A week after the thaw and all the low level ice has gone. But it's been mainly cold up high, and there have been some reports of good conditions in the usual places (Great End, Helvellyn, etc), so we thought we'd go for a look. We didn't fancy the stupidly early start that would be needed for a day trip to those crags (which we'd guessed, perhaps wrongly, would be heaving anyway), so decided to try Foule Crag on Blencathra – less than 2 hours' drive from York, and only an hour's walk in.
The knee deep powder of my previous visit last month was gone, which made for a quick walk. Unfortunately, the blue skies of the earlier trip were also missing, and when we reached the crag the whole thing was hidden. Fortunately I could remember enough to know roughly where to go, or we'd probably have failed to find anything!
Our intended route was Traverse of the Sods (II/III), because
(a) it was the longest there (180m);
(b) it follows a natural line; and
(c) a route with a name like that just has to be climbed!
As the name sort-of implies, it relies on frozen turf rather than snow or ice – just as well, as the snow we had to cross to get there was all soft and deep.
The first pitch, to reach the traverse line, was steep, rocky, vegetated, and throughly horrible. There may have been turf, but the shrubbery was so thick that the axes failed to reach it. 50m with no protection didn't do my nerves a lot of good either! If there'd been an easy walk-off from the top then we'd probably have taken it.
Luckily there wasn't, as the remaining 3 pitches were all good fun, following a narrow grassy ledge in a rising traverse up the face. Quite easy climbing (no more than II) but hardly any protection other than our single warthog, and belays were on axes with the picks buried optimistically in the frozen turf, plus a sling wrapped even more optimistically round a 2 inch thick icicle. The whole thing was nicely exposed, with continuing clag throughout adding to the atmosphere (and also occasionally to the confusion – on one pitch, a steep snow-covered overhanging corner loomed out of the mist, it was only as I got closer looking for a way round that it revealed itself to be a nice 30 degree neve slope).
A short icefall near the end took a screw, though the ice turned out to be only a couple of inches thick with air behind so no more than psychological value! But a second icefall at the final belay was several inches thick so provided the first (and last) reassuring belay of the day 🙂
We topped out at the summit of the crag. The way off was obvious, down a corniced ridge, so we didn't waste time getting the compass out. Luckily, a few minutes later we stopped to take crampons off and took the opportunity to check our bearings; a 90 degree turn to the right took us back to the right valley 😉
A good day out, and not too long (about 12.5 hours house-to-house). Not a classic route by any means, but worth doing, and certainly better than sitting at home watching TV!
More photos here.