Hills: Skiddaw, Skiddaw Little Man
Wainwrights (hills listed in AW’s Lakeland Fells guides): Ditto
Hewitts (hills in England and Wales in excess of 2000ft): Ditto
Furth Munros [/b](Hills over 3000ft in the UK outside Scotland): Skiddaw
Date: 22 July 2010
Weather: Pea soup fog. Oh dear!
Who: Just me
I realised after posting my last Wainwright walk that I’d actually got muddled. Crinkle Crags was not actually my 3rd foray into the Lake District.. it was the 4th. I had forgotten about a rather foggy ascent of Skiddaw I had done in July of that year, en route to Scotland for a friend’s Munro compleation. So although this is Wainwright walks 4, it was actually 3….
What would most people describe as ideal preparation for an ascent of Ben Nevis via the CMD arete? I’m fairly sure it would involve a reasonable fitness regime involving (a) climbing smaller hills, (b) going to the gym, (c ) not stuffing your face for a few weeks beforehand , and (d) trying to get a bit of a rest beforehand. Well, I tried to manage a few of these… I did seriously hit the gym for a few weeks before the Ben Nevis walk, not that it did me any good as no gym machine known to Virgin Active involves clinging onto a narrow bit of rain slicked rock whilst trying not to look down or worry about exactly how much one would go ‘splat’ if falling off. Having failed miserably to get a rest though, I opted for plan b… get up a smaller hill. The plan, such as it was, was to ascend a Lake District hill en route up to Scotland. I was very conscious that it had been a long time since I had gone up a 3000ft hill so Skiddaw seemed like a plan.