On Saturday, Beefy’s Australian friend Mark and his girlfriend Sue joined us to go up Helvellyn. We hoped to do Striding Edge if the weather was ok. We left Glenridding in high hopes as the weather didn’t look too bad although it was blustery.
Looking back to Glenridding from the Mires Beck path
Sue and Mark on the way up. Sue is putting her cap back on after it had been blown off in the wind. This happened a few times it was very windy.
As we got closer to Birkhouse Moor the heavens opened and it tipped it down.
Beefy on Birkhouse Moor
You will notice Beefy with a thumbs up sign in a lot of the photos from this weekend. We had a bit of a giggle about someone who is taking the time to put a thumbs down on Beefy’s videos on You Tube. What a negative way to live your life spending time doing that.
We had a break near Red Tarn and decided Striding Edge wasn’t for us with the weather conditions. There were very strong gusts of wind and with the rain too the rock would be very slippery. There were other people going across but I didn’t want to go across it. We went up Swirral Edge instead.
On Swirral Edge
Striding Edge across Red Tarn
Clear views along Swirral Edge to Catstycam before the clag came back again
The rock was very slippery but the wind wasn’t that bad and we enjoyed the route up.
Beefy on Helvellyn summit. The clag had covered the top again but it did lift a bit so Mark and Sue got some views.
The wind hit us as we got on the summit so we didn’t hang around, it was really cold. Mark and Sue were coping quite well with our “summer” weather they were well wrapped up. They were saying our summer is colder than the winter in Australia
The view north west across Brown Cove Crags. Better views for our Australian visitors
We took the Lower Man to White Side route and down the zig zag path to Glenridding Beck and back to Glenridding.
Catstycam from Lower Man
Looking north to Skiddaw
Our route was Glenridding - Gillside - Mires Beck - Birkhouse Moor - Red Tarn - Swirral Edge - Helvellyn - Lower Man - White Side - Pony Track - Glenridding Beck - Greenside Road - Glenridding. 15.3km with 1049m ascent.
It was great to meet Mark and Sue. Mark is totally bonkers and good fun to be around. Sue is really nice too and I enjoyed their company. Beefy has some good footage of them during the walk and scramble.
Mark and Sue dropped us off in Patterdale on their way back to Lancaster. We were wild camping that night and had left our gear in their car while we did Helvellyn.
We climbed up onto the slopes of Arnison Crag and found a flat pitch above Oxford Crag. We’d walked about 1.5km and ascended about 110m.
The view of Ullswater from our pitch for the night on the slopes of Arnison Crag
Place Fell from our pitch
Beefy likes where we are pitched
Looking toward Birkhouse Moor
It stared raining and we didn’t get a sunset (no surprise there
) so we settled down in the tent and had some wine. We’d had a great day we weren’t that bothered by the weather, the view of Ullswater is really lovely from Arnison Crag even in the rain.
Day 2 to follow
