Bit of a change of plan due to various circs and so Luke and I ambled up to Scales Tarn to see if we could use Luke's VERY shiny new kit! The gully to the left of Sharp Edge (which the guidebook advises is Sharp Edge Gully) looked in good nick and, as the edge was bare, I thought we could walk around to see what condition it was in with maybe a view to an ascent tomorrow....
One person was already most of the way up the gully and another man was putting his crampons on and about to leave..although he had two axes whilst we only had one each. Luke decided that we should have a look and so we started the ascent, as seen in the picture below.
The conditions varied quite a lot on the climb. The top section, which felt pretty steep (especially bearing in mind that we were soloing!) had pretty decent neve whilst some of the mid section around a small ice bulge was pretty manky. This entailed us taking a detour rightwards and a grassy scramble that was the crux of the route - especially for Luke as it was his first ever winter day out of any sort!!!Anyway, all was good - another excellent day on Blencathra although the weather was a little different...
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