Coniston Old Man

We have been back home in Coniston just over a week now and thought it was time we tackled Coniston Old Man (again). This was the first mountain I ever climbed and it is the one I have climbed most regularly. At a height of 2,635 feet there are many higher in The Lake District, but few harder. It's a tough walk, no getting away from it, but it's a great walk in the right conditions and today the conditions were perfect.

We left the village early, around 7 a.m. To make the most of the cool morning and to beat the hoardes that would no doubt be heading along the same route later in the morning. We took the route through the Coppermines Valley, onto the Old Man road, through the quarry and up to Low Water. The views widened as we gained height and there were already one or two hardy walkers out on the trail.

The path from Low Water to the summit has had some much needed attention in the past year, but it is still a hard pull up onto the ridge and then the final push up to the top.

I must get a selfie stick......nah, maybe not. The views from the top were fabulous, but not as clear as I have seen, but it's always different. There were some interesting cloud formations adding to the general photogenic nature of the scene. There are some big skies from the mountain tops!

Our route down took us for a short distance along the ridge towards Brim Fell before veering left and down to Goats Hawse, with fabulous close up views of Dow Crags.

The path lead us down to the shores of Goats Water, an area of huge slabs of rock. The tarn itself was calm, that in itself is a remarkable feature. Usually rough and rippled by the prevailing south westerly winds, today it was calm and in the shelter of the Old Man, due to the fact that the weather is unusually, coming from the northeast.

The summer is taking hold in the mountains, just five weeks after the last snow and many of the summer mountain flowers are in bloom. The fell side is taking on a different look as the bracken comes through and the hills go bright green.

Butterwort, a small carnivorous plant that flowers in the wet areas in early June.

Mossy Saxifrage, which prefers the dry and loose slopes of the old quarry tips. The summer birds are back too. Sky larks and all the numerous different flycatchers as well as the very numerous Wheatear, seen in the photo below. We also caught sight of the less common Ring Ouzel, but they are much more elusive and difficult to capture in photograph.