Saturday 18th October, Scrambling in the wet

Today I am working for Adventure Peaks in the Lakes with Kevin on his two day introduction to scrambling course. Unfortunately the weather is not very kind today, with strong winds and rain, our choice of location's has been dicated by the weather.

I decided to head over to Raven Crag in Yewdale, a Grade 2 *** route, for our first scramble of the day which is a good introduction and not too serious. We practiced movement skills on rock and explored the use of the rope to "protect" your partner before setting off to test these new skills.

After succesfully completing this route we drove to Conniston and headed up Long Crag Buttress, Grade 1***, the rock on this route is almost garbbro like in texture and provided good grip in the wet conditions. It is also a long route and we managed to have some fun working our way up the route.

After decending back to the valley we drove up to Walna Scar road and our next scramble The Bell, Grade 1 **, this is a nice route and after consulting the guide book Kevin lead his first scramble route. By now the weather was improving and we walked up to Levers Water before starting to work our way up the fellside to the start of our final scramble of the day, Great How, the wet rock made this route very slippy in places and we had to move carefully but we had managed to get shelter from the wind.

We stopped for a well earned break just below the summit, and enjoyed the clouds drifting over the fells. When we reached the top the wind was very strong and we opted to drop back down into the valley instead of walking along the ridge to Conniston Old Man. Once we reach the miners tracks it is an easy walk back to the car.