Long Iced Edge to Skiddaw - Photo Gallery

It was a sunny day as I parked on the Orthwaite Road in the roadside space a couple of hundred metres after turning off the A591 Keswick to Carlisle road. There was still much more snow on the hills than I was expecting, I thought it would have thawed by now. Turn right along the road and almost immediately go through a barred gate following a public footpath, the landowners seem very keen for you to stay on the path.

The path is marked and quite obvious so there is little excuse for not sticking to it and quite soon you reach a gate with a stile on a good path leading towards Southerndale. Climb over the stile and follow the wall on your right, uphill until you reach a ladder stile then turn left, uphill again with a flattened grass path if you need it. You soon reach an area of unexpected standing boulders named Watches on the map, looking strangely out of place yet natural. There are a couple of what look like excavated shelters or grouse butts and it is difficult to believe that the whole formation is natural.

From here you can see the task ahead, a good rising path leading to The Edge, a nicely rising rocky ridge heading towards Ullock Pike. Beyond the summit of Ullock Pike there is snow and Skiddaw looks like a big white monster. As I gained height the breeze began to get fresher and colder, by the time I got to the rocky scramble on the final approach to Ullock Pike summit it had become quite cold. This was where the ice line was and once above the scramble the final path to the summit was dangerously icy.

At the summit of Ullock Pike I would have liked to have got out of the wind before I put my crampons on but the path ahead was too icy with a strongly gusting wind. It was very cold, the water in my drinking tube froze and there was much ice and snow and another 200 metres of height before I got to Skiddaw. As I sat on the summit cairn to put on my crampons three other walkers passed me and I thought they were going to show me I didn't need my full winter gear. I was thinking I might not get to Skiddaw today, it wouldn't be the first time the wind has stopped me getting to its summit.

Fully equipped and with my best winter gloves on I set off along the ridge and shortly afterwards found the three walkers sheltering from the wind off the ridge while they waited for the rest of their party. Far from showing me I didn't need all my equipment these local walkers who knew what was ahead decided they would have to turn back. It was with some trepidation and icy cold fingers that I set off along Long Side Edge, I would not have attempted this footpath without crampons and I had to keep exercising my fingers to try and warm them up.

As it turned out the wind wasn't half as strong as it was on Ullock Pike and after the icy summit of Long Side the going became less dangerous as untrodden snow covered the ground. I had planned to try and get to Dodd from the col but in these conditions I made a beeline for Carl Side summit, this is not the day to be adventurous. The crampons didn't really help on the soft snow that covered the rough grass but I had a feeling I would need them later.

At the flat summit of Carl Side the first signs of spin drift appeared, or should I say horizontal drift driven by the strong wind, making the place look very bleak and arctic. As I set off on the hard snowed-up path towards Skiddaw a couple who had reached Carl Side summit at the same time as me decided to turn back. Carl Side Tarn was barely visible, just a discolouration in the snow at the col. Skiddaw looked more menacing than usual from this direction, the horizontally drifting snow hugging the grey contours.

This path is steep and usually slippery with fragmented slate but today there is hard snow and occasional ice on the path, a set of crampon tracks and a dog's paw prints the only signs of recent visitors. This is what crampons were made for, hard packed snow and a good gradient, so much more exhilarating than grey slate. The wind was driving the drifting snow into my face but fortunately it was nowhere near as strong as earlier.

The ridge from Ullock Pike to Long Side looked attractively wintry until the drifting snow blocked out everything. I looked back down the slope and there was another walker following me, his struggle up the slope enveloped in the spindrift made a definitive winter walking photo. He too was wearing crampons and ice axe, the only one in his party able to visit Skiddaw.

I was expecting not to be able to walk along Skiddaw, I have experienced its winter winds before, but it wasn't bad at all for Skiddaw. The sun shone and I sat in the lee of the summit shelter for a bite to eat, gloves off and rucksack open when the drifting snow also decided to take a rest out of the wind. I had to make a hasty exit before I was completely covered in snow and carried on northwards towards Broad End.

After the initial descent on hard snow I reached a big cairn and another cairn seems to lead you off to the right but there is a relatively new fence in your way. There is no need to cross the fence, it is the perfect navigation aid as it takes you down towards Bakestall. At a col is all that remains of a stone building or sheep fold, a strange place to build anything, the weather began to deteriorate and I got the first real snow shower of the day.

You continue to follow the fence until it makes a right turn, you should carry on in the same direction for another hundred metres or so to visit Bakestall's summit cairn. Walk back to the fence and follow it steeply downwards, the snow is much softer now but I'm still wearing crampons because it can get very slippery. In the valley below on Great Calva's lower slopes there are areas where the heather has died back or never grew. The shapes in the pale grass amongst the brown heather look like creatures from ancient cave drawings, they seem too bizarre to be natural.

After following the fence and then a wall over increasingly wet ground you reach the Skiddaw House track at Whitewater Dash. I was again looking at the opposite hillside, there must be a way up to Little Calva and it was part of my planned route but I decided to leave that too when it started snowing. Turn left along the track for about two kilometres to reach the road, turn left and the car is another couple of kilometres down the road.

Andy Wallace 5th March 2005