Had a good walk up Great Shunner Fell from Swaledale. There are three longstanding patches (about 2000 feet up) among remnants of drifts from snow that fell a couple of days ago. The attached pictures show the two largest of these, which to my knowledge are the biggest remaining patches in the Yorkshire Dales. The cover of new snow has largely gone, although there are still drifts of soft snow around, including a line of drifts visible along the east facing scarp of Wild Boar Fell over the Cumbria boundary.

Attachments: GreatShunnersnow1.jpg (312kB)   GreatShunnersnow2.jpg (285kB)   GreatShunnersnow3.jpg (313kB)  

Quick May 1st round up from a drive back over the North Pennines.

Weardale Ski Club - prefresh patches seem to still be hanging in but much reduced in size. Especially the one on Chapel Fell Top.

Harthope Head quarry, only the NW end of the patch remains. Some fresh on both sides of the road but patches only.

Three Pike / Three Comb - only larger / central patch remains but reduced in size. Numerous but isolated patches along the hill side towards Grass Hill Causeway.

Arngill Head Brocks / Long Crag - above snow line, extensive fresh, good cover in the area of the patches. Based on the size and aspect of the patches I'm going for them surviving into may.

Green Fell End - fresh patches from recent storms but as reported earlier no old patches.

Mickle Fell - above snow line but as patch was seen from great distance it can't be stated if it made it to may. Given size and aspect I suspect it didn't.

Peters Gill - patch made it into May. Again much reduced in size over past few days. Fresh patches in the area of it and heading NW to county boundary.

Harwood Ski Club site - all three patches along Long Gill were visible but as with all the others much reduced in size.

GDF / LDF / Cross Fell - all have extensive snow cover, not possible to judge extent of original patches.

Upper Weardale head of Well Hope Burn / Burnhope Burn - isolated patches of fresh.

The last vestiges of snow on the Snowdon peaks, as photographed on the 26th April. [www.flickr.com]

This snow is the one in the top gully of Garnedd Ugain, here.

Went over to the Coniston Fells on Saturday. Very clear. Nothing visible!
Over in the East Dove Crag through to Fairfield and the coves of Dollywggon, Nethermost and Helvellyn are still holding a large number of patches.

Some excellent photos of Helvellyn from Saturday in this trip report. [www.leaney.org]

June survival on this hill looking increasingly likely for the second year in a row.

Good find Firefly - I think you are right, the patches look extensive enough to last into June, especially Brown Cove.

Unfortunately, I'm away down south at the moment but will be back early next week and will visit the sites as soon as I can. I've got my fingers crossed as well that there is some snow left on Cross Fell when I get I back.

This is probably the last update on snow in the Yorkshire Dales. I previously reported a substantial patch on Great Shunner Fell. This was still clearly visible from Upper Swaledale on 4 May. My latest picture taken today (13 May) does I think just show a very small remnant in the same place. This is faintly visible in the attached photo. Apologies for the quality of the pictures, which are taken through a telephoto and then cropped further. To the best of my knowledge this is the last snow in the Dales, and it must disappear very shortly.

Attachments: Shunner Fell 4 May.jpg (331kB)   Shunner Fell 4 May.jpg (331kB)  

Attached two the same by mistake. 13 May here.

Attachments: Shunner Fell 13 May.jpg (317kB)  

Cross Fell from the Hartside road today. There is still plenty on Helvellyn and on High Street.

Attachments: Cross Fell 16May.jpg (170kB)  

Central Gully Great End today. Another day of low temperatures.

Attachments: Great End Gully 17May.jpg (58kB)  

Photo of Helvellyn taken yesterday 20th May from Pooley Bridge. Looks good for June survival.

Over in Langdale the last patch on Bowfell was just about visible this morning.

Attachments: helvellyn_snow.jpg (132kB)  

This is probably my final report from Cross Fell this year. I walked to all of the sites along the north side of the hill yesterday and found snow in 4 locations. I was quite surprised how little was left after my last visit at the end of April, especially given the cool weather this month.

From the west:
Cross Fell Well: 1 small patch left approx 2m x 1m x 0.3m. Probably will be gone by today.

Cross Fell hollows (my name): 4 tiny patches in deep hollow which will all be gone today. This had at least 2m depth last visit but as can be seen in the photo the soil is very dark so maybe this contributed to melting by warming up in the sun?

Cross Fell screes: This is the largest patch approx 6m x 2.5m x 0.5m and has a few more days left but probably won't last till June. This patch is mainly on rocks but obviously had a greater depth than I had realised and it is a more enclosed hollow than the previous 2. Interestingly, 5 years ago, when snow lasted until mid June in CF Well, this patch had gone before the end of May.

Cross Fell shelf (my name): 3 very shallow patches that will be gone today. This area still had a long wreath on my last visit, but is more exposed and maybe was not as deep as others.

Attachments: 1. CF Well 23.5.15.JPG (273kB)   2. CF Well 23.5.15.JPG (238kB)   3. CF hollows patch 23.5.15.JPG (313kB)   4. CF screes patch 23.5.15.JPG (234kB)   6. CF shelf patch 25.5.15.JPG (260kB)  

Excellent stuff, Stringy and others.

Looks like tomorrow or the day after for final melt of Cross Fell, then. From Dodd's photo of Helvellyn it looks like Brown Cove will (again) be the last to go on that hill. The question is: will it be the last in England? I can't imagine there'll be bigger than Brown Cove, but I'm certain there'll be a few other hills still retaining chunks here and there.

Will Brown Cove last longer than 18th June, which was its final melt-date last year?

Paul Crabtree reports that all snow gone on Cross Fell. Final melt-date likely to have been today.

That means the only snow now in England is in the Lakes.

Did Paul Crabtree visit the snow patch site Iain? I felt that the screes patch that I observed on Sunday, would last a bit longer than today. It is tucked into a deep hollow and I doubt whether it would be visible from anywhere other than right by it. I certainly could not see it on my approach from below.

Mind you, it's pretty academic as it's forecast to rain tomorrow so that will probably melt any that's left.

Incidentily, it was interesting to note that animals had be playing on the snow that day as the surface was pretty scuffed up with some paw prints clearly visible. We reckoned that they were probably stoat or weasel prints.



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 20.45hrs Tue 26 May 15 by Stringy.

Attachments: Screes patch close up 23.5.15.JPG (231kB)