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| Looking up to Knott Rigg from Newland Hause |
Looking down to Newlands Hause |
| We eventually arrived at Newlands Hause after
an interesting trip up from Braithwaite, the road was like an ice rink
in a couple of places, and made progress quite slow! As we got out of the
car we were nearly blown away by the wind, it had been a long time since
we had been subjected to such conditions and it did bring a smile to our
faces! (Are we daft or what?) Across the other side of the Hause we could
see someone coming down the side of Moss Force with the aid of a rope,
perhaps he was hoping for a good ice climb up the frozen waterfall and
was frustrated by the thaw that was now taking place. Anyway, we soon got
kitted up and set of towards our first goal, Knott Rigg. |
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| John racing ahead |
Knott Rigg summit coming into view |
| From the Hause the way ahead was clearly visible, a faint
path leading up towards the ridge line and as is usual, John set off like
a terrier soon leaving me behind. After suffering from the flu over christmas
and having a bad throat infection and a few days of sick at the beginning
of the week, I was feeling even less fit than usual! John soon disappeared
behind the first rock outcrops on the path to the ridge. |
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| One of the few rocky outcrops |
Looking back towards Moss Force and High Snockrigg |
| Whilst John waited for me to catch up he had
a bit of fun playing with the wind (Simple things
for simple minds as they say!) seeing how far he could lean into it without falling over. As we
carried on along the ridge the wind kept playing games with us, how often
can I blow these people over? I was thankful that the ground was not completely
frozen as any fall then would have sent us skidding a long way down. The
path was running along a nice sharp ridge at times, although the cloud
level must have been about 2000 feet the views down to Sail Beck on the
left and the road along Keskdale on the right were quite good. As on any
sharp ridge the sense of height and perspective were great. |
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| John still waiting for me, leaning into the wind |
Looking towards the summit |
| As the ridge led nearer to the summit the ground
began to flatten and soon we were on quite a large plateau leading towards
the summit. There was a lot more snow and ice about along here, but generally
the walking was good. The wind still very strong and the cloud base was
lowering. Soon the summit of Knott Rigg was reached, it was here that we
met the first other person of the day. He did not seem very talkative or
move about a lot, but then again he was made from snow and had little pebbles
for eyes and a nose! |
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| Knott Rigg summit cairn with it's own snowman! |
Terrible twosome on Knott Rigg summit |
| Because of the wind I had great difficulty
in taking a panoramic shot, when I set the timer on the camera to get a
summit photo it kept blowing over. It's no wonder that John got bored and
started to pull faces and stick his tounge out at the camera! So sorry
for the poor panoramic shot and John, keep your tounge were it is supposed
to be on future shots please! |
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| 360 degree panorama from Knott Rigg summit |
| The wind was still blowing like mad but we
could still see the way forward to the next objective, Ard Crags. So after
packing the camera away we set of and began the descent to the head of
Ill Gill. |
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| The ridge to Ard Crags |
Looking back from Knott Rigg summit |
| Leaving the summit behind we descended to the
depression between the two summits, here at the head of Ill Gill we were
at last out of the wind. |
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| Looking over the Newlands valley |
The path to Ard Crags from Knott Rigg |
| There are two things about the North Western
fells that I really like. The first is the paths, unlike other areas of
the Lake District they are generally neat, not eroded, and great underfoot.
As you can see in one of the photo's above the path up to Ard Crags shows
a classic example. Neat, tidy, and straight to the summit (Funny though,
on my map this path is shown as a dotted green line and not a white one!) |
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| The pool mentioned in AW's book |
Ard Crags from the pool |
| The second thing I like is the heather, it's the best thing
to sit on, have a coffee and enjoy the view (Apart
from cold windy days in January) In the depression between the summits we noticed the pool referred
to in AW's book. Today it was not dry though! John had a quick look to
try and see if ice skating was on the itinary (Just
to make Sarah jealous!) , whilst I went to find a comfortable seat amongst the heather for a coffee
break. Even though it was cold and windy and January we spent a very comfortable
5 minutes until the weather closed in. |
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| Looking back towards Knott Rigg |
The path towards the summit of Ard Crags |
| With the coffee finished we quickly set off
again up the ridge to the summit. By this time we were in the clouds and
it had started to rain and the wind showed no sign of slacking. (Hindsight
is a wonderful thing, I should have put my waterproof trousers on right
from the start as John had.) By now it was too late and pointless anyway.
With the wind and rain coming from behind, the back of my trousers were
soaking wet before I knew it. As we neared the summit there was a great
view down the head of Ard Gill, this looked like a good scramble in the
upper parts, noted for another day! |
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| The head of Ard Gill |
Ard Crags summit |
| Suddenly out of the mist appeared the small
summit cairn. No chance of any panoramic shots here so we started to retrace
our steps back to Newlands Hause.The return journey seemed a lot longer
than the way up. I don't know if this is normal for a there and back walk,
or if it had something to do with having to walk back into driving rain
and storm force winds! With the limited visibility the ridge of Knott Rigg
felt quite exposed. With walking into the wind I was now totally soaked,
with water dripping down my trousers soon I had wet socks (Should
have put the gaiters on as well!) Soon wet socks meant wet boots and wet feet,
not good! |
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| The descent back to Knott Rigg |
John disappearing into the weather on Knott Rigg |
| On a sunny day I am sure it would feel totally
different, but today with the wind trying to blow us off, so strong at
times that I was struggling to take a breath, it felt quite exhilarating!
Arriving back at the Hause it was time to dry out and think about what
to do next. With all of our gear soaking wet, there was no chance of walking
anywhere else so we settled for a drive back to Keswick via Honister Pass
and Borrowdale. After a quick look around some outdoor shops we settled
down next to a glowing fire in the Packhorse Inn and soon thawed out. |
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| Moss Force from Newlands Hause |
Ordnance Survey map of the area |
Sat in the bar enjoying a pint of the black
stuff we marveled at the people parading their newly acquired £250
gortex jackets up and down Keswick high street in the drizzle! I mean
you really need to be prepared for the weather if you venture out into
Keswick on a January day! John soon started to chuckle as he read the
summary of the Keswick Mountain Rescue report from last year. He was
intrigued by the location of the "usual gully" near Sharp Edge on Blencathra
and the number of accidents involving ankles (Believe
me I Know!) With
these accounts I feel sure that he was now not too disappointed not to
have done something higher and longer, especially in the weather conditions
that we faced. After spending a pleasant hour warming up in the pub we
set of back home again.
On Sunday night, as is a regular occurrence for me, I checked out Andrew Leaneys
web site and Ann Bowkers Mad About Mountains pages (Please
find links to these sites in the Links Page) to see where they had been. I was very surprised to
see that the Keswick Rambling Club had gone up to Ard Crags....nearly, they
turned back near the summit due to gale force winds. It was windy, but gale
force? Then again, we were cold and wet on the top of Ard Crags, but we had
a cracking time even so, just glad to get the first walk of 2003 done, only
200 more Wainwright Summits now. It certainly blew away any post christmas
cobwebs!
Above is a map of the area that those nice people at the Ordnance Survey
have put together for me. All I have to do in return is to display the
following.
Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service.
Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance
Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern
Ireland .
Now, how kind of them is that ?
BUT, if you want to see something REALLY good, click
on this link. Those very clever people at Multimap.com have done
something even better than the kind people at the Ordnance Survey!
Not only do you get a map, but at no extra cost to you, a no nonsense
aerial photograph, just click on the link and you get the photo, wait
a while and then you get the map in an overlay when you move your mouse.
I kid you not this is the dogs dangley bits, or as Charlotte and Sarah
would say "How cool is that then?" Enjoy ! |
