Leg 3 recce in 2 parts!

Had a great couple of days out going over Leg 3. Took yesterday off work and meet up with a few people from the FRA forums to recce the first part of Leg 3 from Dunmail Raise. I had a slow journey over to Langdale and arrived last which always flusters me! But it was great to meet everyone and soon we where packed into 2 cars and heading over to Dunmail. I wasn't surprised to see there was more snow over on the eastern side of the fells and it looked like we were going to get a good day of it! 

We made good time up from Dunmail Raise to Steel Fell, and then it was all going well until we tried to find Calf Crag in the mist. I've only been there once before from this side and that was in clear warm weather!! From my GPS trace I can see we just didn't go far enough before we started dithering in the mist thinking we should have found it! After a bit more dithering we decided just to keep heading on and then we found it! So moral is its always further than you think!!

It felt good to at least have ticked that top even if it was in bad style! We had no problems with the rest of the route to the top of Rossett Gill, over Seargant Man, High Raise, Thunacar Knott, Harrison Stickle and Pike O'Stickle, although this could have been due to the cloud lifting off for a bit!! 

4 of the group had to head off down to the cars at the ODG, but 3 of us pushed on over Rossett Pike and up onto Bowfell. I must admit I was unsure about tackling Bowfell because of the snow but it was soft and not too deep, so we decided to give it a go. It was good to have to work this all out for myself, as again I've only been up this with others who know it and in warm sunny weather! The summit of Bowfell was not a place to hang around as the mist was down and the wind was blowing, so we pushed on down to Three Tarns and down the Band. The snow coming off the summit was amazing, deep and just that lovely consistency which means you can bomb down it! Really great fun!

Today I headed back up to Bowfell from the foot of Hard Knott Pass to go over the rest of the leg. The conditions where not so great! I felt good after yesterday, and trotted up the upper Eskdale valley to Ling Cove Bridge and then up Upper Mosedale and up to Three Tarns again!! The snow was much softer and mushy, and the rain arrived just as I got to the tarns, along with the wind! I could see the remains of our foot prints in the snow from yesterday, and followed up to the summit.

The trog down and up over Esk Pike was hard going in the wind and rain. It was thick mist and I trusted to the compass and previous footprints! after Esk Pike I nearly bailed but thought I'd just head over to Great End and then see. The going up Great End wasn't much fun either but even worse was the trot out towards Ill Crag - straight into the teeth of the wind! I wasn't moving very fast, and wasn't paying any real attention to splits between summits. I was just glad to be out (?!) and going over the terrain. I skipped the Ill Crag & Broad Crag summits and headed along the main path to the summit of the Pike. I can recce that after work one day in better conditions!

Once on the Pike I just took a bearing and headed straight fro Mickledore. At this point I had vaguely decided that I wasn't going to head up onto Scafell, and when I got to the foot of Foxes Gully it was pouring with water, so that decided that! I'm going to head up Broad Stand on my attempt so going up Foxes Gully, which I've done before anyway is not exactly much use. It looked really unpleasant too!

So I trotted off down from there to Great Moss (More like Great Lakes today!) and ran back to the car at Brotherilkeld. I felt strong running back even through the bogs and small lakes. It was amazing wet up there! 

Need to work out the stats still but 2 13-ish milers back to back with a fair amount of ascent and I feel like I could easily do the same again tomorrow!

Final Stats:

Friday: Total Mileage: 12.44, Total Ascent ~ 8000'

Saturday: Total Mileage: 13, Total Ascent 4900'