Pinnacle Ridge - Not this time! 7th May 2011

Stayed in a nice little campsite between Patterdale and the Kirkstone Pass, called Sykeside Farm. Good facilities and a decent pub serving Jennings Smooth Bitter at £2.50 a pint! This was the first time we had used our new Vango Icarus 500 that we bought from Gaynor Sports of Ambleside (online) last year. As usual it was cheaper than Tiso!
The weather was a bit hit and miss with sunny spells and then a bit of rain and strong winds, but the Icarus coped well. In fact not a drop got in! Being a full height tent it does move a wee bit in very strong winds but it stood firm and proved to be very good. Pitching was fairly easy too as it is all in one so to speak.  

From the site we could just make out the Priesthole Cave where myself and Stevie stopped last year. We did see lights later at night up there so someone was obvioulsy in there.

On the Sunday we headed for St Sunday Crag! We left the site and headed up past Dove Crag up towards Fairfield, and then over to Cofa Pike to the saddle before St Sunday itself. We were hoping, a little, optomistically to reach the top of Pinnacle Ridge and descend  to the base and climb the grade 3 scramble back up. However the heavens opened at this point so we bailed out at the saddle and descended the valley to the south of St Sunday and headed back for the main road and the campsite!       

Looking back at the rain and clag above the crags below Fairfield as we tried to beat the rain!

Witches Trails - 1st May 2011

We gave ourselves the choice of Castle Ridge (and the walk in from the North Face car park!), or a "slightly" more leisurely day on the bikes around the Witches Trails area at the Nevis Range Ski Area.
We chose the bikes!
A bit dissapointed to find the maps they advertise are an A4 photocopy and £1 each. I thought they would have something more substantial and longer lasting!? 

Anyhow, we managed four circuits of the two blue routes and had most of the tracks to ourselves. Although the main forest tracks are not too difficult to find your way around, they could do with better signs or markers. In many places there were none which meant checking the map a few times for the first few runs. Still fantastic weather to finish a great weekend!