Little Blake Rigg

This meet is on. Saturday forecast is for dry, very cold, very windy weather, but Little Blake Rigg is low altitude, so should be OK. It is grade 2, 2 star, and is described as having pleasant, clean rock with airy scrambling -easier than it looks. There is the potential to extend the day by walking over to Seathwaite Tarn, where there are further scrambles for the keen. The approaches are rather boggy so plan footwear accordingly!

Meet at Birks Bridge car park (approx 234 995), in the Duddon Valley at 10 am. Lift available from Cockermouth Lakes Business Park at 8.30. Contact me at judithbrown3@aol.com.

Duddon Valley Scramble Meet Report: Five of us piled into Jon’s car for the long ride down to Birks Bridge, where Geraint was waiting and where we were pleased to welcome back long-standing member, Phil Fleming.
Geraint asked if I had brought the KMC chainsaw. One would certainly have been handy as we scrambled up, over and through the trees brought down by the recent storms and now liberally distributed across the path.
Obstacles overcome, it was a short walk to Little Blake Rigg. The route felt quite technical in places for grade 2. Most of the party braved the fairly exposed direct line while the meet leader wimped around the grassy bits where necessary, before getting stuck half ‘a cheval’ on the final arete. It would have been an unedifying sight had there been anyone around to see it, but the rest of the team were comfortably consuming their sandwiches on the summit, so missed the belly-flop and accompanying swearword.
The wind was chilly, but the views were good, so we continued over the tops to drop down to the head of Seathwaite Tarn. The meet leader vaguely suggested that any keen folk could nip up the scramble on Raven Nest Howe, a nice, short, grade 2 – but there were no takers, so we continued down to the dam, and, eventually back to the cars where we parted from Phil, hoping to see him out on further meets this year. The rest of us retired to the Newfield Inn for well-earned refreshments.
The team was Geraint, Jon T, Steve P, Ann, Anne, Phil, and Judith.