A Winter Walk in Langdale

 After a few days off celebrating Christmas & a bit too much festive food, I decided to have a day up in the high fells to walk off the mince pies. I'd heard there was snow on the tops, so put my new ice spikes in my rucksack to give them their inaugural outing.

I arrived at the New Dungeon Ghyll National Trust car park, in the shadow of the Langdale Pikes, just before 8:30am, and was the third car on the car park. I booted up & set off walking.

For a short distance I followed the Stickle Ghyll path, before veering off to the left to follow the Dungeon Ghyll path which contoured the southern face of Langdale fell before 'topping out' at the Langdale Pikes.

Although one of the quieter routes, the path was straight forward enough to follow. About 2/3rd of the way up I started to reach the snow line. Sheltered parts of the path were icy, so I took care to side-step the worst parts. As I gained altitude, I started to come across patches of snow on the ground, and the higher I went, the more covering of snow there was until eventually the landscape ahead was covered. The stone path leading up past Gimmer Crag was more or less completely iced over, so stopped to put on my ice spikes.

I was instantly surprised with how much grip they gave on icy surfaces, and continued onward and upwards. Gusts of ice-cold wind blew down the path up the gully, so, with my hood-up I ventured on, and after no time at all I topped out onto the Langdale fell plateau - an area known as Harrison Combe. Surrounding me were the mighty Langdale Pikes - Pavey Ark, Harrison Stickle, Pike O' Stickle, Loft Crag, and my first summit of the day - Thorn Crag.

Although not a Wainwright, it is one of the peaks that makes up the Langdale Pikes - so needed to be 'ticked off' for completeness. It was a short ramble through ankle-deep snow to the cairn, before I turned tail to the next summit of Loft Crag (2,270 ft).

It was a cracking view from here - 360 degree views over to Bowfell, and a cloudy Scafell Pike in the west, Crinkle Crags and over to the snow covered Coniston fells in the south. In the east was the expanse of Windermere, untouched by snow, gleaming in the morning sun.

The next stop was a summit I had previously conquered back in July 2016 - Pike O' Stickle (2,323 ft) - this is a small, almost dome-shaped peak, which is great fun to get up, as it involves a bit of scrambling. On the way, I met a chap who had actually camped out overnight on its summit!

Its covering of snow gave it the look of a Tunnock's Snowball cake. Making my way carefully up the path and over the rocks I reached the small top and had a short break to have a drink of hot chocolate from my flask & take a few photo's of the views.

I descended from the peak back to the Langdale fell plateau, following the well trodden, albeit snow covered path across Harrison Combe before turning 'off-piste' across the lower flanks of Harrison Stickle and onwards to Thunacar Knott (2,351 ft). This is a wide hill just off-centre of the plateau. It is really quite featureless, and mainly visited en route to High Raise - the highest peak in the Central Fells, although the covering of snow made the hike alot more interesting, wading through shin-deep snow in places!

A brief stop at the summit cairn, and the next stop was in sight - High Raise (2,500 ft) - just a mile away across a wide, shallow depression. I followed the path which heads north, and only actually ascends 200 feet. Being the highest fell in this part of the Lake District - the views across all the Lakeland massif's were amazing. Skiddaw and Keswick to the north, Helvellyn to the east, the Langdale Pikes & Coniston fells to the south, and to the west, over the Langstrath valley were the Scafells, and the Grasmoor group to the north west.

After another short break to take some photographs & a few more gulps of hot chocolate, I followed the snowy footsteps heading south east which were the path towards my final peak of the day - Sergeant Man (2,414 ft).

I had attempted to get to this peak back in February - that time I approached from Grasmere via the Silver Howe & Blea Rigg ridge - it was snowy on that day as well, and bitingly cold, but low cloud & dodgy conditions meant the views were nothing like today. Last time I had to turn back & never made it to the summit - this time would be different...

The walk was lovely, following the footsteps in the path, past a frozen tarn with snow blowing across it in 'waves', to interesting patterns that the wind had 'carved' in the soft snow. (Which I have since found out are called 'sastrugi').

There were parts of the path where the wind had covered the footprints with snow, but with the dome of Sergeant Man straight ahead navigation wouldn't be a problem.

I had noticed that my ice spikes had started to clog up slightly with snow & grass from the ground, and had started to freeze over, so I stopped for a minute to clear the spikes before heading onwards.

Sergeant Man reminded me of a smaller version of Pike O'Stickle - both were dome-shaped, and had short scramble sections to get to the top. The summit area was also quite small, but the view from the top was stunning.

To the south, the mountain dropped away down some precipitous cliffs, and straight in front were the hulking crags of Pavey Ark and Harrison Stickle like a huge amphitheatre around Stickle Tarn below. This was a stunning spot to stop and grab some lunch - some left-overs from the Boxing Day buffet, and finished off with the last of the (still) hot chocolate.

Once again I followed the footsteps making the path off the mountain, decending towards Stickle Tarn. At some point I must have ended up following the wrong footprints, or ended up following a sheep-trail as the path was virtually non-existant. I carefully descended off the lower flanks of Sergeant Man, truding through the snow & ran into a small group of Herdwick Sheep before eventually meeting up with the path at the bottom.

From there the path was clear, but icy, and lead me round to the dam at Stickle Tarn. The sun was starting to weigh heavy in the sky - sunset was maybe an hour off - and was casting a gorgeous light on the fells.

From Stickle Tarn I made my final descent down the path by Stickle Ghyll, removing my well-invested ice spikes just before I left the snowy conditions behind.

It was surprising that, back at the car park, and on the journey home, there was no trace of snow on the ground - making the high fells even more of a magical 'hidden world' to explore.

Mark