Walkhighlands

After a mere 3 hours sleep, I got up at 6.30am and made the drive up to the Lakes from Oxfordshire.
I arrived at the Helvellyn YHA at 12 noon and quickly got ready. Scrammed down some museli and UHT milk and was off and going by 12.30.

I went left from the youth hostel and then headed up Sticks Pass. An interesting little wander up, next to a ghyll and what I understand is an old lead mine.


View from the car park, up towards the path up to the col


Birkhouse Moor on the left and the conical peak of Catsyecam to the right

I got to the top of the little col between Sheffiled Pike and Stybarrow Dodd and the light drizzle picked up a bit.
Over the little bridge and headed up towards the summit.


Took this photo down towards Ulswater, with Place Fell in the background and you can see the mine works in the foreground.


Up towards Sticks Pass

I got roughly half way up and the weather really took a turn for the worse. From this point on it absolutely hammered it down for the rest of the walk.
I made a brief stop to pull on my overtrousers and see if I had any phone signal. No such luck, so I carried on up to the summit.


Catstyecam, through the gloom, just before the rain came in hard.

At the summit I called the wife told her that all was fine, if a little wet. Then I got a message from the job agency I work for, so after a call back the woman that had called me was unavailable. Typical.
I quickly took a rough bearing on the compass from the map, but it didn't seem right. Then realised it was the compass I had in Scotland , and the needle kept getting stuck. Arse!

I orientated the map as best as I could in the clag and then took what I thought was the sensible path. This took me over several lumps and passed some mini tarns, to some pretty severe cliffs.
Being as this was my first solo walk in the Lakes, I wasn't willing to take any risks, so I skirted around to the left a fair bit and found a more flat route down. At this point I got out of the clag and got a good view of Glenridding Dodd. Took the path down to the wall and followed it along, scattering sheep all over the place.

Quickly legged it up Glenridding Dodd from the col and returned back, to drop back down to the valley floor.
The whole walk I had only stopped a couple of times, for a sip of water, but that was it. Made it back to the hostel in good time and got all my gear into the hostel, with a large amount of it going straight into the drying room.

Was amused to find the YHA had monogrammed pillows and sheets.



I was absolutely soaked! A good little walk, but it was smegging misserable. Hope the weather is better tomorrow.
A quick look on MWIS shows that its going to be poor in the morning, but getting better as the day goes on. Might do a small ish walk, starting late and that way I can go to Ambleside for some phone reception and chat over this job offer.

Just compared your map to my walk report from a few weeks ago and we it looks like we took the route you backed out of - past the three tarns and on down. Seem to remember it was a bit steep down (have a couple of photos of steep drops right next to the path) - had to guide/hang around for the less nimble (and have a couple of photos of steep drops right next to the path). Better safe that sorry though went you can't see where you are going.

Hope weather's is better tomorrow (although I turned down a lakes trip at the weekend - so will be regretting that it it turns out well for the weekend, but I do have things to do here).

A nice short walk that one. I was up there only last wednesday but did an anti-clockwise route from Glenridding so the steeper craggy section on Heron Pike was done in ascent. Oh & it was blowing a gale on the summit of Sheffield Pike & pished it down on the descent too! Hope you got to see the superb view down Ullswater from Glenridding Dodd. Enjoy the rest of your week.

A canny little walk that one, pity the weather was so bad as it has some great views. for the path down from Heron Pike on the Glenridding Screes side you have to double back for a short while to find the start. I can imagine it being difficult to find in the rain and clag. Hope you got some decent weather the next day.

Cheers fellas. Luckily I had much better weather today. Despite oversleeping........
New walk report going up in a moment!

stevesy - My map had none of the paths on, over Sheffield Pike. I could see the path down the flank, but it looked like it was going to be a steep descent, in the wind and rain, so I knocked it on the head and did a more gentle 'off piste' descent.

I'm sorry to say that the weather today was glorious, so you can now start regretting your decision to not come to the Lakes. Sorry!

Morcombe Monkey - Blowing a gale and pishing it down sounds familiar. Would definately have prefered to do that ridge in ascent in those conditions.
I was up and off Glenridding Dodd in around 6 minutes. It was smashing it down. Shame as I bet the views from there on a good day are great.

Johnkaysleftleg - Just couldn't spot the path down to that ridge. Plus it looked so steep. Oh well, todays walk totally made up for it.

Glad you got a good day today,it's a long way to come to get soaked all the time. Meanwhile i was cursing myself for agreeing to work my day off.

Cheers. Last night in the pub, the wifi kept going out.
Just got home from the Lakes, so I can now do the rest of the walk reports and upload the photo's etc.

Ok, photo's are uploaded now.
Now to do the walk reports for day 2 and 3......