on the grass was no better, it was time to use my ice axe. It isn't really what ice axes were designed for but the first cold, wet days of winter can be as dangerously slippery as ice. I was beginning to wonder if I should carry on; the conditions were dreadful, the conditions underfoot were difficult and my hands were getting very wet. The mitts had proved themselves to be as useless as all my other waterproof gloves; twenty minutes of Lake District rain makes a mockery of the word “waterproof”.

I reached the top of the reconstructed path; there is a pause in the gradient and there was a pause in the hail, but the strong cold wind was getting to my hands. I had to stop and change into some dry gloves; it meant that if they got wet too I would have no more spares and unless the conditions improved I was going to have to make an early descent. Pike o' Blisco has a couple of rock steps and a ten-foot scramble that you can't really avoid as well as lots of optional extra clambering over rock; the wet rock covered in a layer of wet hailstones makes it more of a challenge.

The wet hail deposits turned to something resembling snow and I was following footprints although the path was fairly obvious and there is a reconstructed section around the best of the scrambling. Of course I was going to lose the path, the white stuff was ankle deep and I had managed to drift away from the path and had to clamber upwards the best way I could find. I eventually did find path again just in time for the final short ascent to the summit.

The wind had become stronger as I got higher and as I clambered on to the rocky summit crown it was so strong that I had to crawl round to the sheltered side of the cairn. In the relative shelter in the lee of the cairn, I had a look over towards Crinkle Crags and it wasn't hard to decide that it wasn't going to improve. After being buffeted by the wind as I got off the summit rocks I had to make a careful descent towards Red Tarn; the gradient isn't bad but it is quite a rough descent even when it is dry. There were some footprints on the descent and after a while there were cairns on a reasonably obvious path but you have to take responsibility for getting yourself down safely in those conditions.

As I got down to the col near Red Tarn there were signs that the weather was clearing and I was wondering if I might be a bit too hasty making my descent. I was also not looking forward to the descent of my least-favourite path. As I started to descend the badly angled path down to Oxendale there were more wet hail showers; I was doing the right thing. There was a brief sunny interlude and then it was consistently cold and wet as I made my way carefully down to valley level. When I got back to the car the horrible cold heavy rain was not what I wanted while I was trying to get changed.

Andy Wallace 18th November 2006