Cumbria Naturally
  • Home
  • Blog
  • My Books
    • Cumbrian Contrasts
    • A Lakeland Experience >
      • Introduction
      • Derwent
      • Langdale
      • Ullswater
      • Kentdale
    • About Scout Scar
    • Atlantic Odyssey
  • Other Writing
    • What Larks!
    • Further - Explore Shetland
    • Autumn Migration
    • Rydal and Nab Scar
    • Perspectives
    • The River Kent
    • Wings
  • Gallery
  • Contact

Ullscarf Blizzard

28/1/2004

1 Comment

 
 Ullscarf

Standing Crag (600 m), Ullscarf ( 726m), Greenup Edge (608 m), Wythburn

Arctic weather was imminent, so the broad Ullscarf ridge west of Thirlmere was our choice. Sub-zero temperatures and storm-force winds were forecast so we had a gear-check before we left home. Layers, lots of layers.

Harrop Tarn lay under a mask of ice and snow and we made our way up through conifers, through a gate in the deer fence, bracing ourselves for the open fell where strong winds whirled flurries of snow and we sheltered in a shallow gully for a sustaining snack.  No stopping on the exposed ridge. Skiddaw and the Borrowdale fells were caught in shafts of sunlight but there were signs of a weather front behind us. A fence runs south from High Seat through High Tove, Shivery Man, Shivery Knott and Standing Crag, linking the high points along the undulating ridge. After a spell of mild weather came Arctic conditions with new-fallen powder snow perfect for walking. Water trickled and gurgled beneath snow and ice over notoriously boggy terrain. Few folk seek out Ullscarf.  Perhaps they’ve heard about the wolf it is named for. Today, there were only the two of us and the wild things- footprints of wild things in the snow.
After mid-day, the sky grew ominously dark as snow clouds massed in the north west.  ‘Prepare yourself,’ said David. With fortitude, I think he meant. The onslaught of the storm was swift, the blizzard enveloped us- all landscape lost. In a white-out, I staggered through snow-covered heather on a sheep-trod as winds lashed and grauples pelted us, stinging a  patch of cheek that balaclava, hat and hood left exposed and battering limbs through layers of gear. Snow crystals fused with more and more frozen water droplets, turned malevolent in the turbulence of the storm high above us and compacted into pellets: volleys of grauples. The munitions of the snowstorm were hurled at us with a ferocity that hurt. Sensing David always by my side, I watched for the fence which should guide us along the high-line of our ridge, through a zone of featureless ground to a cairn at Ullscarf. We reached an angle in the fence which should have confirmed our position, but something was wrong. As the blizzard howled about us, we puzzled over our maps, double checked our compasses. The fence was shown veering south south east to Ullscarf: OS and Harveys map agreed. On the ground, a stout  fence ran north west - the only fence.  Map and ground did not match.  Not a discrepancy to discover in a ferocious storm.  We could  make out a fragment of post that might be the ghost of a long-dead fence heading for the cairn.  So, the Ullscarf foray (plan B was to return to the fence- angle and think again). We were looking for a tarn so insignificant it was shown as marsh on my map, gently rising ground, and remnants of fence posts. David’s confiding in me as he thought it through was reassuring. His forte is micro-navigation, and he thrives on challenge. I could see nothing until we were right upon it but he found a hint of frozen tarn, imperceptible in the blizzard. A white-out concentrates the mind and I noted slightly rising, rocky ground as we approached the cairn on Ullscarf, the highest point of our walk. Thank heaven fasting for a navigator who keeps a cool head in a snow storm.]
We came off the broad shoulder of Ullscarf and as swiftly as it had struck the bombardment stopped, the enveloping whiteness was no longer hostile, it was over. Our snow blindfolds were whisked away and whiteness dispersed to reveal bruised clouds, shreds of bright blue, and pearly light. The storm headed south, and to the north west Glaramara and the Borrowdale Fells appeared, illuminated and under fresh snow, our lost landscape restored. There came a sprinkling of  tarns and rocky knolls on the approach to Greenup Edge and we stopped to drink, to name peaks and to take photographs but the cold numbed my fingers and I was soon back in triple pairs of gloves: red thermals, black mittens and red waterproofs. Flour Gill wound in a frozen, grey-green course through ice and soft rushes. We kept high on our contouring slope following sheep trods through bracken, rocks and boulders filmed over with ice. Wythburn after a snowstorm: at our feet was fresh powder snow with a dusting of ice pellets that formed a mosaic when they froze on rock, petrified grauples. We walked through a swathe of shadow and icy pallor and here, somewhere here, began a wondrous transformation. Far off sunlight touched the summit of Helvellyn and began to flow into Wythburn until rushes glowed, bracken gleamed red-gold and the landscape was suffused with warm colour. Time for sun glasses. Snow, sun and shadow highlighted shapely deposits of fine debris, moraines that marked the course of the glacier. Fraught with rocks and boulders, the glacier had gouged and ground its way down into ice-melt and oblivion. With moraines above us and beside us in their snow and ice element,  we seemed to be walking through aeons of geological time. Our solitude intensified the feeling. The extensive marshy area, ominously named The Bog, was the bed of a glacial lake.  Beyond Wythburn Head Tarns came ice-falls along the constricted course of the beck. Warm colour in a stunning winter landscape. Hoods off, balaclavas off, waterproof gloves off- we emerged from cocoons of clothing. With the dale in a golden glow, it seemed as if nothing had changed for hundreds of years, we both felt it. A sense of pastoral with  sheepfolds along the gill, dry stone walls etched in the snowscape, traces of sheep. 
 Hot chocolate, clementines and my fortifying fruit cake all well earned. Streaks of a red sunset over Dunmail Raise as we drove home.
The stout fence was too new to feature on our maps - a reminder that features like walls, woods and fences can come and go.

1 Comment
Albert West
30/3/2020 10:28:46 am

Loved the narrative and the unfolding drama.
'grauples' is a new one on me.

I had booked Birslack Cottage at Cotes for Easter to explore the area, but coronavirus put paid to that. I had browsed maps and guide books for many an hour in order to create a wish list of walks for all weathers. Have to wait till another time now.

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Author

    Jan Wiltshire is a nature writer living in Cumbria. She also explores islands and coast and the wildlife experience. (See Home and My Books.)

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    November 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    April 2010
    January 2010
    November 2009
    January 2009
    January 2004

    Categories

    All
    A Local Patch
    Birdlife
    Butterflies And Moths
    Flowers
    Locations
    Views
    Walks
    Weather
    WIldlife

    RSS Feed

Website
Home
Blog
Gallery
Contact



​Cookie Policy
My Books
  • Intro - My books
  • ​Cumbrian Contrasts
  • A Lakeland Experience
  • About Scout Scar
  • Atlantic Odyssey
    ​
Other Writing
  • Intro - Other Writing
  • What Larks!
  • Further - Explore Shetland
  • Autumn Migration
  • Rydal and Nab Scar
  • Perspectives
  • The River Kent
  • Wings
Jan Wiltshire - Cumbria Naturally
© Jan Wiltshire 2021 All rights reserved
Website by Treble3