Name of walk	New Year's Day on Beacon Fell in Snow
Date of walk	2010-01-01

This afternoon Brendan and I went to the shores of Coniston Water to walk up over Beacon Fell to Beacon Tarn. All the usual car parking places were iced over so we parked by the lake and took the main path up opposite Brown Howe car park.

Dow Crag and the Old Man in a snow shower

I got to use my Kahtoola Microspikes today, they were very good. The path up was very icy but I could just walk straight over it whereas Brendan had to walk off path. They can also be used on wet rock and scree too. They also make you very popular as two separate people asked me where I got them from as we were walking up the fell.

A good view out to the Coniston Fells..

Heading for the summit.

Close up of Dow Crag and Coniston Old Man.

View north from the summit.

View south west. Note the large ice sheets on the summit plateau, usually I would avoid them, but no need to if you are wearing Microspikes!

Looking down to Beacon Tarn from the summit.

Multi-coloured sheep!

The tarn was frozen.

We walked all the way round.

Looking back at the tarn.

We then walked down to the valley and around the base of the fell.

Following the Cumbria Way Path..

Looking back across a small tarn.

We joined the icy track back down and walked back to the shore. It had started to get dark.