SALE & LING - NORTH WESTERN FELLS

[susanmyatt]

We were stopping in Ambleside on the slopes of Wansfell Pike and from the balcony of the house we had seen the snow falling on the Fairfield Horseshoe, there looked plenty of it and we had planned to go to Grasmere and walk Tarn Crag, Sergeant Man and Blea Rigg. With my husband being cramponless and not sure if the weather was going to deteriorate we decided to knock off a couple of smaller fells thinking the lower part of the fells may be snowfree. We travelled up north and soon saw the extent of the snowfall, it was down to ground level over Dunmail Raise. We stopped a few times on route to take pics.

Helm Crag

Towards Raven Crag

Looking up St.John's to Blencathra

We drove around Bassenthwaite through Wythop Mill and parked at Brumston Bridge, room for half a dozen cars here. We were soon heading up east to Kelswick Farm and Sale Fell, the road was very icy and the land well snow covered. We turned up by the farm and gradually climbed.

View back to Ling Fell

We were at the back of Whinlatter and could see The Lord's Seat and Broom Fell above us.

Broom Fell

The views to Skiddaw and Dodd were varying all the time and the area looked very menacing.

Skiddaw, Dodd

The snow was quite deep in places and hard walking

Snow!

Not a big walk to the summit but the wind was quite blustery now as we looked to Dodd and Latrigg

Dodd and Latrigg

We reached a windy Sale summit at 359m where there was no snow at all, strange

Sale summit at 359m

It was time to descend and there was a great view of Ling Fell which made it look bigger than its height suggests.

View of Ling Fell

We passed our car as we walked to Eskin and on to the foot of Ling where we started the steep climb in quite deep snow, no paths were visible and the heather buried in many places.

Climbing Ling Fell

It gave us a full view of our walk to Sale Fell.

Sale Fell

Again the wind was picking up as we climbed and it looked a bit bleak.

Bleak and windy

We were in knee deep snow as we reached the top and walked over the buried cairn to the trig point at 373m, the summit of Ling Fell.

Ling Fell summit at 373m

View to Broom Fell's large cairn

Grisedale Pike

Sale Fell and Rivings

It was time to descend from the icy trig point through the snow drifts and back to the car, two more to the total

On the way down

Ray Mears heads off !!!

[mountain coward]

Wow - those 2 look great in snow - funnily enough, probably 'cos they're quite small, I've never seen them in snow! They look much better don't they I really like Sale Fell and, as it's quite local to my caravan, do it quite often in summer - only ever did Ling Fell once though...

Love the pic of Hallsfell end through the gap between Clough Head and High Rigg (St. Johns in the Vale pic) - it looks really alpine. Plus the Ling Fell from the track past the side of Sale Fell is lovely and the one of Sale from Ling.

You were brave to tackle that road though!

[john923]

Well, fancy that, our paths almost crossed. While you were on Sale and Ling, we were doing Barf, Lord's Seat and Broom Fell. If I'd have known I'd have given you a wave! And the snow was fun too - didn't expect all that when we booked up our few days away a fortnight before.
Like your photos too - we've got some pretty similar-looking ones, best of the bunch being this one of Grisedale Pike.
John

Grisedale Pike from Lord's Seat

[susanmyatt]

We saw a few walkers on Sale but judging by the size of Broom Fells cairn to us, you would have had to have been about 12 feet tall on the skyline. We saw the long range forecast and it said light to moderate snow but it was nice to see it for the last time this winter,fingers crossed We did your fells last year from Whinlatter round to Graystones with that very steep descent back to the car park near the main road, pics in earlier post, have lovely weekend, the suns out.