Yes the apostrophe is in the right place as I joined Keith, Chair of Leeds MC, for a dash over to Lakes to see if we could catch Black Crag Icefall. Some excellent pictures on UKC had my hopes high but it does say get their early – almost impossible from York. The road being closed for resurfacing didnt help but we parked just north of Brothers Water and walked in along the easy track. As we approached we saw two people gearing up at the bottom. We stopped and watched.
The bottom part looking really patchy and hollow and we decided we'd have to wait for at least an hour before starting (we heard later that pitch 1 was poor but pitch 2 fantatsic – grrrr). So we played in the Gill just to the left trying to avoid the deep pools, before heading up and over the Hart Crag summit and down via Link Hause to the hart crag ice falls.
Stopping for some lunch just off the summit out of the wind a pair walkers without axes or campons or an idea bwtween them slid past us – hmmm.
We headed down towards Cold Lazarus but the guibeook is (IMHO) bloody useless in trying to identify the routes, a photo topo would be great as its a two or three tiered crag wth ice all over it ! There was lots of snow about and it felt pretty horrible, but was ok as its wasnt really very steep. We geared up after chattig to the people we'd seen on Black Crag and headed up for a continuous line of ice to the left of the crag.
Keith led the first part to a twin ice screw belay. I recoverd the ice he'd dropped and led through up a good ribbon on ice with a coupe of steep steps WI2+/WI3 with great gear (screws). Almost 50m later I belayed at a block and watched the pink glow on High Street. Keith enjoyed the pitch and led through to the ridge and surprisingly strong and cold winds.
We dropped off quicky towards Dove Crag – passing a bag of logs ! and down to the easy path via snow gully. Back at the car for sixish in the drak we headed home.
Not the day I was expecting but great fun nonetheless !