David's favourite mountain is Helvellyn,
and he was keen to climb it from Lower Man. As we still had a number
of peaks to climb in that range, we planned it so that we parked
our car in Wythburn car park, then caught the bus towards Keswick
to Stanah. We then planned to ascend via Sticks Pass, walk the ridge
to Dollywaggon Pike and drop back down to Wythburn car park.
As we started our walk up Sticks Pass, we could
not have had more contrasting weather from the last time we climbed
Helvellyn. Today was a heatwave and there was not a cloud in the
sky. We had constant stops to apply sunscreen, and drink plenty
of water (I had a slight advantage here, as I have a platypus water
system in my rucksack, which came in very handy indeed).
|
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Skiddaw in the distance with High Rigg in front on
the right from Sticks Pass |
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Thirlmere with High Seat behind from Sticks Pass |
| Sticks Pass is a nice ascent - hard
work, but the path is always good and we thoroughly enjoyed the walk
to the summit of the pass. At the start there are some lovely waterfalls
and the path zigzags up the western slope of Stybarrow Dodd between
Stanah Gill and Sticks Gill West without ever getting too close to
either. It is a typical mountain pass where you reach what appears
to be the top, only to find the next section hidden behind, until
at long last the summit cairn, complete with stick, comes into view. |
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David sunbathing on sticks Pass |
From Sticks Pass you can see the
ski tows on Raise. We could also see the clearly defined path in
the opposite direction to the Dodds, which were our intended objective
later in the week. Looking back, I think the clarity with which
we were able to see all this was part of the reason for our problems
on the subsequent walk, but that is another story - see 17/07/03
for full details.
Going back to the current walk, there is not
a lot more effort required to reach Raise from Sticks Pass, and
we soon gained our first summit of the day. |
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Green side and Sheffield Pike with Ullswater behind
from the ascent of Raise |
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David at the summit of raise |
| It really was a glorious day, and
knowing we had all day to complete the walk, we paused and took in
the magnificent scenery. |
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Helvellyn and Lower Man from Raise |
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The Central Fells looking towards Great Gable from
Raise |
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Looking towards skiddaw and keswick from raise |
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Looking towards watsons dodd, stybarrow dodd and great
dodd, with skiddaw and blencathra behind and sticks pass in the dip
in front |
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Looking towards ullswater |
| After Raise, we followed the clearly
defined path along the ridge to White Side. |
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David at the summit of white side |
From here, we could clearly see
Lower Man and Helvellyn ahead. David had seen pictures of Helvellyn
from Lower Man, but it had seemed a broad plateau in the photos.
He was therefore surprised to see how much narrower
a ridge Lower Man was than he had expected. |
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Looking towards lower man from White Side |
| The climb to summit of Lower Man was
quite hard work, especially in what was now midday sun, and we had
a well-deserved rest when we got there. |
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Helvellyn and Lower Man |
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David at the summit of lower man with thirlmere behind |
| From the summit, it became clearer
to see where David's picture must have been taken, as the other side
is much broader, and in character with the rest of the Helvellyn ridge
(Striding Edge and Swirral Edge excepted, of course). |
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Helvellyn from lower man |
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looking back on this morning's path |
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Stang and Catstycam |
| The walk to Helvellyn from Lower Man
is very pleasant, with a very gradual incline until we reached the
Trig Point. |
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the trig point on helvellyn |
| The first time we had been on Helvellyn's
summit, the visibility was almost zero, but this time Red Tarn was
clearly visible, surrounded by Striding Edge and Swirral Edge. |
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red tarn and Striding Edge from helvellyn |
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Swirral edge, leading to catstycam |
| The path we had taken last time to
Nethermost Pike was also clearly visible, with the three-pronged fork
in the path. This time we planned to by-pass the summit and head straight
for Dollywaggon Pike, as the heat was beginning to take its toll. |
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Looking towards nethermost pike |
| Before setting off towards Dollywaggon
Pike, we had a well-earned rest in Helvellyn's summit shelter, only
this time we were trying to get shelter from the sun, not the rain
and wind. |
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David at helvellyn's summit shelter |
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Striding edge |
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St Sunday Crag from Helvellyn |
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Fairfield from Helvellyn |
| The walk to Dollywaggon Pike seemed
very long in the heat. We did a small detour to High Crag to see how
much further it was, and it came back to us why we decided not to
go on to Dollywaggon last time we were here. |
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Striding Edge from below Nethermost Pike |
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David at the summit of dollywaggon pike |
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Steel Fell, looking to the Langdale Pikes and High
Raise behind, from Dollywaggon Pike |
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Seat Sandal from Dollywaggon Pike |
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Fairfield from dollywaggon pike |
| With the visibility so good, we did
not bother to retrace our steps past Nethermost Pike to the fork in
the path to get to the Wythburn path. Instead we crossed Birk Side,
joining the path at Comb Crags. |
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Small tortoiseshell on a Marsh Thistle on the wythburn
path |
The descent path was steeper than
we remembered, but then we were very tired by now. There was a lot
of repair work going on to the path, but we were too keen to get
back to the car to sit down to stop and take much notice.
When we eventually reached the bottom, our car
was a very welcome sight. |
