York Alpine Club Blog

Last Tuesday (2nd December) me and Rob headed over to the lakes for our first taste of winter. With reports of overnight temperatures of nearly -10 we were hopeful of finding something to climb. After a horribly early start, Rob enjoyed what looked like a relaxing two hour sleep while I battled wintery roads on the drive over. We'd decided to head for Link Cove, the idea being that if there was ice around the routes on Hart Crag might be doable and failing that, the classic Pendulum Ridge on Scrubby Crag might be in as a mixed route.

Deepdale was nicely iced up on the walk in although Link Cove beck has only a smattering of ice in it. The climb up to Link Cove was rather unpleasant, being powder snow over wet grass. We emerged into a white looking Link Cove but were unconvinced about climbing conditions. There was no obvious ice on Hart Crag (in fact there wasn't anything that looked like a winter line) and Pendulum Ridge looked pretty bare. We decided to head up to Hart Crag anyway to have a look. By this point it was snowing, as it did for the rest of the day ensuring we were continually covered in spin drift.

We were surprised to meet another couple of climbers who were very coy about their intentions. Assuming they knew where they were going, we followed along behind, traversing under the crag. They ended up downclimbing very steep snow covered grass slopes which looked horrible, so we turned back. After about an hour of searching (the guidebook has no topo for Hart Crag and the route descriptions are next to useless) we eventually found what we thought was the first route. We pushed on, keen to find the crag classic Cold Lazerus (III). Thinking we'd found it, we set off up an easy icy groove. Ice quality varied from ok to terrible, frozen turf being much more reliable and confidence inducing. We then reached a choice of three ways, a snowy chimney, a steep ice fall or a great looking icy corner. Rob set off solo up the chimney, going well until he found himself completely wedged. Extricating himself was going to require some hard and tenuous moves so I offered to find another way up and drop him down a top rope.

I ended up soloing a harder-than-it-looked turfy buttress (about grade III?) and eventually rescued Rob. Time was pushing on by now, so to ensure we got some climbing done, we dropped a top rope down a 40 foot icy corner. This had looked fairly easy from below, but it turned out the ice was next to useless and so gave forty feet of brilliant sustained hard mixed moves (at least tech 4 I would guess). This gave us a chance to try torqueing, can openers, lay backs off axes etc. With daylight running out, we headed to the top of Hart Crag and then down along the ridge towards Hartsop above How. Choosing not to bother looking at the map, we made a series of questionable navigation decisions and ended up walking an un-necessary extra couple of miles along the road. We got back to the car for 5.30pm with very stiff legs and sore feet.

So, a good first trip out of the winter, but conditions not great. Given that Hart Crag is supposed to have three 2 star grade III routes, it looked a bit disappointing from what we saw. Pendulum Ridge on Scrubby Crag on the other hand looks absolutely spectacular (and steep) – I'd definitely like to head back and do it.