Rainless Lakeland Print E-mail
West Cumberland Times - Wednesday, March 23, 1932
 RAINLESS LAKELAND
         ______

RECORD FOR SEATHWAITE.
         ______

Easter Climbing Prospects.

   With Seathwaite, the wettest spot in England having  had just over an
inch of rain in seven weeks and Keswick a little less than  that, the Lake
District has had the longest spell of fine weather at this season  for thrity years.

   There were sixteen inches of rain at Seathwaite in  the first 17 days of
January and the average rainfall at that noted spot is  about 130 inches a
year.

   The lakes, rivers, streams and falls have been very  low, but there is
still plenty of water, as the heavy snowfall at the latter end  of February and
March has thawed slowly and replenished the mountain  streams.

   There will be a touch of winter left for visitors  this Easter, for there
is snow on the Scawfell and Helvellyn ranges and enough  ice in the gullies
to provide good ice axe climbing.

   There are many remarkable contrasts, but none more  surprising than that
at Esk House. Along Styhead Pass and up to Styhead Tarn  there is no snow or
ice, but spring like green, but as one leaves this 1,000  feet high level and
climbs out towards Esk House comes winter. Three or four  hundred feet up one
finds the snow lying and it gets thicker up towards  Sprinkling Tarn, nearly
2,000 feet high. In the gullies in the Great End the  snow and ice is still
solid, and the mountain tops are heavily sprinkled with  the snow and ice.

   The climbing districts are already booked up, and  there will be a big
muster of members of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club at  Wasdale. But there will
be room for the late comers in the cottages at  Borrowdale, Newlands,
Buttermere, and Wasdale Districts.
 
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