Robinson, Hindscarth and Dale Head
DATE 09.12.2011 | DISTANCE 14KM | HIGHEST POINT 753M
Posted by Matt | Filed under lake district
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It looked like a light dusting of snow on the fells from down in Newlands this morning. The moment we left the cars, the skies unleashed a heavy bombardment of hail stones and later that day it seemed the weather had plenty more ammunition up it's sleeve. Our first summit, Robinson, was tackled by ascending High Snap Bank. A grassy ridge leading to a couple of fun, simple scrambles to the summit.
After a brief rest with hot coffee at the top we followed Littledale Edge to Hindscarth. This turned out to be quite a slog due to very deep snow. We all managed to lose our feet once or twice and occasionally an entire leg.
During our traverse over to Hindscarth's summit the weather gave us more than our fair share of strong gales and snow, which resulted in another very brief summit visit.
our nice summit was dale head and Due to there being plenty of thick snow and a not so obvious path our descent didn't look partiCUlarly inviting so we decided on an alternate route. We weaved our way down towards dalehead tarn through the deep snow and joined the path leading back to little town just before the rain. today was tough but it was also the first time in snow this year and that's almost always something to smile about.
chapel at little town
dale head, scope and robinson
looking out from high snab bank back towards little town
on high snab bank heading for robinson with the cloud closing in
straight ahead are the crags we had to scramble up on the approach to robinson
essential attire.
alan on one of the short scramble sections
taking a moment to admire the scenery
looking out from the same ledge
zoomed in to keswick and derwent water in the distance. catbells to the right.
looking back to our left, down into keskadale
a short stop for coffee on the top of robinson
taking a break after slogging it in deep snow towards littledale edge
a very short stop on the summit of hindscarth. brutally windy at this point.
i told them it was 5 minutes to the summit of dale head from hindscarth.. not really true.
descending dale head.
the alternate path around dale head crags didn't look very inviting and its path wasn't visible. we chose this pathless route instead. yet again in deep snow. dale head tarn to the right.
now just a case of following the newlands valley path back to little town.
hopefully before the sun has set.
slow, slippery and not always obvious but in the right direction.
hindscarth crags sweeping to the left.
great gable and dale head
looking back from little town to our 3 snowy peaks of the day
reviving my tootsies back at the barn
