TuesdayBack to walking today.
For ages Sally had wanted to climb Helvelyn. It is only 3100 ft, but bad weather a fair hike to get there and back and some rock scrambling make it a bit more than a casual morning's walk.
Unfortunately the weather forecast is a bit wrong. It is meant to stop raining at dawn, but it continues raining heavily, only easing mid morning, and stopping at lunch time. This makes the scramble up Striding edge, one of the ridges leading up to the peak, rather less desirable:
It does however mean we have almost the entire hike to ourselves.
But it was all worth it for the view at the summit:
Strangely we decided not to hang around too long at the top, so headed back down via the neighbouring ridge - Swirral Edge:
As you might have noticed - as soon as we start descending we get a view - which means the weather is improving. We may have had the summit to ourselves, but those who came 30 minutes later would have had a tremendous view from up there. I guess you can't win them all.
Most people go directly down from Swirral edge, but we carried straight on and up to another summit which gives a great view of Striding edge, Red Tarn (the small glacial lake) below and Helvellyn on the right
However impressed you might be with your efforts - there will already be a sheep there when you reach the summit:
These are Herdwick sheep - which appear to be the sheep equivalent of a plush toy, which somehow doesn't seem appropriate for the harsh climate up there. I started referring to them as Snugglewicks which seemed more appropriate, since I suspect they suffer more than any other breed of sheep from having small children continually rushing over to try to hug them.
We descend and round the corner to see lake Ullswater below us:
And its back to the campground, where the pub awaits:
