Walla Crag on New Years Eve

Once again Matthew and I hiked up Walla Crag for New Years Eve.  It was cold – below freezing (that’s cold for us) and the ground was frozen.  It looked cloudy when we started, but after a while we walked up into the clouds and then out of them.  The sky above was perfectly clear and with the lights of Keswick just a dim glow through the clouds the stars were the clearest I’ve seen for years.  As we walked up the final bit to the summit the clouds stretched away across the lake making it look as if we could just walk across to Catbells.  The fireworks were mostly just flickering glows, and there were some mysterious red lights that at first looked like people hiking up Skiddaw but were moving much too fast and eventually drifted off into the sky and disappeared.  We spent a few minutes watching the stars and the lights and made a couple phone calls, then walked home.