We are delighted to announce that we have won the gold award in the 2010 Walk reader awards.

Readers of Walk the Ramblers’ Association magazine voted Cicerone as the ‘best walking book’ in their annual reader awards – a big thanks to everyone who voted for us.

Lesley picked up the award from Simon King, and Dominic Bates (editor of Walk) at the Outdoors Show last weekend.

We just want to say a big thanks to all of you who entered our recent photography competition.

The standard of pictures submitted was really high, and it was incredibly difficult selecting the short-list of images in each of the four categories. It was then down to you to cast your votes – well the votes are in and have been counted, and I’m delighted to share the winning images with you from each of the four categories.

We’ll be announcing the overall winner at the Outdoors Show later this month.

Lake Bled - International walking & trekking

Black Mount and Lochan na h'Achlaise - Walking & trekking in the UK

West side of the Inaccessible Pinnacle - Climbing & scrambling

Downhill to Grindelwald - Cycling

With spring is on its way, there may be few opportunities left for a winter climb, so with good weather forecast we headed for Easy Gully on Dow Crag. The approach can be made from Torver or Coniston but the magnificent rock architecture of the crag only becomes visible as you ascend The Cove and reach Goats Water.

The recent snowmelt had left only the South Rake, Easy Gully and Great Gully with a good covering of snow. Easy Gully is about 130m high but gets increasingly steeper towards the top, the conditions were perfect, and the only difficult part of the climb is a chock stone half way up the Gully – the sort of time when you wish you were just a wee bit taller!

Having reached the top of the Gully a walk of about 100m brought us to the summit of Dow Crag. Unfortunately the cloud cover had lowered and so had the temperature that meant we had no view of Coniston Old Man or any other fells for that matter.

The decent via Goats Hause gave us great views of a still frozen Goats Water. The weather improved as we descended further providing us with a possible glimpse of spring as opposed to the wintry conditions on the top of the mountain.

Cheers, Clive