Everybody's been at it and with UKC publicising all the low level ice as being 'in', Simon, Carmen and I left a reluctant Will nursing an injured ankle at home and headed for the Lakes not very early Sat morning. Roads were all open and we decided to head for Launchy Gill after rejecting (* see below for thoughts) Carrock Fell, another place that had seen many ascents. Snowy roads around the lake and S parked up leaving us a 500m stroll to warm up on (Note you can park right at the foot of the gill, by its bridge, little lay-by for 6 cars or so)
As we went up through the woods met some people on their way down (it was 10am ish) having been on it very early. They told us the initial corridor just above the footbridge was not in, so we skirted and dropped into the gill proper at the foot of a fall, and geared up. A team of 3 ahead lead off, avoiding the obvious challenge that Simon later took on. While Simon was doing battle 3 soloists joined us, 2 having got very wet legs in the corridor!
Above the first pitch it's a walk to the main pitch which is wide and featured with good belays above and we all got up without incident. Many teams now arrived and set up a belay to bring up 5 others and another team with a TR.
There are 2 finishes available from here, and we did em both. Both have short 5m or so pitches and pleasant walk offs.
Back at the car Simon hatches his cunning plan and we drive right around the Lakes (so I'm told we could have jaunted for all I know as I was dozing, as usual!). Camping at the Bridge Inn near Nether Wasdale, in an abandoned camp site, was very pleasant. We use the Laundry to make a cup of tea, put up tents (broke a few pegs hammering them in) and headed for the pub for a meal.
Next day was early-ish and we drove and walked over to the Wasdale Screes, quite a long walk in and typically the guide book only makes sense once you have been there and got lost a few times. Our target, Great Gully III ***. So we went to the biggest gully and climbed it – oops – wrong one and rubbish (despite Carmen scaring us all on a snowy step). Topping out in spindrift we met another party who'd done the same! They told us Great Gully was over to our left (looking in) and they had left some ab tat. Well … it wasn't and we didn't. I'd carried a rope around for 2 days and it hadn't even come out – good training.
We walked down in lovely weather and back to the car before heading home with a quick detour via Wastwater which was being churned up by some freezing winds. We took a few pictures as well so you won't make the same mistake (we had done A Gully, then looked into 7 Pitch)
My Pix: http://psycwww.york.ac.uk/~rob/pix/climbing/uk/lakes/launchy_gill_wasdale_jan_10/
S&C Pix : http://climbing.me.uk/LaunchyScrees/
Wasdale Screes - the winter gullies
* We decided on Launchy Gill but in hindsight I think given its low level and 30 second walk in we would have been better going elsewhere then coming onto LG later in the afternoon, as another pair had done. Less crowds and more climbing.
Agreed, if we'd done a bit more research we might have done one of the other gills first, or maybe an obscure low-level route somewhere else. Though as it turned out, we'd timed it quite well, as there were reports of long queues before we got there, and it looked to be getting busy again as we walked back out.