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Lake District Winter Skills 2025 
Guided winter skills weekend, during the Lake District winter season |
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Course
overview
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We operate these popular Lake District based weekends (can be operated on any 2 days for 2 - 4 people booking together), on a 1:4 max ratio throughout, to develop your winter skills and crampons techniques. |
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These weekends are ideal as training for those of you who are planning ascents of many classic Alpine 4000m peaks, where crampon skills are a pre-requisite, such as Mont Blanc via the Gouter Route. |
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While full winter conditions are somewhat ephemeral in the Lake District, once in the grip of winter, there are snow sure venues such as the Red Tarn bowl on Helvellyn, or Brown Cove Crags, to head for snow.. |
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These weekend courses presume little or no crampon experience, and are designed to build your skills and confidence on this terrain. We also can provide private guiding for winter climbing on request. |
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You
will be guided by a local instructor, who
knows the mountains and routes like the
back of their hands, so will spend the day
with a real expert who will design the days
for you to achieve the most. |
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If
you have an idea of a specific objective or
route that you'd like to do, get in contact,
and we'll match you with the most suitable
instructor to make your ambitions come true. |
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Dates are sceduled, and also run on demand for this training,
and we can offer them on any day of the year
apart from on Christmas Day itself. Contact us to upload a bespoke date for you to book. |
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Outline itinerary
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Meeting with your instructor at 08:30 either in our Windermere
Office or in Ambleside (ask which if booking accommodation) for a quick briefing about the
weather and a kit check, before setting off for the guiding.
It is really important to check that you have all the
right equipment, to ensure your comfort and safety in
the mountains. Below is a sample itinerary, though obviously we adapt this to your skills & experience, and the weather.
1st day: From Glenridding you walk up to Red Tarn and develop crampon skills either on the slopes of the Helvellyn head wall, or ascending to Striding Edge. The routes ascended depends on numbers and conditions. You'll also discuss route planning and avalanche risk, to assess where is safest to develop your skills. There's a huge range to cover; snow belays, crampon technique, ice axe use and anchors, ascent / traverse / descent skills. At the end of the day, perhaps including the summit of Helvellyn and a descent of Swirral Edge, you return to the valley, and drive back to Windermere / Ambleside, to stay the night and prepare for the next day.
2nd day: A key focus is to develop your movement skills on steeper snow / ice, and so you might head to a different venue on the second day. When there's good snow in Langdale, you might head up Bright Beck and up the snowy slopes to the summit of Pavey Ark or Harrison Stickle. Hone your skills that you learned yesterday, and push onto more challenging terrain, where good mountain judgement and skills are required. | | | |
