BB1738 : Sensible and Realistic

Wednesday 29th November 2017

50 m.p.h. wind gusts on the summits.  Chill factor of -14°.  Who in their right minds would want to endure such weather even if the sun were to be shining?  That is why we decided to stay low today.  A gentle circuit with nothing more intimidating than a visit to Gummers How then down to the Masons Arms.  A civilised outing, just right for the return of James and Terry after their absences.

Then Bryan announced that he would be joining us.  Then things changed slightly.

“To be fair to Don,” said Bryan, damning with faint praise, “his proposal was a sensible and realistic one.”

His plan was to set off from Dunmail Raise with a variable target dictated by time and tiredness.  First aim - get to Grisedale Tarn.  Then either up Seat Sandal or up Dollywagon.  If ok up Dollywagon then further along towards Helvellyn with option to turn back at any point.  Regarding the cold, his simple advice was “Put another layer on.”  The clincher was when he told me that Tony had already agreed.  Game over.

It wasn’t as cloud-free as we had hoped and the snow line had lifted more than we expected.  In fact there was no snow at all on the climb alongside the shaded Raise Beck.

At Grisedale Tarn the sun was just rising above Seat Sandal.

Dollywagon called so we began the trail upwards.  Had Stan been with us, no doubt he would have argued for his normal direttissimo but we took the sensible path. As we climbed, the ground became more snowy and icy so Microspikes were donned.

All were going well so we decided to by-pass Dollywagon and likewise Nethermost summits.  

After a lunch stop, needed to refuel Tony despite the cold, we headed straight for Helvellyn.  

Considering the forecast, it was remarkably busy. We could see quite a lot of folk making their way along both Striding and Swirral Edges.  It would have been neither sensible nor realistic to have joined them.

Whilst there wasn’t as much frozen snow as we would have liked and there was more low cloud than we would have liked, the views were superb in all directions.

Even the snow-capped Galloway Monros^{* [See below]} could be spotted in the far distance across Bassenthwaite and the Solway Firth.

However, the cold and Martin’s time pressures dictated that we shouldn’t linger too long so, as the sky grew ever more spectacular, .....

..... we took the track down Birkside and then back to the car via the forest trail above Wythburn.

To be fair to Bryan, his proposal had proved to be a sensible and realistic one.  And a lot more dramatic than mine.

Don, Wednesday 29th November 2017
Thanks to Bryan for several of the photos

Comitibus : James, Terry, Tony, interloper, Bryan, Martin, Don

What?  Monros in Galloway?

Graham W takes me to task on two points:

I was somewhat disturbed though to read in this week’s report that there are Munros (Monros?) in Galloway and that in all my days of walking/running that I had missed doing them, particularly as they are just round the corner from Carlisle. Have they possibly grown in height since I last went over them, though I can’t recall news of any major eathquakes etc in the years since I was last there?

At the time we regarded this as a “local" run well suited to a Saturday morning outing, but were invariably late back which apparently caused a few silent breakfasts on the Sunday morning, although I never experienced that.

Thanks, Graham, for putting the record straight. In my (rather weak) defence, I had thought there were none but when I asked Uncle Google I must have misheard what he told me.  In fact, there are Monros in Galloway but they relate to the local Conservative and Unionist party!  Of course, there are no Munros but there are six Corbetts of which Merrick is indeed the highest at 2,766 feet.  Don

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