The weather gods smile favourably on us for most of our weekend trips, frequently bestowing clear skies and dry ground. Alas, one of us must have angered the deities for this early December weekend trip to celebrate Gus' father's birthday, for they hurled wind and rain down with great abandon on the Saturday. We set off up the Old Man of Coniston and managed to summit in zero visibility and air that was more water than oxygen, but called a swift halt and made for home.
Fortunately Gus's father was responsible for accommodation and had booked us and all his friends into the climbing hut that nestles among the slag heaps and slate piles below Levers Water. Swapping our usual accommodation of nylon and aluminium tent for stone and wood cottage meant that we had somewhere to dry our utterly sodden clothes and regroup around the beer barrel and welcome fire.
A three pm start to the birthday drinking rendered our heads somewhat fuzzy for Sunday morning, but a quick peek out of the window forced us out of bed at a reasonable time. Looking upwards from the hut's front door showed that the rain clouds had turned to snow clouds in the middle of the night, and where the low Lake District drizzle had previously obscured the hills there was now clear skies and ice caked rock.
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| Zorro heads for the hills | On Wetherlam | Helvellyn and foot | ||
We wasted no time in heading up the switchbacked track behind the hut, hitting the snow line low on Above Beck Fells and Lad Stones. The wind was piercing cold and to keep warm we kept moving through spindrift and deep pockets of snow until we reached Wetherlam summit.
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| Sun over Dow Crag | Swirl How | Coniston Water | Towards Dow Crag | |
From Wetherlam we walked along the ridge, dropping down into the saddle above Levers Water, before pulling up through the rocky splinters and frost encrusted crags of Swirl How. Despite looking fearsomely steep and well guarded by sheer rock faces, picking a route through the Prison Band and onto the summit of Swirl How was easy and we needed neither ice axe nor crampons.
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| The Old Man | Along the plateau | Goat's Water | ||
From Swirl How we strolled across the plateau and headed straight for Dow Crag, bypassing the crowded looking Old Man of Coniston. As we moved across the summit of Dow Crag, the large drop into Goat's Water immediately to our left, the light started to change. A thin film of mist descended to filter the sunlight and change the colour of the view.
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| Coniston Water | Dow Crag | The blizzard descends | ||
Looking back towards Swirl How we saw large dark clouds piling up and racing across the tops towards our stance. Ten minutes later, as we started the descent of Buck Pike to the Walna Scar Road, the clouds collapsed on top of us. The wind stopped gusting and starting pile driving; the air filled with slashing, scouring snow whipping into our faces. After ten years in the hills this was my first real experience of the rapidity of change of mountain weather - from placid cold stroll across clear tops to zero-visibility full blizzard conditions in less than a quarter hour. If we hadn't been so close to our final route off the hill the whole experience would have been alarming.
We fought against the wind until we reached the Walna Scar Road, and ten minutes later we were sheltered by the bulk of the Old Man and out of the blizzard, dropping safely down the wide track to the warmth of the hut. Perhaps the weather gods were back on our side.