Horizontal Snails

Dry days- 178
Days of rain- 185

Annual leave today. And guess what? RAIN! No surprise there. After dragging my ass out of bed, I headed out for a walk. Due to the short days I decided to go somewhere close, so a Kentmere revisit was on the cards. There was no parking in the usual place by the church so I went to Weak Sam's spot, which was free. It was pissing down as got my stuff on, then stomped up the Garburn Pass track. There was a couple who set off as I was getting dressed, so I followed them up the track. At the summit I hung a right and headed towards Yoke. There was snow on the ground at the summits, but the ground was sodden. At one point avoiding a bog lake was impossible so I ended up with wet feet before the first Wainwright top. Great.

Between Yoke and Ill Bell the Westerlies blew with a vengeance. It was hard to walk, and the horizontal hail didn't help. I stayed behind the couple as I couldn't be bothered putting any effort in. Foswick was achieved easily enough in a clear spell with old views, but then the wind and hail came back with an extra spurt of enthusiasm. Heading to Thornthwaite Crag the woman in front kept getting blown over, as did I (albeit less so) then at one point she obviously took a glove off as it then sailed horizontally somewhere towards Harter Fell. I didn't bother going to the summit of Thornthwaite Crag as conditions were bloody awful, although I overtook the couple here. After this I stomped through snow and slush towards Mardale Ill Bell. This is when the hail softened to snow, then back to hail. The snow was ok but the hail hurt like hell. The snow hail combo (hence, snail) continued past the summit of Mardale Ill Bell, down to Nan Bield Pass, and all the way to Kentmere Reservoir. After this it seemed to settle, with occasional flurries.

I was back at the car by four, after five hours of snail blasting to the face. It was getting dark so after getting changed I headed home. I'm making a turkey biryani, which has taken two days effort but smells excellent in the oven. I hope it tastes as good as it smells, I'm hungry.