Wednesday saw a bright, clear but cold day which meant we could recce a walk planned for our summer visit.  The plan was to walk up to Hart Crag via Bleabury Knott and Hartsop above How.  From there we would walk on to Cofa Pike, down into Deepdale Hause, up again to St Sunday Crag then dropping down into Patterdale and back to the pub.  In theory about 8.9 miles.  This is the sturdy band of walkers, though due to injury three of the group decided not to embark on this walk.  The first part of the walk was brilliant, stunning views both up and down the mountain as you can see from the pictures below.  The large one shows Hart Crag, our target for the morning and our lunch stop.

As we progresses, the hills got steeper and more difficult to walk on as the snow became deeper.

The two pictures above show the approach to Hart Crag and the view from the top towards the Fairfield Horseshoe.

The walk from here on got very challenging.  Spikes/crampons were necessary as the snow had frozen to ice in places and the scramble down Cofa Pike and on to St Sunday Crag became very challenging and time consuming. We did get some stunning views as below which shows Dollywaggon Pike, Nethermost Pike and finally Helvellyn with Striding Edge leading off the latter to the right.  Any takers?

This is Cofa Pike looking back to Grizedale Tarn.  A mean and moody view.  Next was the walk/scramble/climb to the top of St Sunday Crag which took much longer than anticipated and as the picture shows below, by the time we reached the top the sun was setting in the western sky line.

St Sunday Crag looking towards Ullswater.

This latter shot was the last of the day because my camera battery failed shortly after from extreme cold! Needless to say the walk off St Sunday Crag proved most interesting as it was dusk, and we finally reached the pub in Patterdale about 6.30pm.  We won’t be doing this walk in the summer!  Final distance, 11.4 miles.