Words & Photos Andy Stothert

December 03 2009

Sounds like a firm of cut-price solicitors doesn’t it? But just what do you do with those short December or January days when the white stuff is about? And what if things don’t quite work out the way you’d anticipated? These were some of the possibilities we were considering one morning last winter at Hartsop.

There was a decent covering of snow on the fells, there had been a good, hard overnight frost, but we weren’t absolutely sure what things were going to be like underfoot once we’d got up there, nor what the weather had in store. We were getting mixed messages, with ominous-looking clouds swirling around the fells.

The eventual joint decision was to get ourselves good and high, good and quick by clambering up Hartsop Dodd (basically because it’s the nearest hill), then see where and how far we got from there. And yes, I know that responsible hillwalkers always leave a planned route with someone or a note on the car, however there are times when experienced fellwanderers just have to follow their noses.

The first issue was Hartsop Dodd itself, which is both not so short and a bit too sharp. Then when the gradient levelled and our reluctant bodies heaved a sigh of relief, the conditions underfoot on the tops revealed themselves as the worst possible – snow about a foot deep, with a crust which one step supported your weight, but on the next sent you crashing through. I noticed that the other two were following in my holes – the feeblest trailblazer on the planet.

A quick circle had me tucked in behind the pair of wastrels, and we plodded and crashed our way over to the cairn on Caudale Moor. The snow started to fall as we slithered down from Stony Cove Pike to Threshthwaite Mouth before kicking a way up to Thornthwaite Crag.

Lunch behind the wall out of the biting northerly gale gave us a chance to reassess our progress, which had been enjoyably slow, and after 1pm mid winter, it was time to look for a way off not involving belays and brown underwear, so we stumbled, stuttered, swore and slipped across the almost frozen tundra on Grey Crag and back down to Hartsop.

If the ground had been easier to cross we would no doubt have carried on over High Street, but knowing when to call it a day is vital in winter. It also strikes me that nowadays there are far too few of these edgily scintillating white winter days in the Lake District to get truly comfy or happy with them. Perhaps we are all softening up as a result.

Distance: 7 miles/11km Ascent: 3020ft/920m Time: 4-7 hours Start/finish: car park at Hartsop (GR: NY 409131) Maps: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Explorer sheet OL5 (The English Lakes - North Eastern area); OS 1:50,000 Landranger sheet 90 (Penrith & Keswick); Harvey Maps 1:25,000 Superwalker, Lakeland East; BMC 1:40,000 British Mountain Maps, Lake District Information: Glenridding TIC, 
01768 482414

Technical Spec
From car park cross river onto track E towards Pasture Bottom then ascend N ridge of Hartsop Dodd with wall at first. Follow wall S from summit then pathless ground SW to Caudale Moor. E to top of Stony Cove Pike, descend E steep (and potentially 
ice-covered) rocks to Threshthwaite Mouth and climb steep loose slopes (still with wall) to Thornthwaite Crag. N to Gray Crag, then descend N ridge to track, and W to Hartsop