On The Edge

Staying in the not very flat Glenridding camp site at Gillside Farm, the day began with a load of hill mist and a latte. Or that's how my day began anyway. Things looked a tad grim up top, but I was quietly confident that the murk would burn off to give a fine and sunny day, mainly because I'd read it on the site.

Okay, it was somewhere in those clouds and occasionally it sneaked out to flash its blunt, brownish teeth in a ridgey grin, but mostly it was in hiding. The best views were back across the horse-shoe towards Swirral Edge and pert and pointy Catstycam opposite. Oh, there was something else: about a third of the way up, we found the bottom section of a trekking pole stuck pointlessly in the ground. Okay, not literally pointless, but you know...

Anyway, after gathering up the pole, we headed onwards and upwards. Striding Edge kept half clearing, then murking up again. From the 'hole in the wall' where the Glenridding path meets the one rising from Patterdale, you could sense the sun trying hard to burn through and the lack of wind made it pleasantly mild.

The Edge kind of sneaks up on you. One minute it's a grassy hump, next it goes rocky, then some boiler plate slabs and you're looking along its broad, rocky crest. It's a walking legend, but the truth is that the attraction is the situation and atmosphere rather than any scrambling difficulty and, if you're a wuss, you can skirt the crest most of the way along.

Striding Edge is a brilliant way onto Helvellyn, but also a good introduction to scrambling for anyone who's a bit unsure of what it's all about - it's rated Grade 1. There's nothing as savagely exposed as, say, Crib Goch's knife-edge, and only one really sticky point, a short down climb at the end of the ridge just before the final steep, scrambly haul onto the summit plateau.

Most of the fun, little of the seriousness at least in still, summer conditions and consequently half the world seemed to be up there, including an unexplained group of track-suited Paraguayans. No really, I asked, they were. But even better, as we balanced our way sedately along, the cloud started to lift and break up along the length of the ridge giving stunning views of the crowds of people in front and behind us.

Sun appeared, great views, no more cloud as we rolled along before the jarring drop down to the tarn. From there, the climb up to Fairfield looks fearsome steep and the more sensible members took a very reasonable rain check and headed off down Grisedale towards the swarming fleshpots of Patterdale - and who could resist those?

The rest of us began a remorseless ascent of Fairfield, prompting the suggesting that this part of the Lakes has been badly designed - surely there's no need for Grisedale Tarn to drop quite so low is there? Fortunately it was worth it as we chanced upon a horde of celebrities on the mountain's broad summit - the Gallagher brothers, Kate Moss, Richard Whitely were all there...

Fantastic sun-kissed views back towards Helvellyn as we clambered down towards then up onto St Sunday Crag with lots of stops to point out Striding Edge, now irritatingly clear and the way we'd come. Before a final visual view fest out over the big bit of water you can see from the edge of the mountainy thing then on down off the end of St Sunday Crag and the slow, flat trudge along by the road back to Glenridding and well-earned Mars Bars / cokes / bananas / showers etc.

A great day in the hills, thanks everyone for taking me along and a neat evening in the pub too. I wish I could tell you what happened on the Sunday, but I had a prior engagement with an exhibition hall full of fleeces, so I ran away.