Rivelin Evening Meet

The midweek meets season started at Rivelin Edge where Paul, Jago, Mick and Nidal gathered. Nidal hadn't quite got into the swing of outdoor climbing as he turned up with only his climbing wall gear.
Jago began by leading Face Climb No. 2 (HS 4c) and took the first fall of the season before completing the climb.

Mick following Face Route 2.

 Mick led Davids Chimney (VD) and Paul led Spiral Route (VS 4c) on the pinnacle to finish the evening.

Langdale

Up to Langdale with Paul, Colin and Bev, Paul was recovering from his hip operation and I was still waiting for my knee op so short walks were the order of the day. On Saturday with mist shrouding the higher fells we decided on Lingmoor via Side Pike the summit of which could be reached by a scramble. We set out from the cattle grid at the top of the Blea Tarn road and ascended by a series of scrambles which took us right to the top of the Pike

We carried on the easy ridge to Lingmoor and descended directly to the road to finish with a walk round Blea Tarn.

On Sunday we drove over to Little Langdale and climbed Holm Fell in warm sunshine the only disappointment being that our intended scramble was closed due to bird restrictions.   

 

Haweswater scramble & Fairfield round 23&24th March

A short trip to the Lakes with High pressure in charge! A last minute decision saw us stopping at Beetham cottage in Patterdale for a couple of nights.
Friday was fine and sunny with the occasional haze throughout the day. Our objective was to drive to the car park at the end of Haweswater and head up to Blea tarn where a scramble leads from the lake onto the summit ridge of High St.

A pleasant walk up the valley leads into Blea Water Combe where we saw our first Wheatears of the year.

The scramble is Blea Water crag gill grade 2** we omitted the 2nd pitch which would have been very wet and greasy but everything else was passable.

Overall it is a worthwhile outing lots of scrambling in the gill and its subsidiary overflows.

At the top of the Gill there is a short rocky ridge section to finish off the route. A further 20mins or so took us to the summit of High St and lunch.
Our next objective was a descent of Long stile ridge which overlooks Riggindale, which is famous for holding the only English Golden Eagle!
After plenty of stopping and scanning of the valley we were fortunate to disturb the Eagle from a rocky outcrop which gave us fantastic views down to less than 50m as it flew out into the valley.

Once back in the valley we had afternoon coffee in the Haweswater Hotel.

Day 2 took us round to Grasmere, we had decided on a route onto Fairfield via Stone Arthur and Great Rigg

Fantastic weather and views to match.
From Fairfield we dropped down to Grisedale Tarn and decided to include Seat Sandal as our final summit.

A steady ridge decent took us back to the A591 to finish another cracking weekend.