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Looking west from Walla Crag, towards the peaks of Crag Hill and Grisedale Pike, with Derwent Water buried beneath the cloud.
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A quick evening walk up to Walla Crag to see a spectacular cloud inversion in the Lake District
This is quite a short blog post compared to my others – but it shows some spectacular views. I had been wanting to see a cloud inversion for a long-time in the Lake District (where the cloud hangs really low and the Lake District peaks come out of the cloud). Because I don’t live in the Lakes and these weather conditions can’t really be predicted days in advance – then it’s pretty much pot luck if I happen to be in the Lakes when an inversion happens, although statistically they are most likely to happen in the Autumn & Winter – when the air is cooler. For more info on cloud inversion formation see
www.terrybnd.blogspot.co.uk/cloud-temperature-inversion-inversion
On this particular day I had spent the vast majority of it in the Langdale area of the lakes where the skies where clear and sunny. As I was driving home to the A66 road and onto the North-East – I decided to go the more scenic route via Rydal Water/Grasmere/Thirlmire (One of my favourite roads to drive). With the evening drawing in, as I left Thirlmire – some heavy mist was also drawing in – so I headed towards Keswick. With it being a clear day elsewhere I knew the lakes was experiencing high-pressure weather wise, so I made an educated guess that above the mist the skies would be clear. The easiest and closest to get to high vantage point that I knew of was Walla Crag, which borders the eastern side of Derwent Water. So I drove up to Castlerigg Hall campsite, which is as closest as I could get the car to the footpath that would led up to Wall Crag.
It was still misty here – but I thought I would take a chance and head up to Walla Crag. It was quite misty most of the way and I didn’t think I would get lucky – but then all of a sudden the mist broke, and then – wow! Some spectacular views. These photos don’t really do those sights justice – but being above the clouds is an awe-some experience in the truest sense of the word. The sun had set by this point – but the faint orange glow of the setting sun was still illuminating the distant fells. It was a case of just soak it all up and take a few pics. My camera wasn’t the best at handling the relatively low-light and I had no tripod due to the rush – but hopefully these pics get across some of the spectacular views I seen. I’m hopeful I will get to see many more cloud inversions again, and will know that if ever it is misty in the lakes whilst it’s been clear skies elsewhere – then I will head up high hoping to see a cloud inversion.
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Looking north from Walla Crag towards Skiddaw, with the town of Keswick buried in there somewhere |
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You can see the view point on Walla Crag from where these photos are taken. I would guess that Walla Crag is one of the most accessible places in the lakes to see a cloud inversion. I parked my car quite near Rakefoot/Castlerigg Campsite (North-east of the view point above) and it was a quick walk up hill of about 1000m via the footpath to Walla Crag, which took me about 15mins. |
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Looking west from Walla Crag, towards the peaks of Crag Hill and Grisedale Pike, with Derwent Water buried beneath the cloud. |
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