Over Christmas I met up with my old pal Oli and that was that – he was coming to Helvellyn on our next adventure.  Great; what a team we were going to be.  Arthur really liked Oli and during our first night car camping we had a right laugh.  This turned out to be a theme of the weekend.  It was a weekend of glorious weather, spectacular scenery and some nerve testing scrambles over graded ground in winter condition.  It was a weekend where we laughed and laughed.

As my wife later commented – we must have looked quite the modern family!

We made our way up to Red Tarn.  In exposed areas, near hole-in-the-wall for example the wind could bite and smiling for photos left your teeth freezing!  But this was the exception.  It was cold but sunny.  Perfect.

We arrived at Red Tarn around lunchtime and as luck would have it Oli found what was surely the flattest patch of ground on Earth.  We pitched the tent and grabbed some lunch.  We packed a small rucksack with bare essentials and took the ice axes and crampons.  It was time to crack Striding and Swirral Edge.

The scramble along Striding Edge felt beyond awesome.  It was so much fun.  We worked together as a great team.  The exit on Striding edge was quite hairy in places but we kept up our communication and worked our way to the summit.  At the top we sat down and ate some sweets and drunk the small flask of tea we had prepared.  As we sat there, Oli and I kept looking at Swirral Edge which seemed all together more sketchy.  We didn’t wait long before we got on with it, sitting and looking were not doing us any good!  Some things are better tackled immediately and head on.

As I stepped over the ridgeline onto Swirral Edge the adrenalin was immense and the feeling indescribable.  Normal life had evaporated with my focus solely on the three of us coming down.  It was truly epic.  The first 40 metres or so were nerve wracking but at the same time I felt a great calmness.  Arthur was totally unfazed by the experience and really did enjoy the moment.

Back at the tent we were totally elated.  Arthur and  Oli were larking about and playing music and I was lying outside soaking up the last of the suns warmth.  We had achieved something very special.  As the sun disappeared we settled down for the night.  We mostly chatted, listened to music and ate chocolate and sweets.  It was cold.  I guess it dropped to minus 8 or 9 that night.  Arthur and I shared a sleeping bag which he was snuggled right into.  Oli and I were quite cold at times so when I asked Arthur why he had removed his balaclava and he replied, “I’m so hot, I’m boiling in here – I’m sweating” – we couldn’t help but laugh.

In the morning we went for a walk around Red Tarn and practiced stopping ourselves with the axe.  We watched some climbers going up the gullies.  It was sunny and the day got warmer quickly.

As we were packing to leave a man asked if he could take some pictures of Arthur who was busy making a ‘snow cave’.  They appeared in The Sport and the Daily Mail on-line!

Back at the car we drank bottles of ice cold Lucozade and indulged in one of our now familiar ‘admin-explosions’. We grabbed some lunch in the pub and relived a most memorable experience.  We also discussed Crib Goch….