Whittle Wanderers

Sca Fell. Wed 14 July 2004
All good things have to be paid for. And after last week's good weather it was now pay back time. We drove through rain and mist to Wasdale but fortunately the rain stopped as we arrived. Large puddles along the roadsides indicated that it had been a wet night. I drove into the National Trust car park at the north end of Wastwater but was faced with the prospect of paying £4 to park my car for our walk or being prosecuted. Not wanting either I turned round and drove back to the road to park there. I am happy to pay to park my car, say £2, but £4 is nothing more that greed on the part of the National Trust and is on a par with town centre parking. Which is ridiculous. It is interesting to note that nobody was prepared to pay that amount and so several of us parked by the road. Surely there is a moral here? Charge a reasonable amount and people wont clutter up the roads. Back to the walk. About 8:45 we set of along Lingmell Gill for Sca Fell. The cloud base had risen to about 500m and at least we got some nice views of Wastwater as we climbed. Up ahead was the steep climb to Mickledore but we couldn't see it, or anything, due to thick cloud. Soon we were in cloud and steady drizzle with a rising wind. Towards the summit of Mickledore the rain was funnelled down the narrow chute which made the final push a bit hairy.
	Eric climbing up to Mickledore from the NW.

Climbing Foxes Tarn Gully we had water coming at us from all sides. Was it really July?

The route up Sca Fell via Broad Stand was out of the question due to the rain wind and bad visibility. But I couldn't resist a quick look through 'Fat Man's Agony' and the first rock shelf. We then descended to the SE and the start of Foxes Tarn Gully. Even though it was cascading with water it wasn't too bad of a climb up and we reached Foxes Tarn by 11:25. It's amazing how such a small body of water has been included on the Ordnance Survey map, as it wouldn't exist if someone hadn't placed a small dam of boulders across the small gully. We stopped here for our sandwiches and set off again just before noon to climb the easy stone staircase to the summit saddle. Strong wind, no visibility and rain greeted us at the top. It was no place to hang around and it was hard to believe the date was the 14 July and not mid winter! Marching on a westerly compass bearing we soon started to lose altitude and followed the occasional cairn and bit of path before the gradient eased and we found ourselves walking on pleasant grassy slopes. But the mountain hadn't finished with us yet and we were soon diverted down a narrow chute of stone and scree down towards Lingmell Gill. On the positive side we descended out of the cloud and rain and at last could see the views around.
	At last, we descended below the cloud and could see Wasdale below.

I stopped to take some pictures and a group of walkers soon caught us up and descended rapidly down to the pastures below. We followed and got back to the car at 13:48. We didn't see much but our knowledge of the routes on the mountain is a lot better.