03 February 2012

For once it's a fairly easy, Most of the usual venues are worth a look. Moderate to Easy Buttress routes have stood up to the sunshine the best with the turf being in bomber nick and not being reliant on hoar frost that has been stripped out by the sun. For a mixed venue Bowfell Buttress has been seeing quite a bit of traffic as have the Brown Cove Crags buttress routes. The Gullies on Brown Cove are also in great condition as they are holding some old Neve .

Low lying ice is forming but its condition is variable, Paddy visited Bleawater today and found some good ice to climb, Low Water Beck has ice but is not in great nick and all the Ghylls on the Thirlmere side of Helvellyn are holding ice most of them are also still running water. I climbed Birkhouse Ghyll this afternoon and whilst it was running some water you could climb ice all the way. 

Paddy Cave and Brian Davison climbed a  New route at VII 7 on North Buttress, Bowfell yesterday. The Summer line of the Gibli provided surprisingly amenable climbing. They follwed this with a short new routes on the East flank of Bowfell Buttress.

It is set to warm up over the next couple of days and bring some snow on the fells. The Low level ice will strip out very quickly but things should remain climbable high up through the weekend. 

 

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