A winter Bob Graham round is a serious undertaking by anyones standards. If you are a purist, as John Brockbank of Windermere has told me, then it should be completed on the 21st of December, the Winter Solstice. I forget now whether Martin Stone of John Brockbank was the first to complete a winter round, but both put out amazing efforts, Martin soloing the whole thing through knee deep snow in places. That must have been a dark and lonely place at times.

On Friday night I got a little taste of what it must be like to have to endure the conditions, terrain and servere cold that comes with a Winter BG.

JP asked me last week was I helping out Mhairi Cameron on her Winter BG attempt? I knew nothing about it. But I had supported Mhairi on 2 subsequent attempts. The first had bailed at Bowfell. The second, which was a sucessful round, although outside of the time limit, I had joined her at Whiteside and ran the final part of the Helvellyn ridge to Clough Head and then we walked the final leg of Blencathra, Great Calva and finally Skiddaw. It was a beautiful morning and I was happy to be walking into Keswick as the sun rose... although not so happy for the lack of sleep and the fact I had to go to run the shop after breakfast. So this was number 3 and I wanted to be part of it. So I texted Mhairi. She put me on leg 1 with JP. So it was set. But then the weather set in for the weekend, heavy winds, lots of snow and a full moon. Great for skiing or possible climbing when it settles down, but not great for a BG attempt.

Mhaihi is a hard woman and was not detered. She was watching the weather carefully and saw a window in the high winds later on Friday and most of Saturday, so it was on. We were to meet at Moot Hall in Keswick at 6:30pm for a 7pm start. Excitment and trepidation ran through my body and I got all my stuff ready on Thursday evening in-between other commitments I already had.

Friday arrived and heavy snow had fallen in the morning and proceeded to, throughout the day (in the mountains that is). JP and I met in Windermere at 5pm, got to Keswick for 6pm and I was early for once.. shock and horror!! Mhairi and John arrived at 6:30pm and we all got ready. 7pm and Moot Hall was touched for the last time until 24hrs or so later... or so we hoped.

As we ran out of Keswick the clouds were clearing showing us Lower Man and a full moon, it was already beautiful and we hadn't left the town. I probably shouldn't have been going, as my body was fulll of pains and sweats, a bug I had picked up on Thursday from my niece and nephew, but its hard to say no to a great event, and this was deffinately one of those. As we headed up Lower Man, my legs were on fire and I couldn't tell if we were moving too fast of whether it was the bug causing me the trouble. Mhairi was pushing hard, a little too hard, but then we had difficult conditions ahead. Or so we imagined anyway, and how right were we!!

As we moved up the path the snow became deeper and drifts were growing. We climbed the style at the path division to head up Skiddaw and the otherside of the fence was full on winter. That was the start of it. The cloud descended slightly and we were following a faint path and on a bearing to the next gate.. which we found well enough, but it was a sign for sure, it was half covered in a snow drift. The summit of Skiddaw wasn't much of a problem, and neither the descent until the leftward turn is made to find the fence to cross. On crossing the fence it all changed. The weather was good, we came out of the cloud, but the ground was 12" deep in snow, some powder, some styrofoam and some or lots was a breakable crust, possibley the worst type you can imagine to run down. We made the bottom of the valley and the crossing through the bog was cold, ice cold.

We found the path to head up Great Calva straight away and Mhairi marched on, super determined to make good time. With my body the way it was, she left me behind and I worried that I wasn't getting food inside her, but there was little I could do. As we made the top, she was off and ahead again, with me panting, sweating and cursing myself for not calling it a day before I had started. I didn't want to let her down, but then it may have been better, as I felt I was slowing her up. The descent from Great Calva was hard, knee high heather and snow... you can imagine. Then the bog again at the bottom and to top it off, a lovely icey foot bath called Glender Amackin was crossed. I don't know about Mhairi or JP, but my feet were absolutley frozen. To the point of hurting. We then slogged it up and across Mungrizedale and onto the back of Blencathra, which again was to hard. Breakable crust, bogs and then a biting North Easterly breeze to top it all off. I finally managed to pull both JP and Mhairi back into range and got Mhairi into a warmer top for the summit. JP was suffering due to not enough layers, but then he doesn't moan, just gets on with it.

Atkinson Pike was made and we headed across the little dip to summit the Devil's Fingers (Blencathra). At the summit we go the invalueble Kahtoola Microspikes out to descend Halls Fell. This would have been lunacy without, but with the spikes on, it was only half lunacy. We trod carefully and soon we were out of the snow and heading down the final path to the waiting support van and John. There we were greeted by Paul Vousden, Helen Jackson and Dan & Dave. They were Mhairi support for the next section over the Helvellyn ridge.

JP and I were wasted. It had taken everything out of me, I had sweated ridiculously for the temperature, but hopefully the bug was being cooked. Mhairi and supporters were leaving to get the next section underway and John was getting the van ready to give us a lift back to Keswick to JP's van.

We had taken 4:20 to do leg one. The next morning I texted Helen to find out how she had done and had she managed to complete the Helvellyn ridge, as Fairfield must have been a mission in that snow. The reply was, she arrived at Dunmail Raise at 5am, so it had taken her 5:30 for Leg 2 and she had set off on Leg 3. At 10:30am I got a text to say it was all over and Mhairi had called it a day somewhere on Leg 3 and was descending into Langdale. An amazing effort.

So Mhairi Cameron, against all odds and lots of disuasion from her friends and supporters gave a Winter Bob Graham attempt her best shot in what can only be called serious ground conditions and to top it off, although the weather had been fine, the wind chill during the night was well below zero. I would hazzard a guess of minus 15 or more when we were on Skiddaw & Blencathra, she had to cope with that all along the Dodd's and the Helvellyn ridge.

Well done Mhairi, what a tough woman you are!! ;-)