Crinkle Crags
The Lake District is full of gems, but could this crinkly wonderland be the perfect introduction to winter walking?
The ideal introduction to a Lakeland winter?
The great British weather had played its usual trick. When the weatherman predicted an unexpected dump of snow and freezing conditions in Wales, our plans quickly changed from Snowdonia’s knife-edge Crib Goch (slight relief) to the friendlier Lake District fells. Sitting in the cosy Black Bull pub in Coniston, nearly 200 miles away from our original Welsh location, with 50mph winds and sleet lashing the windows, we hatched a new plan.
The Mountain Weather Information Service forecast clear skies and a gentle breeze. After 48 hours of battering wind and rain, it didn’t seem likely, but we were hopeful.
Nothing beats bright blue skies, snow and a Lake District vista; so a quiet excitement brewed as we pored over route books and an outstretched map of the Southern Fells.
“Introducing Lakeland’s best ridgemile,” proclaimed Alfred Wainwright in his Pictorial Guide to the Southern
Fells. “Crinkle Crags is much too good to be missed. For the mountaineer who prefers his mountains rough... who enjoys an up-and-down ridge walk full of interesting nooks and corners, who has an appreciative eye for magnificent views.” Grand praise from the guidebook guru. We were sold! If the forecast was right, Crinkle Crags would be perfect – commanding views of the Cumbrian greats and proper mountain terrain; but nothing too tricky in snowy conditions.
A new day dawned and the glow of the early morning winter sun illuminated the snow-clad mountain tops… it was going to be a good one. We eagerly set out to make the most of the limited daylight. From Great Langdale, in the shadows of the surrounding mountains, the approach follows The Band. This is the engaging eastern shoulder of Bowfell, which sits to the north of Crinkle Crags. Our route took us to Three Tarns at a col between the two hills, then south onto the Crinkles.
Bursting into the sunlight as we climbed, the view unfolded and soon we felt as if we had been transported to the Alps. This did not feel like the English Lake District.
As we crossed the snow-drenched grassy rise with Bowfell towering to our right, we encountered the first difficulties of winter walking. The snow had drifted and it was deep! We were thankful for an early morning walker having broken trail, as we followed their compacted footsteps. It was hard work, but we giggled as we floundered ungracefully in the snow, at times sinking thigh-deep. The weather was incredible, and despite the slow progress, we bubbled with enthusiasm. The sun made the snow crystals sparkle and dance, and the deep blue sky filled me with a chest-bursting sense of optimism. I felt incredibly lucky.
As we approached the col and Three Tarns, we stopped to chat to an artist who had caught sunrise from the top of the Crinkles and was already heading home. He pointed out that the best fells are not the biggest and grandest, but
those that survey them. Stopping for refreshments at Three Tarns, we had to agree as we soaked up the eye-watering views of the highest lands of England. Scafell Pike postured in all its 978 metres of glistening wintery glory, right there in front of us.
We planned to tackle the Crinkles from north to south with five hills to summit in total, the highest being 859m. Despite an early start, it was surprising to note how long it had taken us to reach this point of our walk, at the tarns, in the deep snow.
The path up the Crinkles is indistinct in places, and walkers often fan out, finding their own route. With the snow masking any chance of us finding the main path, we picked our way up through the frozen creases and folds, ice axes in hand. The name is apt
indeed, and we scrambled up rocky outcrops, yomping across pristine snowdrifts, up, down and around.
The stunning winter’s day made us feel untouchable; any worries about navigating in poor visibility, freezing water bottles, blasting winds and unnerving terrain were transformed by the sun. All of a sudden, winter hillwalking felt doable; not the preserve of hard-core mountaineers. Everyone should try this!
The snow was soft and grippy, so our crampons stayed in our rucksacks. We messed around practising kicking steps into mini snow slopes, astonished at how easy it was, but secretly feeling pretty epic. We didn’t really even need our ice axes, as we stayed well away from the steep slopes that cascaded down into Great Langdale. In fact, for the beginner winter hillwalker, or anyone who loves the Lakes, it would be pretty hard to beat these mountains in these conditions.
That’s not to say that tackling Crinkle Crags in winter is easy. It’s not. The steep crags and undulating terrain can make them hazardous in poor visibility. With the added difficulty of deep snow at times, we were astounded to find that it would take us six hours to walk just eight miles (including a leisurely lunch break). There was also the legendary ‘Bad Step’ to take into account. Photographer Tom had warned us about this particular feature and even Wainwright had called it, “the most difficult obstacle met on any of the regular walkers’ paths in Lakeland.” We wondered what waited in store…
How I do not know, but after the fourth Crinkle we happened to look back, and there it was – we’d missed it. The Bad Step. In finding our own intrepid route through the Crinkles, we’d managed to skirt around the west flanks of the terrace. I frowned. It didn’t look that bad – but without having done it, I felt a little defeated. We pondered for a moment, seriously considering back-tracking and doing the ‘proper’ route; but with time ticking by and sunlight hours passing, we had to press on. Wainwright had written in his
Guide: “Chicken-hearted walkers, muttering the better part of valour, will sneak away and circumvent the difficulty by following the author’s footsteps around … here they may sit and watch, with ill-concealed grins, the discomfiture of other tourists who may come along.” So, I comforted myself with the fact that we hadn’t chickened out as such, having ‘accidentally’ missed it; and anyway, even AW himself had gone around it.
The views from the Crinkles were, as promised, exceptional in every direction – dominating views of Scafell in the west and Bowfell to the north; glorious expansive views of Langdale, and the southern mountain tops of the Coniston range; the heights of Helvellyn, Blencathra and Skiddaw to the far north-east.
All too soon it was coming to an end, and my soggy feet reminded me of the importance of suitable kit in winter, even on good days. We breathed it all in – the views, the sky, the warmth of the sun – one last time before dropping down into the late afternoon shadows, knowing we would be sitting in the office in front of a computer the next day.
Not that I would ever dare argue with Wainwright, but I did have to agree – the engaging terrain and the surrounding scenery of Crinkle Crags in these picture-perfect Alpine conditions made this the best Lake District ridge-mile walk I’ve ever experienced.