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It is a long time since I did my last Unfrequented Wainwright Route so I put that correct today and climbed raise from Stanah via Fisherplace Gill. I parked the car at Stanah and headed off up the Sticks Pass track. Once we had crossed the water leat and reached the intake wall, the route up to Sticks Pass lay straight ahead. But we turned right and headed south along the intake wall until we reached Fisherplace Gill after a quarter of a mile. We crossed the footbridge and took a faint path up the south bank of the Gill. The gill lies above the hamlet of Fisher Place (between Stanah and Thirlspot) and is notable for several excellent waterfalls which are seen at close quarters from the path. Eventually the path (and the gill) level out and a fork in the gill is reached - the left branch is called Sticks Gill (west) and the right branch is called Brund Gill. Page "Raise 5" of Wainwright's Eastern Fells shows a picture of the area. I took the middle way (no visible path) headed directly for Raise between the two gills. I was in thick cloud but, amazingly, I reached the lower of the two cairns below Raise summit with no problems. On the way up it was fun to see all the ski and snowboard tracks made last week after the snowfall. There is a ski tow on the North East side of Raise and any skiers and boarders who climbed up to the tow from the West use this slope when it is snow covered to get as long a run back to the car as they can. I suppose last week they will have managed a run of maybe a mile and a half with a drop of 1,400 feet from the summit. Almost Alpine standard but only on about 10 days a year unfortunately. Raise summit was very different to when I was last there when Jo finished her 214. Then it was misty and pouring with rain. Today the mist lifted just as I reached the summit and there was snow, sun, cloud (below us) and blue sky - great! On Whiteside I reached the summit at the same time as a ski mountaineer who had climbed the fell using "skins" to enable skis to travel uphill without slipping. Originally seal skin they slide only in one direction (forwards) but have now been replaced with an artificial alternative. As I reached Lower Man summit it became a race against time to try to reach Helvellyn summit before the cloud came down - unfortunately I lost!  We sheltered in the summit shelter and had lunch as the temperature dropped and the wind rose. No one seemed to have used crampons for ascent but those of us who carried them used them in descent as there was hard packed ice under 4 inches of loose snow on the paths. I went down over Browncove Crags to Swirls and dropped out of the cloud just above the snowline. By now it was a grey evening and dusk was approaching as I did the half hour walk alongside the road back to Stanah. Another smashing winter walk in December - what a strange year this is! The full album is available on Picasa at http://picasaweb.google.com/fornside/RaiseWhitesideAndHelvellynViaFisherplaceGill |
