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| Scafell |
Following
The Cairngorms In Winter film we made last winter
Terry Abraham has been working on a new project in the Lake District called
Life of a Mountain: Scafell Pike. A few days
ago I went down to join him to film a winter backpacking sequence. The weather
forecast wasn't good but we'd already put the trip off once due to the
extremely stormy weather. As it was, we were to be very lucky and have a brief
interlude of relatively calm and bright weather between two big storms. This
didn't seem likely when I arrived in heavy rain and strong winds. Our first
evening was spent in the warmth of
The Strands Inn in Nether Wasdale and then
the
Wasdale Head Inn and the first night was spent in the comforts of camping
pods on the
National Trust Wasdale camp site. Given the ferocious weather I was
happy to have solid walls around me. The morning brought low cloud and a gusty
wind but the rain and hail that hammered down during the night had faded away.
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| Terry Abraham in camp before the snow in Upper Eskdale |
Mountain guide
David Powell-Thompson, who will also feature
in the film, drove us round to Eskdale from where we walked up beside the River
Esk before cutting up the hillside to camp beside rocky knolls above the flat
expanse of the Great Moss with, theoretically, a grand view of the Scafell
summits. In fact all we could see were dark clouds low down on the hills. Just
before dusk the sun did slice under the clouds to light up some of the lower
slopes with a beautiful golden light, a few magic moments before a stormy
night.
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| Evening Light |
The clouds stayed low so the next day we decided that
navigating on compass bearings on the Scafells and seeing nothing didn't really
appeal. Instead we stayed closer to camp, wandering round the knolls and slopes
below the clouds, taking photographs, filming, looking at the rocks and the grasses
and the ravens and the sheep and the juniper bushes. It wasn't very cold and
only glimpses of snow streaks below the edges of the clouds suggested it was
winter.
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| Snow Traces Below The Clouds |
The day stayed dry, thankfully, and not too windy but dusk
brought rain and wind. This didn't last though and soon a bright moon with a
halo round it shone down hazily through the drifting clouds. Then the mountains
suddenly appeared, white and huge, the best view of the trip soar. Terry was
soon busy with time-lapse photography. At least the snow-covered mountains
would show it was winter.
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| A Snowy Dawn |
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| Camp with Scafells |
Dawn showed that they didn't need to. Puzzled by a
slithering sound and not awake enough to recognise it I unzipped the tent door.
A shower of wet snow fell into the porch. The sound was the snow slipping off
the tent when the wind shook it. The hills were still hidden but the world was
now wintry. Later in the day the clouds broke up and Scafell and Scafell Pike appeared looking white and huge and
glorious, shining in the sun. The light and the views couldn't have been
better. This was what we had come for.
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| Terry Filming |
It was, though, our last day so in the afternoon we packed
up and headed back down the valley to meet David and a lift back to the Strands
Inn. By the time we arrived there the wind was howling and hail was bouncing
off the ground. Again I was quite happy to be inside enjoying the excellent
food and ale from the inn's own brewery. Terry reckons it's the best pub in the
area. I can't say I've been in enough of them to confirm this but it's
certainly excellent.
The following day the next big storm hit, with high winds
and torrential rain. I was racing the storm by train, just staying north of
delays and closures, and thinking of those shining white mountains.
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| Scafell Pike |
