Saturday 16th February - Hot and cold above Coniston

A late-ish start and Sue showed me the right track up towards the Coppermines hostel above Coniston! The day was stunning, the resident high pressure meant that there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the sun shone but it was plenty cold (-3C at 750m according to MWIS later in the day). We left the car below Coppermines and followed the track past the Youth Hostel and United Utilities construction site before crossing Levers Water Beck and up, past waterfalls and rockslides, to the reservoir for our first stop and a few photos of the frozen margins of the tarn.

Ice around the shoreline of Levers Water

The path followed the east side of Levers Water and then climbed steadily under Erin Crag and Blake How to Swirl Hause where the view across Wrynose Bottom opened out. From here, a steeper ascent with some good scrambling took us up Prison Band and the top of Swirl How. Duvets came out of our bags; Sue produced sarnies and we had a lazy lunch while admiring the view.

From Prison Band, across The Prison and Brim Fell Rake toward Coniston Old Man

The Scafells from Swirl How

Across Seathwaite Tarn; Harter Fell in the distance

It was good to stride out along the ridge, the plan being to drop back toward Levers Water, then follow the west shore before dropping into Boulder Valley and returning to the car. All went well; initially the way off the ridge was quite loose and broken, but soon led onto a very well made, unusually discrete path which led - almost - to the reservoir. Almost, because I "saw" what proved to be an imaginary path keeping higher above the shore and which, I believed, would save a little re-ascent... almost all of which was in my head! The path wasn't; instead we had 10 minutes of edging practise, easy enough for me, but for Sue, with a keen Scotty tugging at his lead, not so clever - oops! The rest of the walk - once I had been shown the right path - was fine and soon we were heading back to the Church House Inn at Torver for a well deserved brew or two.

Finally - had a play with Google Earth; not bad what you can pull out of it; just to dispel any thought that we'd been on a long walk - it scales off at 5.8 miles!

A Google-eye view from 680m above the shore of Coniston Water