Bow Fell Buttress Langdale 8th March 2010

March 8, 2010

A good way to spend international Women’s day.

There have been hard frosts at night for the last week really but the day time temperatures have been getting up to 10 C. The sun is certainly getting a but more strength in it. We parked at the little lay bye at the back of the camp site and headed down Oxendale and up the Band. We left to go round the Climbers Traverse. The snow was quite varied it was quite sugary in the sun and crisp and frozen where it was in the shade. We soon found that we needed our crampons so we were quite hopeful that the gullies on the buttress would be in good condition. We saw quite a lot of old avalanche debris.

South gully looked to have very large cornices and as the top was in the sun we were weary of going up it. We thought that North Gully would be a more interesting prospect. The snow was quite soft and sugary at first. We headed up the gully. There was a small interesting pitch at the beginning and again towards the top. When we thought about it after we realised that the buttress faces north East and therefore gets the morning sun which explained why it was softer that other places that have been totally in the shade.

It was excellent anyway we then went up to the top of Bow Fell Buttress and then went over Crinkle Crags past great Knott and down to Oxendale. My heel was playing up quite a bit but is ok now.