Simon's Ultra, Trail and Fell running blog: Coniston. In search of traction

Having found myself conveniently having to work near Kendal on Wednesday morning. Tuesday night I was scanning my Lakeland 100 map for a possible short recce run for the afternoon, eventually settling for the Seathwaite to Boot section CP1 - CP2 with an out and back in mind time permitting.

With the recent snow and ice now all gone down in the midlands I was expecting maybe a bit left up in the high ground and after reading Nick Ham's report on the Tour de Helvellyn I stopped off in Ambleside to buy some Kahtoola microspikes. The streets all around the town were like an ice rink and both Lakes runner and the Climbers shop had sold out with only the large size left. I tried some on but the chains around the heel section were too baggy. They had apparently been flying off the shelves and the distributors had none left either. After last year and this years extra cold winters devices such as microspikes and yaktrax have become popular with the walking crowd and are perfect to just slip on when an icy patch appears.
I left Ambleside empty handed and the further I went the snow on the hills seemed to get deeper and a heavy mist was obscurring the peaks. The Seathwaite plan was sacked as it would involve driving over the Wrynose pass and running time would be shortened by the time I'd got there.
I decided to just go to Coniston and run as much of the first stage, Coniston - Seathwaite as I could.

The Start at John Ruskin school and up past the John Ruskin museum had all been cleared of snow and was runnable then a rough track to miners bridge was also o.k but getting slushy, then at miners bridge there was about 4 inches thick of ice, those microspikes would have been perfect. I carried on all the way up the Walna scar track which varied between slush, snow and patches of sheet ice where the going was slow. I stopped slightly before Seathwaite where the Walna scar track changes to road and went back the same way.
I hope the ice clears for Andy Mouncy's winter attempt at the L100 route, The going was really tough.
I took some pics with the phone.