For me, the best part of mountain camping is the short period of time that follows sunrise, when the slopes and crags of the fells glow red. While the “golden hour” typically lasts around an hour, “alpenglow” — when the red light hits mountains or clouds — can be much shorter.
The top of the inversion layer was rising quite quickly as I was packing my tent away on Green Gable, so I decided to follow it up onto Great Gable. I managed to catch some Broken Spectres and fog bows before it too became engulfed by the inversion. A chap sent his drone up briefly to check which tops were still visible, and to our surprise, only Scafell Pike was above the layer. That was around 11 a.m.
I then headed down to Sty Head and continued through Seathwaite and on to Rosthwaite, where I’d left my car. What an absolutely fantastic summit camp that was.
Richard
