Friday May 1st 2009 Ascent Of Helvellyn Via Striding Edge , Descent off Helvellyn via Swirral Edge on to the connicle summit of Catstycam.
The Distance (It doesn't matter cos it was well worth the slog) Altitude 3000ft +
Leaving North Shields at 06.45 we arrived at Ullswater at 08.50 with the early morning sun shining over the lapping waters & the peaks of The eastern fells making the odd appearance through the clouds.
We parked up in a Village by the name of Glennridding, a lovely little village on the shores of Ullswater.
We made our way out of Glennridding crossing over rattlebeck bridge up onto the high ground above miresbeck with some pretty stunning views of Ullswater to be had.
Before we knew it we had to check nav after a sign had been put on the gate at cross tarn with access prohibited or something like that. We took an alternative route bypassing Cross Tarn which was the right thing to do and eventually made our way back onto the track towards birkhouse moor & Striding Edge.
The track that advances onto Birkhouse Moor 2356ft gets steeper with more boulders and step overs as you get closer to Striding Edge. The views were amazing with Fairfields peak visable as we advanced above a forest hunreds of feet below which i would say is more of a 3 columned copse.
The very imposing and deadly Striding Edge was in view after we turned left at a style. With the plateau summit of Helvellyn coming and going in the clouds.
As we got onto the ridge i looked down at Red Tarn and seen the wind skimming the water and i started feeling dizzy & sick. A 400FT Sheer drop on one side 300ft sheer drop on the other, the wind was howling and by now i had forgotten about the scenery and my heart was pumping. One wrong move and you're over the side and if you're over the side you're dead.
Alan went first as he knows the score Gary second and me last. At times in the very clingy scrambling stages i was nearly in the state of freezing not from the cold but with fright. However, loose stones tumbling from gary's feet 30 foot above me, kept me moving as they were heading in my general direction ( I'm scared of heights by the way) I also took great comfort from my constant supply of boiled sweets that i had in my Berghaus, especially the green ones. This ridge walking thing is not for the feint hearted.
Throughout the walk, It became apparent that the higher we went the wind was becoming more emphasized and our bodies were becoming more exposed to the elements and it's a good job we had some experience in the party especially at the entre to Striding Edge, which is described all over the internet as most dangerous ridge walk in Britain if not Europe. I crawled off striding edge a nervous wreck. Gary looked in a similar state but Alan was business as usual, and off we headed off towards the summit. At this point a nice big cloud came in and soaked us. Visability was reduced down to 20 foot at the most as we summited and we were getting shotblast by hail stones which were nearly as cheeky as the ridge we had just walked off. We headed towards the summit shelter near the trig point. Once we got to the shelter some blokey from Liverpool was there with his missus. We had 5 minutes in the shelter for water and food and moved along the summit towards swirral edge. The summit has a couple of memorials to people who have died on Helvellyn, just to keep you ticking over and in the right frame of mind while you're up there. It was now totaly throwing down with rain making the descent on to swirral edge tricky.Yet again Alans previous experience of Hellvellyn proved vital. Get over Swirral edge before the weather gets any worse. I could imagine swirral edge been a right difficult job if you were breaching it in the ascent of Helvellyn (in reverse) The rock composition and geology varies in the area of swirral edge.Every now and then we were coming across what looked like white marble set into the normal rock this was really very slippy and worth staying well clear of. Rather than marble it's probably some division of calcite formed by a couple million years worth of pressure in the earth and then come the ice age it was pushed up to the surface. We got across Swirral edge and made our ascent of catstycam 2919ft which to be honest was straight forward and not in Helvellyn's league. It was still nice though but the views were restricted as the weather was absolutely foul by this point. We descended catstyecam, the path down is clear cut but the pressure on my knees due to the steep gradient was the most difficult thing about it. When we got to the recess we married up with greenside beck and followed the course taking in water falls and disused lead mine workings as we made our way towards Lanty's Tarn which is also a wainwright in it's own. Very worn out and very wet we made it back to the car park in Glenridding. The walk took the best part of 6 hours. THE FINAL WORD Striding Edge is dangerous not for the weak or for those with big egos and for those who like to cut corners. I cant wait to do another ridge walk as it gives you the sense of been a very small person in a big big world.