In March 1988 Andy and I were enjoying a few days walking in a cold and frosty Lakeland. Having walked up Grains Gill from Seathwaite we were taking a break when we noticed two red clad walkers who were motoring up the path at some pace behind us. “They’re not hanging around,” remarked Andy and as the two speedy walkers drew level we recognised one of them to be non other than Sir Chris Bonington, one of Britain’s best known and celebrated mountaineers. We chatted for a few minutes before Sir Chris went off with his companion to climb Central Gully on Great End which was nicely compacted with frozen snow and Andy and I went off to climb England’s highest mountain for the first time. I’ve walked past that spot in Grains Gill many times since and will do so again today, in the heat of an English summer as I walk up Allen Crags and Seathwaite Fell. Each time I pass by I remember with fondness the day I met a mountaineering legend.
It’s always nice to start a walk straight from the campsite and Chapel House Farm has the added benefit that I can have breakfast looking up at my first hill of the day, Rosthwaite Fell. Wainwright dedicates his book on the Southern Fells, the book I’m currently walking through to “The Sheep of Lakeland, the hardiest of all fellwalkers”. In what has been a sustained spell of dry weather these hardy Herdwicks are suffering a little. Richard, the farmer and campsite owner tells me the dry weather has not been good for his flock of a thousand Herdwicks who are suffering from the lack of water and parasitic infestations growing in their wool. For his livelihood and the sheep’s well-being I hope Lakeland has some rain soon, maybe just not today.
Before starting my book by book journey through Wainwright’s iconic 214 I had climbed many of them before, one hundred and one of them to be precise. Coniston Old Man was one of those and my walking journal tells me I climbed it on Friday 14th August 1987 with a couple of other guys and the weather was clear. To be honest I don’t remember much about that walk but the 80’s and early 90’s were years when long social evenings in the pub were as much a part of any visit to the Lakes as the walking itself so that may account for my somewhat hazy memory.
Tilberthwaite car park is almost full when I arrive, late in the afternoon on what has been a lovely warm and sunny Lakeland day. There are a dozen or so cars and three or four vans that I figure will be keeping me company overnight. By 8pm however everyone has departed and I have the place to myself. Dusk turns slowly into the ink black night of the countryside, far away from neon, where stars can shine bright. I enjoy a quiet evening followed by the sleep of the saved and the thankful with only the owls and the comforting sound of the newly born Yewdale Beck to disturb the silence.
The day is turning into a very fine one for walking as I park in the very same spot I occupied two months ago. The sky is cloudless and eggshell blue, the sun is beaming but it’s April and the temperature is still pleasant and there is not so much as a breath of wind to rustle the leafs. Busyness has been ruling out any visits north but the diary and the weather have both become clear and my season opener is to be a not too taxing leg stretch up Holme Fell.
The unpredictable weather of January and trying to sync available time with rare windows of opportunity proved fruitless so it was the beginning of February before I headed up the M6. Knowing that commitments would be ruling out the rest of the month into March I was hoping, despite the mixed forecast, for a couple of cloud free days to keep some forward momentum on Book Four.
My walk up Lingmoor Fell starts conveniently at the National Trust campsite at the head of Great Langdale. I don’t even have to move the van and take full advantage by having a lazy breakfast. This may be my first walk of book four but it certainly won’t be my last from this location as Great Langdale is the launch pad for some of the big ones and a place I will get to know well over the coming months.
What they undertook to do they brought to pass; All things hang like a drop of dew Upon a blade of grass William Butler Yeats
Ambitions and goals are important things in life. They give you purpose and hope. They keep you focused, moving forward and concentrating on the future instead of dwelling on the past or being indolent in the present. I have a fair number of goals, targets and projects or more poetically, dreams, hopes and aspirations. There are things I want to see and experience, walks I want to complete and places I want to visit before I go off to rest with my ancestors. And one long standing project is to stand on top of the highest points in the five nations that make up the British Isles, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland.
