11th Meet 6th December 2009

It seems so long ago since the Summit Group last met and I had missed our monthly walks and Mass. Today, everything was back to normal and we started the first walk of the new season in the Langdale Valley. We met at the Cathedral car park and then made our way to Staveley, just outside Kendal, calling at Wilf’s cafĂ© for our usual light refreshments pit-stop.
The drive up to our starting point emphasised the problems caused by the recent flooding in Cumbria. Fields were covered in water, waterfalls were flowing on to the roads and rivers were swollen. Many of the banks had been breached and the water was rising up to the level of the road. The level of the water in the lakes had risen dramatically causing problems for drivers. With this in mind, we decided that we wouldn’t be too adventurous on this first walk and that the safety of the group would come first. We arrived at the Achille Ratti Climbing club and Mass was held in the tiny chapel before we set out.
Today’s walkers were Fr Philip Conner, Ruth and Joe White, Nora Moriarty, Ralph Garcia and Lizzie Cavanagh. The weather was rather cold, overcast in some places but with some blue skies scattered around and it looked like that there was more rain to come. We set off towards Stickle Tarn heading up past Stickle Ghyll towards the waterfall. We are normally used to seeing little waterfalls coming down the hills but I think that we were all quite surprised at the amount of water today. If we looked to the top of the summits we could see snow and at one point it actually hailed so you can tell how cold it was. We were in good spirits and we paused for a lunch break on the way up. I felt that this was the ideal moment to make everyone wear party hats. It would be my 18th birthday in 2 days so I’d brought some cup cakes for the pre-birthday celebration with my Summit friends. Fr Phil looked great in his pirate hat! After lunch we headed towards Stickle Tarn. I remembered that this time last year the tarn was completely frozen over and the hills were covered in snow. Today we only had to contend with heavy rain. We encountered a couple of passing walkers so I enlisted their help and we posed for our usual group photo complete with party hats. What must they have thought?
We began our descent around 2.30pm passing Harrison Stickle, Thorn Crag and Dungeon Ghyll Falls, Passing Pike Howe we arrived safely back at the Achille Ratti around 4pm.
It’s nice to be back in the Lakes again. I’m praying for some snow on the next Summit!

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