Mellbreak  | - Click on the image above to view gallery
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 Mellbreak It’s a regular walk for Roger who often takes Harry and Bethan up there, in fact in the last week he had been up this way twice already. Just a few days prior to our walk today he had taken a stunning 360° panorama from the summit in perfect winter conditions. We knew we weren’t going to get those conditions today but I don’t think we expected the conditions we did find either. The new snow that had fallen the day before had filled in all previous footprints in the snow and at times we couldn’t make out where the paths actually went through the heather covered slopes, so we were quite happy to follow Roger, who knows the paths very well. I got the impression, however, that the snow actually made it easier to walk at times as under all that snow are some steep scree runs that I would probably think twice before walking on, but today they were under knee-deep snowdrifts so as long as I could actually keep moving it was easy enough.  Harry making progress look easy  Really feeling the effect of the wind now.
During the entire climb up the front of the fell we had been protected from the wind but above us we could see the clouds moving quickly. We knew the strength of wind would eventually hit us once we reached the summit ridge, but I don’t think any of us expected the amount of spindrift in the air which at times made it very painful as it blew into our faces and also made it hard to see where we were going. At times the spindrift made such pretty patterns as it was blowing about, but sadly I couldn’t catch any of these on my camera, which to be honest was safely tucked away it its case for a lot of the time. I actually took lots of different pictures trying to catch the spindrift in the air. When I was looking closely at the pictures I wondered if Microsoft ICE might be able to stitch them together which is exactly what it did. I was amazed at the result too. If you want to see the result just click on the picture below.  Mellbreak panorama trying to catch the spindrift.
A hurried picture was taken at the north summit, not that we could actually stand up for long. After this there was the task of walking across the summit ridge. Today was not a day for visiting the south summit (which is just 8 feet higher than the north summit). Today was the kind of day where you safely found a way off the fell and following Roger we knew we would be OK. The snow had drifted quite deeply in places and I tried various ways of trying to keep moving. At times I would follow the same footprints as Roger and Nigel had used, which I thought would be fine but it still seemed to me that I would sink even further into the snow than they did until I was up to my knees. I lost count of the number of times I fell over and made unintentional snow angels trying to get back up again. It was all great fun I have to say but I could see how tiring it would be if we had to do it for too long. Soon we came to a place where Roger knew there was a sheep trod that traverses the fell side. I know we would have struggled to find it as it was well hidden under the fresh snow. It was at this time a sledge would have been very useful I think as it would have been a much quicker way of descending the fell, although in reality that would have been a rather steep way of going down. We followed Roger however and at one point we saw before us what looked to be the footprints of a fox. Also along this footpath we saw evidence of a small avalanche that must have happened fairly recently.  Mellbreak traverse  Mosedale
Before long we had descended as far as the Mosedale track where it seemed a very different world to what we had experienced on the fell top. Thank you Roger for leading us safely on this walk today: it really was a lot of fun for us walking in the deep snow drifts and experiencing just how painful spindrift can be when it’s hitting you in the face. As much fun as it was, we were always well aware just how quickly the conditions can change and how careful you need to be.
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Another great album. The photo of the spindrift was fabulous. It's another world on the top isn't it?
Best wishes
Sherran