Yet again I was up before sunrise and yet again Ella was reluctant to relinquish her duvet. After a quick breakfast we checked the MWIS forecast which confirmed that conditions would be pretty much the same as they were on Saturday. We decided that our half-day walk should be up something a tad tamer because my butt was playing up again so we chose Binsey for a simple up-and-down stroll.
After we'd filled the flasks we packed the gear in the car, said our goodbyes at the hostel and headed off for the short drive around the Back o'Skidda. We parked up in a small lay-by near Binsey Cottage, from there the track was straight up and obvious, no crampons required. If there had been a good covering of snow it would have been an excellent sledging hill with no problems going from top to bottom in one go.
Binsey's an odd fell, set apart from the others. It lacks altitude and technical appeal but it affords great views:
Snowclouds breaking over Skiddaw
On the way up we spotted from a distance what we thought was an injured sheep lying in the grass:
Sheep?
We should have gone to Specsavers 😎 ... on closer inspection it turned out to be a boulder with a peculiar covering of moss and lichen:
Notsheep
As usual, Ella couldn't resist playing with the ice:
Frozen
A few hundred yards further on we were nearing the obvious summit where the wind was tearing up from behind us and whistling over the top:
Ella makes for the top
Surveying the scene
Snug in the shelter
We got comfy in the shelter, it was time for cuppas and snacks. The view from the top is well-worth the minimal effort of getting there, it's a great place for appreciating the layout of the Northern Fells. I managed to take a few pics when the wind wasn't flinging ice at the lens:
The Uldale Fells
Pano from Binsey
The stroll back down to the car took around twenty minutes and soon we were back in Keswick - Ella wanted some retail therapy. While shopping we ran into the two folk that we'd met up on Satura Crag the day before... what were the chances of that happening?
I was determined to keep my hands off my wallet but couldn't resist using my YHA-membership discount in the Cotswold shop when I saw the snow-scooters. Yeah, I might well be fifty but there's nowt in the rules that says that I have to act like it! We'll try to remember to take the thing up Binsey in the snow next year.
The drive home was fairly easy with hardly any bad roads until we got within 100 yards of home. Four hours of simple driving and then an hour to get the car on the drive. While we'd been away our village had been more-or-less snowed-in and iced-up.
Here's the tale of the tape:
Saturday: 3.04 miles of walking, 1341ft of up/down, 1 new Wainwright for Ella, none for me;
Sunday: 1.48 miles of walking, 592ft of up/down, 1 new Wainwright for each of us;
Wainwright totals so far: Ella 14/214, me 209/214
