daviskites: Climb a mountain this year - my experience of Striding Edge

It's that time of year that my friends and I book a quest to the hills. Last year we went to climb across Striding Edge in the Lake District.

I was talking with my mate on the way home from work about another trip there this year. You see, we started with the goal of crossing Striding Edge, but when we reached the start of the ridge, the weather was so bad we decided to abort the mission. I learned a good lesson. Take spare gloves, and a snow skiing mask!

Last year's trip started with us catching up in a place just outside Manchester, called Hale, for a sleep over at Pat's, and a meal at the local Italian Restaurant. It was fantastic food, good company, and great camaraderie. We all spoke of how we would conquer the mountain the next day. An early night saw us up in good time for the final leg of the trip; travelling to Glenridding to check into the cottage we had rented for the weekend.

The cottage was just fantastic. Everything we had hoped for. A good usable kitchen for our chef to make our food. Good comfy beds, and an open fire in the small living room. Chris made us some porridge to stave off hunger, and we set off at around 10am for the walk.

The walk starts quite gently, but soon moves to steeper ground, and was good exercise. I was lucky and had a light weight rucksack for my camera equipment, but one of the guys was struggling a little (not mentioning any names), so the P Company ex-army guy came to his rescue and carried his pack. He had two rucksacks on, a proper hard nut, and needless to say we didn't hear the end of it (until something else happened later to deflect the ribbing - more later.)

It wasn't long before we reached the snow line and the going started to get more interesting. The wind was picking up, and we changed into our winter gear. I made the fatal mistake of taking my glove off to clear my glasses, and one of them was blown away in the gale force wind. This is the point at when the rucksack was forgotten and (unfortunately for me) was the subject of torment for the rest of the trip! Luckily Pat had a spare pair of gloves (he's climbed before) and I was no longer in danger of frost bite.

When we reached the start of the edge - the weather got really bad. I could hardly see from snow blindness, so we climbed down into the valley for our lunch.

Chris had pre packed beef stew for us, and attempted to melt snow with his stove. After waiting 30 minutes, we still had ice in the pot, it wasn't working, and at this point my glove should have been forgotten, but oh no - the torment continued.

We continued down the mountain to a great dinner cooked by our chef, and then one of the best nights sleep I've ever had.

The next day we all said our goodbyes, and headed back to London.

I would recommend you book your own quest. It's something to look forward to at this time of year, just after Christmas, and I'll definitely be back to try again with the lads.