Distance:7.7 miles Time: 4:18hr (exc. stops) Total ascent: 882m

For our final day in the lakes, Sarah wasn’t up to any fell walking, so I was free for a solo adventure. As were camping at Gillside Farm in Glenridding, the most obvious was visiting Helvellyn via Striding Edge. It’s a popular route, and I wanted to avoid crowds, so decided I would set off before sunrise and be crossing the ridge around 8am.

The forecast was good, with a 90% change of cloud free summits. I was secretly hoping for a cloud inversion, as that had happened a few mornings during our stay.

When I left at 6am it was still dark, largely thanks to a blanket of cloud shrouding all the nearby tops. Hoping it would lift, I continued out of the farm and onto the main trail up to Birkhouse Moor

I knew I’d be climbing for a good hour, and I just kept a slow but steady pace. I was only overtaken by a few walkers on the way up, so it was looking good for crowds…

…but not so for clouds. As I reached the summit of Birkhouse Moor, neither Striding Edge or Helvellyn beyond could be seen. Still hoping for the clouds to lift, I continued.

My plan for scrambling over Striding Edge was simply “maintain 3 points of contact, look ahead, don’t take unnecessary risks”. This was good preparation, as the conditions mean that route planning was difficult – visibility was about 20m.

It was surprising hard to tell what the “best” route was – it was case of looking ahead about 5 or 10m, planning how you’d move there, and executing.

A couple of times, I took myself onto what seemed to be a less travelled option, but I never felt in danger. This may be because I couldn’t actually see anything looking down!

I knew that towards the end, a feature called The Chimney or “The Bad Step” was infamous – a 3m down climb. I wondered if I’d taken a particularly hairy route over the ridge as I found the climb down one of the easier bits!

Almost immediately after coming off the ridge, I lost the trail. I knew there was short but steep climb onto Helvellyn, and saw a little used but very steep trail and struggled up it. Once on the plateau at the top, it was almost white-out conditions and I could not see any trails. For the first time in years I was glad I packed my compass (my phone compass can’t seem to remember where north is for long). I knew roughly where I was, just not where the summit was. Tooking a bearing and soon found where I needed to be.

Sat in the shelter at the summit in the howling wind and had a quick break. There was absolutely nothing to see, and the weather was showing no signs of improving.

I decided to continue with the route I’d planned, and descend down Swirrel Edge and up to Catstye Cam.

The cloud made this a little damp and slippery, and like Striding Edge, it was hard to know what the right route was. I don’t think I went too far wrong though, and soon began a gentle climb up to the final summit of Catstye Cam.

I found a sheltered spot near the summit cairn, and decided I’d sit for 20 minutes and see if the weather showed any signs of improvement.

If it had, I might have gone back across Swirrel Edge and explored more, but I didn’t, so at 10:30am descended to follow the track back to Glenridding.

By this time, the wisdom of getting up early was apparent, as I saw many people as I came down. I cheerfully wished them all good luck with the weather – some looked more prepared than others…

I was back at the campsite around 12pm, ready for a pub lunch.

While I didn’t see much, the experience was excellent. Would like to do it again in better conditions…

This brings our Wainwright totals to Sarah 18, Paul 36