Millennium Eve on Scafell Pike • 1
Page One • Page Two
Sunrise on Scafell Pike, New Year's Day, 2000
Planning the Trip
While I was planning this trip I realised that I'd have to camp for four nights in the depths of winter due to the lack of transport over the holiday period. This presented a bit of a challenge because in winter I obviously want to carry more clothes and a bulkier sleeping bag than normal. In addition, there would be no chance to re-supply - I was going to be quite remote from shops, even if they were open. There was no way I could carry extra clothing and four days supplies of food so I made a seperate overnight trip just before Christmas in order to leave a couple of caches in the area. By staying in the bothy on Fleetwith Pike I was able to leave the tent at home and carry more supplies. I left a cache near the bothy as I was intending to spend the last night there. I originally planned to leave another cache near Round How, a small top below Scafell Pike where there is a good camping spot, but on the day decided to stash it near Sprinkling Tarn.
When I made the trip up to the Lakes on the 30th December, I knew I had extra supplies waiting for me (extra fuel, tinned food, candles, eggs, wine, champagne, Christmas puddings, etc - all the necessities).
Thursday, 30th December, 1999
I left Seatoller just before one o'clock and followed the Grains Gill route up to Sprinkling Tarn, arriving at about three o'clock. The tarn was completely iced over - I probably could have walked across it - but as I wanted to be sure of seeing in the new century I decided not to take the chance and so and I walked around it whilst looking for a good place to pitch the tent in the snow. I had about 45 minutes of daylight, and once the tent was up I went off to retrieve my cache, which was buried beneath some rocks.Rather than take water from the tarn, I found a spring which feeds it to the north, arguably the source of the River Derwent
Camp at Sprinkling Tarn, New Year's Eve, 1999
Once the tent was up I had a brew, and then discovered my first potential disaster of the trip - a punctured sleeping mat. Without it, I may as well have gone home, and sleeping on Scafell Pike summit would certainly be out, (it doesn't matter how good your sleeping bag is if you're not protected from the cold ground). Fortunately, I had spare patches and glue and was able to fix it within half an hour once I'd found the hole.
That sorted, I cooked myself a chicken curry (made at home the night before and frozen) , served with wine, and later had cheese and crackers, before settling down t about 10.00pm for a good night's sleep.
Friday, 31st December, 1999
I woke about 8.00am New Year's Eve - the night had been very calm and uneventful, although I thought I'd heard a sheep very close during the night. Outside the tent I discovered my second disaster - what I thought was some rubbish blown out of the tent was actually unused food packets - soup here, biscuits there, crackers a bit further on. I'd been raided in the night by some animal, and I quickly gathered together what I could find. Fortunately, all my meals were intact, though an empty Pringles case (used for carrying crackers) was surrounded by cracker crumbs and bird's footprints in the snow. Fortunately I still had one and a half packs left. It was very cold, but there appeared to have been a slight thawing of the snow and ice during the night.
Sprinkling Tarn
During the morning I explored the several tops on Seathwaite Fell and around the tarn, then returned to the tent for my last proper meal of the year - a tin of sweet and sour chicken which was a luxury. Once I'd eaten, I made a flask of soup, packed and checked the tent was safe in the wind, it was time to get to the summit as I was cutting it fine with the daylight. It was quarter past two and I had about two and a half hours light at most. Progress seemed slow due to heavy snow cover and poor visibility, and I'd made a bit of a mistake wearing two fleece which made me sweat, causing problems later. I reached the summit just before it was starting to get dark, and noticed a couple of tents and a bivouac already there. I found a semi-circular stone shelter filled with a snow drift and started hacking out a trench with the ice axe. This left me with a three foot deep trench, about six feet long by two feet wide, with a stone wall on one side (giving plenty of shelves for storage) and snow on the other. A couple of holes in the wall had to be filled with snow to make it draughtproof . This was then covered with a tarpaulin weighed down by rocks, which just about served as shelter for the next sixteen hours of darkness.
The highest habitation in England at the turn of the century
In the bivvy bag it was very warm, but it was bitterly cold when doing any chores that became nessecary. It seemed better to just get a little rest till midnight. I knew I'd have seven hours of darkness before midnight so I'd brought up a small Walkman TV. The reception was perfect, so I lay in the bivvy bag watching various Millenium programmes, whilst occasionally dropping off to sleep. It rained a bit, I got quite damp though never cold, and the wind was whipping away at the tarpaulin, which had to be readjusted a couple of times during the evening. I assumed at this point it would rain all night and was just hoping I would be able to get some sleep.
The rain, the wind, the cold - at about half eleven I thought, well I've come this far - I might as well get up for midnight, stroll up to the cairn, then get back to bed. I unzipped the bivvy expecting to see nothing but mist and saw the clearest starry sky I'd ever seen. I couldn't believe it. After several cloudy days the sky had cleared up just in time for midnight, Millenium Eve! The panorama just from the bivvy was awe-inspiring - I could see Blackpool, Windermere, Keswick, Scotland, Jupiter, Orion, lights moving over Broad Crag as some walkers were making a night ascent - all from my sleeping bag! It was a truly unforgettable sight. I got up, grabbed a bottle of champagne and the camera (which unfortunately refused to work) and made my way to the summit cairn, which was about forty feet away. People were gathering, some were still arriving with minutes to spare.
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