Snowy Lonscale Fell

at the car park

The roads were treacherous this morning, I nearly slid right onto Cockermouth roundabout in my brand new car so our proposed starting point of Peter House Farm was off limits due to the fact that the road up there would be very dodgy.  Instead we parked at Spooney Green Lane and headed up the Latrigg Path.  It was snowing heavily as we went up, I was pleased to be able to make it all the way to the car park and thought I had made good time but when I got home, Strava told me I had previously done the same stretch almost five minutes quicker.  Oh well.  We headed steadily up to the turn off point.  Enough snow on the ground to make the going soft and difficult.  It was when we turned off to head towards Lonscale Fell that we experienced the worst conditions of day.  To start with, the snow was very deep and we were not able to see the path.  As we got higher, we were going straight into the wind and snow was whipping into our faces.  As we got to the fence and walked up the final stretch to Lonscale Fell, it got a bit better but this was our highest point of the day and the wind was very strong.  We took a few snaps at the top and then headed back to the wall which would guide us down to the lovely Burnt Horse ridge.  As we got to the steeper part, the snow had really banked up and was very deep.  I was able to jump onto my front and slide down, kind of swimming across the top.  There was deep snow on Burnt Horse too.  Usually a really nice little ridge run, it was unrunnable.  A few times I got stuck up to my waist in snow and needed to roll and climb out.  The run down to the Cumbria Way path was nicer.  There was less snow here and the snow made the, usually rocky, path much nicer to run on.  We crossed over the valley to the track which runs along the base of Blencathra to the Blencathra Centre then we went back along lovely rolling trails through Brundholme Wood.

Paul and Dean pressing on up to Lonscale Fell

Dean having a "is that it?" moment on top of Lonscale Fell

coming down was more fun

Dean striding out

looking across the valley to Lonscale Fell/Lonscale Pike

looking back to Lonscale Fell, becoming a favourite.