Ticktockmy
Guru
- Location
- Crawley, West Sussex
On one of my winter trips in the lake district I had come off Helvellyn, had snucked into the woods at Wythburn and camped the night there, then in the morning was heading up Wyth Burn heading for High Raise, the weather slowly worsened and the snow become quite heavy, but nothing that a experienced mountaineer would worry too much about. When I finally got to High Raise the weather had really become blizzard conditions.
Hmmm what to do I thought, my plan had been to drop down into Langstrath and use the cave bothy at Cam Crag. But in light of the worsening conditions I decided to head for the Stake pass were it meets up with the Cumbria Way, then head down into to NT campsite at Langdale.
I was really chuffed as after plotting a compass course, and following it I come out to the Cumbria Way just yards form my intended point. The amazing thing was there were two young guys huddled there, as scared as shoot, because it was a virtual whiteout they were total disorientated, they seems so surprised when I emerged out of the clag, more so when they found out I was up there by myself, because as we set off down to Mickleden they asked were we going to wait for my mate.
I think they thought I was insane being up there by myself, to be honest I had thought that as well. But the point I am making is that ok if the person has the experience but not so wise for the novice. It is great to advise peeps that the forecast is ok and to direct them to the weather site and that the tops are clear of snow, but if they don’t have any experience, they will not really understand what it means.
All the time things are going ok that fine, but when the brown stuff hits the fan; peeps need the experience to get themselves out of the shite, those two lads where in trouble because of their inexperience, and I would guess they would have stayed there until the weather had cleared or they suffered from hypothermia or someone else had come along the Cumbria way.
Looking at the lake weather for Tuesday to Thursday it does not look so good, more importantly it says freezing at all levels. With 900m temps about 5 deg C. winds in the range 48 to 65 km/h
Wind chill factors will be about -20 to -30+ deg C not so good if you don’t have nice toasty clothes.
I would most certainly advise against going up above 500m at the most, that would allow them to follow some of the well marked trails, like to Stickle Tarn above Langdale.
It did strike me as he is at Uni, the Uni climbing club should have plenty of gear they can borrow..just a thought
Hmmm what to do I thought, my plan had been to drop down into Langstrath and use the cave bothy at Cam Crag. But in light of the worsening conditions I decided to head for the Stake pass were it meets up with the Cumbria Way, then head down into to NT campsite at Langdale.
I was really chuffed as after plotting a compass course, and following it I come out to the Cumbria Way just yards form my intended point. The amazing thing was there were two young guys huddled there, as scared as shoot, because it was a virtual whiteout they were total disorientated, they seems so surprised when I emerged out of the clag, more so when they found out I was up there by myself, because as we set off down to Mickleden they asked were we going to wait for my mate.
I think they thought I was insane being up there by myself, to be honest I had thought that as well. But the point I am making is that ok if the person has the experience but not so wise for the novice. It is great to advise peeps that the forecast is ok and to direct them to the weather site and that the tops are clear of snow, but if they don’t have any experience, they will not really understand what it means.
All the time things are going ok that fine, but when the brown stuff hits the fan; peeps need the experience to get themselves out of the shite, those two lads where in trouble because of their inexperience, and I would guess they would have stayed there until the weather had cleared or they suffered from hypothermia or someone else had come along the Cumbria way.
Looking at the lake weather for Tuesday to Thursday it does not look so good, more importantly it says freezing at all levels. With 900m temps about 5 deg C. winds in the range 48 to 65 km/h
Wind chill factors will be about -20 to -30+ deg C not so good if you don’t have nice toasty clothes.
I would most certainly advise against going up above 500m at the most, that would allow them to follow some of the well marked trails, like to Stickle Tarn above Langdale.
It did strike me as he is at Uni, the Uni climbing club should have plenty of gear they can borrow..just a thought
