There was a littler rain during the night but the cloud had continued to thicken. By morning there was just a few metres visibility. A slight wind had taken most of the rain off the tent but the inside was still wet. I packed up and was on my way by 9am. I returned to the path I'd come up yesterday evening and continued to climb. I'd only been going about a minute when I came to the summit cairn. The path split here and I headed roughly to the west towards Greenup Edge. The visibility is still low which is such a shame as the path is fairly good as it undulates along the ridge summits. In clear weather the views will be very good. I pressed on into the mist with nothing to see.

A tarn appeared to my right then I crossed a featureless boggy area before an even larger tarn came in to view on my left. By now the wind was getting up and the tarn's surface was getting choppy. For a while I couldn't see any sign of a path but then an old iron fence post appeared and a path nearby. A short way on was the main path coming over from Greenup Edge to Grasmere. It is also the Coast to Coast route. The pass I was now standing on doesn't have a name. I continued straight on towards Codale Head. The map doesn't show a path but there is an intermittent one as I've been on it a couple of times before. Both times it was thick mist as it is now. I climbed steadily and soon came across snow patches. I could just see down into Mere Beck to my right. Surprisingly quickly the snow patches became a full covering, and getting deeper. The going was steady but very slow. I wasn't expecting these conditions, though I had equipment for them. I had no choice but to look for somewhere to pitch the tent and camp. Water was no problem as there was plenty of snow to melt. The wind was getting up so I tried to find somewhere with a bit of shelter but there wasn't any. The visibility was even worse and the only thing to differentiate between snow on the ground and sky was the occasional rocky outcrop. Just before the isolated hill of Sergeant Man I found a flat patch of snow covered ground. Nearby was more drifted snow I could melt for water so I erected the tent. Most of the pegs went in OK but some hit rock just under the surface.

Camp at Codale Head.

There was about 100mm of snow on the ground where I put the tent but planned to get the tent up and worry about that after. I collected a plastic bag full of snow and headed inside the tent. I soon realised that not stamping the snow down first was a bad idea as a couple of stones were protruding up from the ground and even my thermarest didn't smooth them out. As I'd camped much earlier than planned I settled down to read my book. About 14:15 I heard voices outside. The main path was just below me so I reckoned it was walkers on their way down. However the voices didn't go away and then I heard a female voice say 'there's a tent'. I'd been spotted but didn't think anything of it. The voices got closer and someone said 'Is there anybody in there'. I said I didn't do teas, unzipped the tent to see a couple of youngish ladies standing there.

They said they were totally lost and did I know where High White Stones were. They were over a mile off course. They'd come up Easdale Gill heading for Greenup Edge. To get here they'd turned left too soon. It appears they'd followed my tracks. They were well spoken, well equipped with a map and compass. I pointed out where they were on the map and the compass bearing to take to get down to Easedale Tarn, which is where they were heading. They set off into the whiteout and I hope they made it OK. Just before 17:00 the wind started to batter the tent with increasing force. I went outside to check the pegs and had to put large boulders on a couple that had started to work loose. Most of the other pegs were well in and seemed OK.