There was a Heron walking around in the car park probably because the nearby ponds and lakes were frozen. As we were eating breakfast, Pete and Keith arrived to join us.
Breakfasts finished, we continued on our way to drive towards the village of Applethwaite a short distance North of the town of Keswick.
Once off the main roads, there was quite a lot of snow and slush lying on the roads and Pete found he couldn't get his car up a sloping section so he headed back to the main road and approached from the opposite direction.
We had parked at a road junction where there was quite a lot of room since we assumed Pete wouldn't be able to reach the nearby car park which was around a tight, uphill corner and then up a long sloping section of road. He managed to get part way up thus uphill section and park in a layby.
Once we had got our boots on we waited for Keith and Pete to join us as we were parked further along our intended route.
Continuing on foot on the minor road towards Millbeck, we followed a Public Footpath sign along a track leading to a continuation up a long steeply-ascending slope leading to the top of the small hill of Carl Side. It was difficult going walking up the slope due to the covering of snow, which, although not deep, was enough to cause it to be slippery.
Karen decided to pause and put her Kahtoola Microspikes on and I decided to do the same as she had bought me a pair for Christmas.
This enabled us to walk up the slope much faster and we soon joined Keith and Pete where they had stopped for a drink.
Looking around at the views, we could see the frozen water of Derwentwater far in the distance beyond Keswick and the surrounding fells which appeared to be a monochrome picture due to the overcast and misty conditions.
Continuing on our way, we followed a gradually-rising path which we expected to soon join the path leading along the broad ridge heading to Skiddaw's summit. We arrived at a large frozen cairn and looking at the map expected that we were about 500 metres from the summit, which we couldn't yet see because of the mist.
I set a bearing for the summit as the ridge was broad enough to cause us to veer off and miss it if not careful and after about 250 meters (measured by step counting), which both Karen and I agreed on, we reached the ice-encrusted trig point and nearby topograph.
We paused for a few photos as there was a very cold wind blowing, which, because it had been coming from behind us, hadn't been as noticeable on the way to the summit.
Soon we were heading towards our descent route following a bearing and counting steps, intending to intersect a field boundary some 500 metres to the South-East. We passed a few cairns and also footprints in the snow, but in the current conditions, without a map and compass, we wouldn't be sure that this was the way we wanted to go.
A fence loomed out of the mist ahead (this was the field boundary) and after looking at the ice formations formed by the wind on the wire, we walked the 100 metres or so to the stile which crossed the fence.
Again after checking with the compass we set off down the continuing bridleway passing another fence as we skirted the smaller hill of Little Man. As we had a late start, by now it was beginning to get dark and we had dropped out of the cloud and mist. We could see the streetlights of Keswick far below and the dark shapes of the surrounding fells looking even more like a black and white photograph especially with the thick, dark clouds which looked like storm clouds in the rapidly dimming light.
We reached yet another fence. Our route led down by this fence until we reached the car park where we had intended to start our walk from.
By now it was dark and we returned to our cars and after removing boots, drove to Ambleside to where we were staying at “The Claremount” guest house for Bed and Breakfast (where we had stayed last year).
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