Cam Crag Scramble

Edit: I'm extremely awed and grateful for the fact I had two blips on p1 of popular this week: the green woodpecker and Derwentwater. Thank you so much.

Today's is a rare 'person' blip for me but I feel it catches the spirit of the day. It's Intothehills doing his 'Intothehills thing', on Cam Crag. Those blippers who've met him won't be surprised at all!

It was a tough day for me, both mentally and physically. We started with some simple navigation, intending to head out on a big loop by Angle Tarn. The hoar frost made us well aware of how icy the tops and any shady bits would be but as our path turned into the sun, an alternative route via Cam Crag Ridge became a viable and irresistible option which would also tick the QMD box in the log book.

So we took a steep rising traverse up to Woof Stones, which despite the frosty ground, produced sufficient inner heat to make us strip off several layers and bask in the sun over our lunch stop. Glorious!

From there it was a scramble up Cam Crag, somewhere between grades 1 and 2, which turned out to be a massive challenge for me. Not because of the height, nor the drop, nor even the foot placement choices being affected by wet black moss and towards the top, icy patches. No, it was my own fitness, or rather lack of that was the problem. My back surgery was over a year ago now and I've been signed off by the physio, but I discovered that the sciatic nerve is still causing a substantial loss of power in my right leg. It's been fine for walking and I'm grateful of that, but scrambling involving big steps up and pushes off the right leg just weren't possible. So I'll admit to having shed a few tears of frustration and anxiety and whilst I tried to hide them from IttH, he was the good friend and coach I know him to be. We changed tactic; taking smaller steps, traversing to find simpler moves and predominantly leading with my left leg, and of course, reached the top. Yay :-)

By now it was getting late and we realised our descent would take a while as the crust on top of the snow cracked about every 5-6 paces, our legs sinking knee deep. It was beautiful though; deer prints in the sparkling snow and a pink glow on the mountains (extra) giving way to an orange sky.

What a day.