Sunrise from Grey Friar

After a blustery start to the night the rest was very calm. I woke before the alarm due to the almost full daylight; I thought I'd overslept. The sky was clear with a little cloud on the horizon and some in the valleys. I was out of the tent about 4:45am to watch the sun rise behind some thin cloud. It was a wonderful sight as large billowing clouds hung in the valley below but all around was clear. I wandered in the sunshine and still no wind. The weather was so nice I delayed my start as I'd only planned to move to somewhere near Coniston.

View towards the Langdales

Pitch on Blake How

After an hour or so some thin high cloud rolled in but it was still nice. Then weather forecast for later was for heavy rain so I wanted to move lower anyway. I was packed up and on my way by 10:15 and as I left the summit of Grey Friar I met an old couple who'd walked up from Wrynose Pass road summit. They asked me which mountain they were on and I confirmed they were on the right route. I decided to wander over to the springs above Carble Hows and check out an old campsite I'd used. The last time I camped it was thick cloud all the time and I saw nothing. I then headed up towards Swirl How and met the couple I'd seen earlier. They were on their way back down to Wrynose and I left them while I set off to make the steep descend of Prison Band to Swirl Hawse.

It was much easier in clear dry weather. I looked down across Levers Water to see if there were any suitable places to pitch a tent. I'd never been on the ridge below Black Sails so decided to have a look. After a short descent on the main track I took a diagonal line up to the ridge. I came across a minor path and followed it, hoping to find a water supply. I couldn't find one but eventually came to a flat area with some water in a muddy depression. There was a trickle of an overflow so I decided to camp here as it was such a nice spot. It took a long time to fill the water bag from the tiny trickle but it was worth it. During the afternoon an RAF helicopter flew around the valley below and did a couple of circuits of Levers Water looking like he was on a training flight.

The RAF on manoeuvres.