St Sunday Crag Walk Feb 2013

Morgan on St Sunday Crag

A Great Walk up St Sunday Crag – Snow and Sunshine

Following last week’s wonderful Place Fell Walk Emma, Morgan and I decided to make the most of the sunshine and head up St Sunday Crag. Here are the photos with the minimal words thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

St Sunday Awaits

Morgan and I get a good view of St Sunday every morning on the early morning walk. Last Wednesday it was looking particularly appealing. So after doing “walking bus” for the school it was time to crack on..

Approaching St Sunday in Glenmara Park

We set off from Patterdale and decided to take the direct route up and down via the saddle rather than the standard route of heading up the Grisedale valley to Grisedale Tarn and then up. This was because a) we’re quite lazy and wanted the quickest route up and b) we figured we’d be in the sunshine for longer. The views back down to Ullswater on the way up just keep getting better and better the higher up you go…

View back to Ullswater

Getting better!

View from the saddle

Helvellyn Cottages!

You also get a pretty good view of our Lake District Cottages from the way up as well! The path up to the saddle is quite steep but the kind folk in the LDNP have made plenty of steps so it’s basically like walking up a very long and steep staircase. Once we reached the saddle and crossed onto the north facing side we saw our first snow although nothing to get too excited about at this stage…

Morgan heads up the snowy path

Looking down to Braesteads Farm in the Grisedale Valley

Morgan shows he’s good with sheep

As we headed towards the first ridge summit Morgan took the opportunity for some good ridge posing…

Morgan pose 1

Morgan Pose 2

We decided to go off piste to detour onto the first summit and basically cos we wanted to walk in some real snow and head back into the sunshine…

Morgan on the Snow

Morgan Summit 1

The slightly annoying thing about St Sunday is that it’s actually a series of undulating ridges which means you think you’re there but every time you top one ridge you see another one looming ahead. Having walked it a few times before, mainly from the Fairfield side, I was well aware of this but as this was a new and frustrating experience for Emma! Luckily the weather and the views more than made up for it!

Place Fell from St Sunday

Helvellyn and Striding Edge from St Sunday

Morgan Awaits

The snow got a little thicker and icier on the last summit climb so we donned our ice spikes just to be ont he safe side. This also meant we could follow the path rather than pick our way across patches of snow free fell…

Nearly there…second to last ridge

Get off my summit

Having not seen a soul on our ascent as we neared the real summit we could see some folk up there. Morgan, who likes to experience summit cairns on his own, soon sent them packing so that when we reached the top we had it all to ourselves….

I point out the interlopers sent packing by Morgan

St Sunday Summit looking south

St Sunday Summit looking to Seat Sandal (north)

Morgan with his water bowl…

Morgan enjoys the summit views – Fairfield in the background

Having sunbathed for a while and rehydrated ourselves and the hound it was time to descend…

Emma descends on the snow

I choose the snowiest path..

Looking east – three ridges before the Pennines

All in all another grand day out in the Lake District, with some great views of Ullswater and Helvellyn, superb weather and of course wonderful company!

For more pictures of our adventures in the Lake District around Ullswater, Patterdale and Helvellyn, please follow Helvellyn on Twitter. You can also follow Ullswater on Facebook and Helvellyn on Facebook. If you want to come and stay in the Lake District why not choose one of our pet friendly Ullswater Cottages. Enjoy!

My Mate Morgan