Langdale Pikes - Photo Gallery

The forecast was good and I was hoping to see some snow; having been held up by slow traffic in Cumbria I abandoned my planned route and headed for Langdale in order to get on the hills as quickly as possible. I walked, or rather struggled up the icy Stickle Ghyll path until I decided that crampons were required. The ice was no problem after that and I managed the bit of rock scrambling without tripping myself up; as I got to Stickle Tarn the ice was replaced by snow and the ascent of Pavey Ark's North Rake. I'm not sure that the crampons helped on the steep climb, the snow was deep enough to get proper footholds without them and if fact they probably made it harder. I took the crampons off and put my gaiters on for the final walk across to the summit of Pavey Ark, it was not a surprise that there were no footprints coming up from the top of Jack's Rake. The walk across to Harrison Stickle was strenuous too, the snow was a foot deep and it took some effort to break through the frozen snow if I didn't have somebody else's prints to step into. There was plenty of snow to walk through on the descent from Harrison Stickle, and more footprints to follow on the climb towards Pike o'Stickle.

I decided not to climb the Pike, in spite of the brightness I wanted to get down before it went dark, given that the descent might be as icy as the climb to Stickle Tarn. There was no clue about the existence of a path but several sets of footprints led towards the general direction of Martcrag Moor. I should have taken a compass bearing but I thought it would be easy enough to find my way in such good light; I should know better by now but I made a completely random course across the snow-covered moorland. It was only after I got across the highest part of the moor that I saw Stake Pass in the distance and was able to make the large course correction to get there.

Stake Pass is usually unmissable but I walked past it, the obvious path was invisible and if I didn't know the place I could easily have carried on walking. There were surprisingly no footprints or any other evidence of a path to begin with and I used instinct rather than compass to start the descent towards Mickleden. As it happened, once I got to the reconstructed path to descend it was ice-free and it was a straightforward descent to the valley, the light was just beginning to fade as I got back to the icy car park.

© Andy Wallace 6th December 2008