So, with a rare spare Saturday, and a good, if rather windy, weather forecast, off we went to the Lakes to do a little training jolly for our planned Lochaber outing.

The sun was blazing down in Patterdale as we lifted our way too heavy sacks (full camping gear, spare clothes, waterproofs, stoves, food, water etc - mine weighed in at about 15kg!) and set off with the hoards heading for Striding Edge. Within minutes we were sweating as the sun beat down and I regretted not putting factor 30 on, being the fair skinned northern monkey I am. Anyone who knows this route will know how much of a slog it is getting up the first couple of miles but we went past some much more lightly laden souls quite quickly, attempting to keep up with Naismith.



Martin looks a lot fresher than me!


and Me!


Up ahead was Striding Edge, not the place for the faint hearted, and by now it was getting a tad breezy, the forecast was for 50knot gusts on top of Helvellyn, this was going to be fun!



We set off onto the edge as best we could, plenty of others were up there and several looked more nervous than me. What didn't help is that Martin, my climbing partner, is a proper mountain goat and just bounced along the top showing everyone up, except the ten year old who virtually ran past us. The worst bit was having to wait for the queue of people in the wind


Some of these people were genuinely scared and, purely my opinion, shouldn't have been up there in the conditions.


This is about a bloke that fell off apparently


By the time we got to the end of the edge, the wind was of such force that it was almost impossible to stand up with the pack on, but there was no way I was going back the way we'd come, so it was left to down climb and then up onto Helvellyn



And this shot is from the other side, with the shopping centre full of people below, you had to shout to be heard now and the wind was really whistling over the top of Helvellyn, which you can almost see on the obligatory summit shot



The view was stunning in all directions, to the south and west, Scafell range and Barrow, Skiddaw to the north west, with Carlisle (?) in the distance and, I was convinced that I could see right across to the North Sea to the north east, is this possible?

From here we headed across to Nethermost and Dollywagon, quite often taking two steps sideways for every three forwards, the wind was deafening and was howling up the cliffs, but it was simply glorious. Before long we'd gone down the knee and quad trembler to Grisedale Tarn. A quick stop for lunch and it was back upwards to the last target of the day, St Sunday Crag.




It was hard going out of the shelter of the wind, but as we emerged onto the ridge, we nearly got blown away again and there was significant wind chill and I felt very dehydrated, I was to pay for that on the descent as my legs tightened up badly. The views down into Patterdale and Ullswater more than made up for it though. It was a painful descent as each step jarred and I was glad to reach the road into Patterdale. Not an overly long day, but a tough one, with sunburn and a good test, beers were in order!