UKC

Hi everyone,

I'm running stage 1 of the Bob Graham round on Sat with two mates. This includes Skiddaw, Great Calva and Blencathra. The route down Blencathra is straight down halls fell ridge. Does anyone know what condition it is in? We'll be in trail running shoes so I want to know if it's possible. We can run down the next ridge to the East if it's too bad but I'd rather stick on route.

Thanks.

In reply to mars:


We went up Hall's Fell yesterday - a great short day out. I'm not a fell runner so I can't be certain what it would be like in trail running shoes, but we and other parties on the ridge were not using crampons not felt any need to. The snow cover is well broken now but you would find it difficult to avoid snow entirely on the steeper sections. Keeping to the ridge rather than the paths that run below the ridge was more snow free but I'm not sure that would be your preferred option. As far as the snowed up sections are concerned, I guess it will depend on the temperature when you are there. It was above freezing for us, so the sections of compacted snow on the paths still had some "give" in them - not really icy.

We came down Doddick Fell - generally easy, but there was a short steep descent on snow at the top - big footsteps but I was glad of my walking pole - didn't bother with the axe. This was trickier than any of the snowy bits on Halls Fell, but very short and a slip might not have been as serious as in places on Halls Fell.

The iciest bits were on the summit plateau, but I guess you'll be expecting that.

Hope that's of some hope - good luck with the "Round".

Martin

In reply to mars:

came down halls fell ridge on sunday. some areas of deepish soft snow at the top, but nothing requiring crampons, and no icy areas to worry about. Such deep footprints in the snowy areas I dont think you'll have any problems with them even if it freezes hard. but saturdays a week away...anything could happen over the next week.

In reply to Martin Hore:

yeah ditto what Martin Hore said - some very icy old snow on the summit plateau

In reply to Martin Hore:

Thanks Martin that's a great help. Doddick fell was the one to the east I was thinking of but the name escaped me.
Hopefully no more snow this week and we'll be laughing.

Thanks again.

In reply to mars:

I'm heading up there today. The temperature seems to have dropped a little over the last couple of days and the conditions report on the met office site suggests that any remaining snow might now be quite hard (it took a boot nicely on skiddaw on Tuesday). I'll try to post something tonight.

In reply to mars:

Some folk use Doddick anyway, even though it's further - I was once at the Threlkeld handover around 1am and watched 3 sets of headtorches taking entirely different routes. Halls Fell is a great route out but can be a bit annoying when you're trying to make fast progress, I've only ever run it in better weather though. Interested what you find

In reply to FrJ:

In the end we bailed: there was more snow visible from the valley than anticipated and not all te party were fully equipped. We went to Grisedale horseshoe instead. Blanket of light snow and rime above 700m. Quite icy under fresh snow on the decent towards Sail.

In reply to mars:

Did you make it up there - what do you reckon?