Langdale, 22-24 July 2009, Saturday Scrambling

After a scorching hot day yesterday, Lorna and I deceided to travel light and avoid the use of ropes. We rather lazily drove along to The New Dungeon Ghyll Hotel and set off up the Stickle Ghyll path to just after the footbridge. From here, we headed right to the start of the grade 2, Tarn Crag Gill scramble.

Tarn Crag Gill can be seen in the centre of the picture, with the grade 2, East Rib of Tarn Crag high on the left.

The Cicerone guide to scrambles in the Southern Lakes grades the gill as a 2, being reduced to 1 if difficulties are avoided. A couple of the bigger falls were inpassable, so we had to go round, but most could be done on dry-ish rock to the sides.

The scrambling is never to difficult and it's a far more intersting way up to Stickle Tarn.

Lorna, climbing one of the higher falls before the ravine became too mossy and damp to make safe progress, so we exited the gill and headed left to the start of the East Rib of Tarn Crag.

The East Rib seen on profile from the approach from Tarn Crag Gill.

From the top of Tarn Crag, it's a short descent to Stickle Tarn with Pavey Ark towering over it. Today, Pavey Ark was swarming with climbers doing various routes, several of which cross the grade 1 scramble of Jakes Rake, seen rising from right to left across the face of the cliff.

To the left of the tarn is Harrison Stickle with it's grade 1 or 2 scramble up the East Ridge. We had intended to continue over to it, but couldn't be bothered with the approach up the grassy slopes below to the start! So we opted for obligatory visit to the grade 1 Jakes Rake.

Midway up the rake we passed several climbers belaying their leaders up the face. It was quite a sociable journey as we chatted with different climbers about their routes. From the top of Pavey Ark, we walked over to the summit of Harrison Stickle.

The summit gives great views back across the face of Pavey Ark and the climbers on it.