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Guided Ascent of Pillar Rock - sublime conditions

Guided Ascent of Pillar Rock

This story starts 10 years ago, when I first met Andrew and James. Only being 7 at the time, James is still the youngest person we have taken up Pillar Rock and he took it all in his stride despite the weather being pretty poor.

Today they are both back with us, James now 17 and considering his University options, all keen for another round on Pillar. He couldn’t remember much about the previous visit, which is understandable.

Mum Laura was with us today too and patiently waited by Pisgah whilst we climbed. Even managed to put in an online shopping order with Tesco! Laura had already visited the summit during our previous visit 10 years ago and was content with that.

All spend a huge amount of time in the mountains, move efficiently and are comfortable on rocky, loose, steep terrain. All things that are regularly encountered on the Lakeland Fells. So when they mentioned their plan was to continue on to Kirk Fell and Great Gable afterwards I wasn’t surprised.

Our approach walk gave good views until we reached the High Level Route to Robinson’s Cairn. We then descended into a sea of cloud and the temperature dropped markedly. It was suddenly cold. From Robinson’s Cairn we caught a glimpse of High Man, but it was mostly shrouded in mist. Still, we had hope it would clear in time for our ascent.

We geared up at Pisgah and left Laura with the flask of hot tea. About 10 minutes later we reached the base of Slab and Notch Climb. The rock was mostly dry, always a relief. The slab was cruised by all, and then the notch, all still nice and dry. Beyond the notch the rock became greasy and unpleasant, so we slowed and took extra care. Then across into the big gully before gaining the summit.

The view was limited by a thick mist, but the atmosphere more than made up for it. I then fixed up an abseil into Jordan Gap and from there we made our escape via a fine scramble up onto Pisgah. The bulk of Pillar mountain was just starting to show itself and boded well for better conditions to come.

After a snack we scrambled up towards the Pillar plateau and within minutes emerged above the clouds to witness a dramatic inversion of epic proportions. This wasn’t just a good view, it was up there with the finest views I have ever witnessed. Absolutely phenomenal.

We looked down onto a blanket of cloud that stretched as far as we could see, with just a few of the higher summits peaking out above it. The silhouette of Pillar Rock could be seen through the cloud and next to this was a circlular rainbow reflecting on the clouds. This was dreamy. Just as I thought this couldn’t get any better, we emerged onto the summit plateau of Pillar and things did get better, with similar conditions also over the Scafell range and beyond. The temperature had also risen considerably, it was now t-shirt weather.

The initial walk down was slow as we just couldn’t help ourselves but to stop and stare at the jaw-dropping, gorgeous scenery. I was conscious that more mountains were on the agenda so kept the pace as best I could.

We ticked off Looking Stead on our descent and once we reached Black Sail Pass it was time to say our farewells. Laura, Andrew, and James were heading for Kirk Fell and Great Gable, I was making my way back to Wasdale Head. Possibly our next adventure will be on Napes Needle, watch this space.

A true mountain day with a wide variety of conditions and stacks of beautiful scenery. Certainly a day I’ll remember for a very long time.

If you’d like to summit Pillar Rock and would like some help with it, please do get in touch. It is a place we know very well and have been guiding on there for over 10 years.

Thanks for reading

Mark

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