Coniston, 5th March 2010, possibly the best walking weekend this year... so far

Probably the best walking weekend of the year so far...great walks, great people, great location, great conditions...GREAT DAYS and GREAT NIGHTS!!! (click here to see the photos, enjoy them!)
Well what can I say.  It all started off with a slight nervous twinge.  Due to the extensive snow and the long duration that it has been lying on the high fells, I popped up early on the Thursday morning to check out the snow conditions for myself.  That and it was a stunningly beautiful day and I quite fancied a play.  And what a day followed, crystal clear skies, perfect reflections, clean crisp snow wonderful!!!  But could the weekend repeat these views, surely not!!

But everything got off to a great start, freshly made scones and tea at the hotel, went down exceedingly well!  Well I enjoyed them!!!  Great food Friday night then the cloud rolled back to give us a great walk on Saturday.  Lots of the snow had softened and we managed a cracking route up Brown Pike, Buck Pike and Dow Crag to the summit of theOld Man!  However the tourist route down looked well,"dodgy" to say the least.  So we retreated down the grassy south ridge, which provided us with lovely views over our mornings climbs.  Then it was off down to the Sun for a few very well earned pints!!!!
Meanwhile MR G took his group, up through the coppermine valley, gaining a real insight into the alpine conditions above, before he headed out across to Torver and a gentle amble along the lovley lake shore.

Could this get any better, Sunday dawned and over breakfast the clouds once again rolled back!!!  How lucky are we.  Then the groups divided, a gentler route over to Tarn Howes and Black Fell, was amazing as everchanging perfect panoramas accompanied the group all day.  The middle group extended this walk to visit Little Langdale and make a lovely summit bid for Holme Fell. And the rest of us set off on a bit of "lets see how far we can get day!"  We began at Tilberthwaite, made our way up to Hole Rake to the beginning of the south ridge of Wetherlam, a route we were confident would be doable in the conditions.  And it was, And it didnt let us down, as the summit revealed all the lakes in all its finery.  Carrying on we skirted Black Sails, to swirl Hause, where we had to make some decisions.  A nice ease route was to our left down Levers Water, but Swirl Howe looked very tempting and the softer melting snow combined with a lot of easy dry rock encouraged us onwards.  Half an hour later and a very happy group peaked out on Swirl Howe.  What a day, but we still had a way to go, so it was off to Great Carrs for a peaceful and very mellow afternoon tea break before a long descent back down to Little Langdale and and extremely "mellow days" stroll back to the cars.

Thanks to everyone on the weekend for making it so enjoyable !
PS if you didnt enjoy this walking weekend-you have the wrong hobby!!!  It simply doens get an