Once more, we did the February meet at the Black Sail YHA hut. If you read on you will find a cautionary tale about what not to do in the hills in winter when there is snow and wind about.
You park the car at Gatesgarth Farm, then walk across the beck at the top of Buttermere. So soggy this
time, after the wet winter.
The snow was already lying just above the copse on the other side of the valley, at the base of the pass to Ennerdale. It's a stiff trudge up towards Haystacks. Then the flurries started and the snow on the ground began building up. Haystacks is behind me.
There was spindrift blowing across Scarth Gap in the breeze. Behind is the view back towards Buttermere from the pass. Then you can see the dome of Haystacks. On another day you would spend an hour stepping up from here to see the tarns at the top.
But this time I'm going straight over to Ennerdale to dump my pack at the hut and see who else has arrived. Soon I can see right up the valley to Great Gable. Green Gable is the mound on its left and in between is Windy Gap, where we are to get into a spot of bother the following day.
I forgot to take a shot of the wonderful, remote Black Sail hut so here's one from a previous year. I amble up the valley while dusk is coming and see Kirk Fell towering over, along with the view you saw back at the top of this spiel of the Gables and Kirk Fell standing grandly in the disappearing light.
Which takes us on to the next day, an example for anyone reading this not to follow. Do you venture up to Windy Gap when heavy snow and high winds are forecast? No you do not. We thought we could slip over before the trouble started and walk down to the Wasdale Head Inn to meet the rest of our party for a pint and escort them back to the hut via the less challenging Black Sail Pass.
But the blizzard set in well before we reached the gap. Our other major error was to spread out. Two of us reached the top and I was nearly there. The wind was blowing us over, there was a complete white-out and I wondered if some had gone AWOL in the storm. No pics of that.
The snow in some places had drifted thigh-deep. Finding your way out when you're not certain which direction is down can be quite scary. We reassembled ten or fifteen minutes down the slope. There was a bit of nervous laughter and we had something to joke about around the fire later. But if people had got lost off route, even mountain rescue might have struggled to find them. All fine, though, and the next day we decided to stay low and walked the 20 miles around Ennerdale, stopping on the way at the very welcoming Shepherds Arms at Ennerdale Bridge.
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