Blade Runner - Helvellyn

Martin Freeman, Carl Stubbs and myself headed up to Red Tarn Cove on Helvellyn on Saturday morning with high hopes of getting our first route of the winter season in after a promising report for Steve Ashworth at the Epicentre on the Friday evening.

Blade Runner take the line up the centre of the buttress, bounded by No.2 gully to the left and No.1 gully to the right.

We opted for the northern approach on the road, heading up to Penrith first which proved to be a wise move as Kirkstone Pass was closed. We were at the YHA car park at Glenridding for soon after first light. Temperatures were around freezing and snow was down to a low level which was promising, unfortunately due to being the first party there (which we were surprised at) we had to break trail all the way into the cove, which at times was drifts of 30cm deep unconsolidated powder, as such the walk in took us considerably longer than the standard 45 minutes.

Myself leading on Blade Runner.

As there was quite a bit of unconsolidated snow around and we were unsure on how frozen turf would be we opted for Blade Runner IV which is a mixed line following a rocky rib which divides no.2 and no.1 gully. It is also one of the remaining routes of the face that I have left to climb. The climb was good, following a series of grooves and ledge systems and a bit of ridge and arete climbing on the second pitch. In places where it was exposed the turf was well frozen however where it has been covered by snow and insulated it is still not solid, it needs a hard freeze to bring it properly into condition. There was a bit of ice forming here and there, and across the gully V-Corner looked to have it's share as well.

Stubbs coming up to the second belay.

I spoke to a party who did No.1 Gully and they said that while a large proportion of it was unconsolidated the crux step and several other areas did have neve on them. It was worth noting that we observed a lot of avalanche debris below the above area which looked to have originated in no.2 gully, from its age I guess this slid sometime on Friday or that night. The scarp slopes below the summit above the main buttresses were in places fairly heavily loaded with a 10-15cm layer on windslab readily detaching on the top. There are cornices in place across the top however they are small and easily passable. We un-roped at the top of the Blade Runner Buttress and soloed to the top.

Martin heading towards the cornice.

After topping out we summited Helvellyn, took a few minutes in the shelter before descending Striding Edge taking a  sueprdirect line which was good fun.