#2 Two's Up Helvellyn  3/01/23

I know they’re simple for many…but not  for me….the proportions are all wrong. The drop in relation to the width of the edge is just wrong. So I guess that’s why I’ve dodged Helvellyn so many times. I’ve always preferred St Sundays Crag when  I walk in the area, using the excuse that St Sundays is quieter and gives great views of Helvellyn. So those two ridges have got a lot to answer for!

I guess the real culprit though is  Crib Goch, that’s where my confident youth hit a buffer and I realised, to my surprise, that I was very scared of heights. I’ll never forget that day, leaving Pen-y-Pass with a spring in my step. I was determined to do the Snowdon Horseshoe. I hadn’t even thought about it. I had a week to do all the  Welsh 3000s, and I was going to get a few that day but after the steep climb to the Eastern end of the ridge, feeling the fear rise, palpable, nauseating, terrifying, shaking me breathless. I turned round, descended and went back up the Pyg Track with every other day tripper. So I learnt that day that ridges aren’t for me!

So finally I accepted that I’d go the other way up Helvellyn, two continuous uphill miles from the car park on the edge of Thirlmere reservoir. No mucking about today, no circular walk, or dragging it out, straight up for two miles, a quick look at those two edges and then two miles back down. Because that wasn’t all today, it was a two-adventure day and we had resolved to squeeze in a wild dip too. And yes, there were two of us today.

The whole western side of Helvellyn was shaded by the mass of the mountain but we could see the top, ahead, high up and knew that up there  the sun shone, the wind blew and there was a covering of snow. So we headed for the sun, up the steep path near Helvellyn Gill Fall, bearing right onto the steeper ascent of Browncove Crags, emerging onto the snowy top, summit ahead with Swirral and Striding Edge ahead to the left. Sounds simple when I put it like that, but it’s not. It’s a calf aching, thigh burning, lung busting, ankle turning, slippery, icy slog. But, when you emerge, slowly into the sun, onto the top, into the snow, with that blue sky….it’s breath-taking!

I thought when I saw Swirral Edge and Striding Edge, I might think, ‘they’re not that bad’, by all account  they’re nothing compared to Crib Goch. But no, the opposite. The sight of people traversing them made my heart pump and the sight of a family descend over the edge of the hill onto Swirral Edge hit me in the stomach. I couldn’t look. So I re-confirmed my relationship with heights, edges and drops. They’re not for me and this was the only way up and down Helvellyn that I was going to do. But it didn’t ruin the top for me, it was breath-taking with 360 degree views in blue sky of the majesty of the lakes. A crunching snow covered top, making you feel like you’re on top of the world and free. It’s an amazing feeling pumped full of endorphins and New-Year hope ,it was amazing to share it.

So two miles back down, two miles of  ankle twisting, thigh shaking hippety hoppity hobbling back to the car. With only an hour to sunset we chose a swimming spot nearby, for our second adventure. In my head I was a mountain climbing athlete using Grasmere as my ice-bath recovery. In reality I spent longer squeezing in and out of the wetsuit than I spent in the water. Nevertheless, there was still the thrill of the chill getting into the water at Eastern Shore, and there was the beautiful calmness of the sunset over the lake, birds beginning to settle, last fisherman packing up….it felt like the lake was ours.

So, my second mountain climb within a month, the second day of January, involving a two mile hike twice, two Edges, two adventures and two of us was a perfect way for us to start the Year. A special day to remember, twice.