Scafell Pike - Wednesday 1st February 2012

Wednesday 1st February 2012

...continued from part 1

Where was I now? Ah yes, at the foot of Lord's Rake....

An annotated version of a photo from the previous page showing the route to Lord's Rake and onwards. I think the climbers (circled) at the foot of the Scafell Crag give a good idea of the scale.

Pulpit Rock on Scafell Pike.

Looking back to Mickledore from the foot of Lord's Rake. You can see my tracks down Rake's Progress on the right.

The view to Scafell Pike from the climb of Lord's Rake. Not much opportunity to take photos here as I was concentrating on the job in hand.
Remember: Ice Axe and Crampons were required from the foot of the rake onwards.

Made it to the top! Looking back down Lord's Rake. Everyone wants to know about the chockstone sitting at the top of Lord's Rake and whether it will fall. Undoubtedly it will one day as it is only resting across the top. For the moment (today only, I will make no predictions and you need to assess the situation yourself if you are going this way!) it seems pretty solid. This photo was taken with the three of us sat underneath it.

I had planned to carry on across Lord's Rake until I looked beyond the chock stone and saw a very similar picture to the last time I was here in snow - there was a great slab of snow between me and the second col which was just a chute down to Hollow Stones below. I'm not certain it could be crossed as it looked a bit unstable, too dodgy for me anyway and there were no other footprints showing that anyone had tried it.
The next thing to look at was the West Wall Traverse and it was a climb up an icy wall to get to it and once there I was committed to continuing that way.

Scafell from the West Wall Traverse.

Looking back to the top of Lord's Rake from the West Wall Traverse. The chockstone is directly below the left hand edge of the large rock (my footprints go beneath it).

The West Wall Traverse was straightforward enough but once into Deep Gill, it acted like a wind tunnel and there was snow constantly blowing down it. At least the snow was quite soft but it was knee deep in places and made for an arduous climb. The gully is probably at an angle of about 60 degrees and it looked a long way down when I looked back and it was much harder work than Lord's Rake. Needless to say, every kick of the crampons and every bite of the axe were made to count on this climb.