Tag Archives: Hill walking

Fell Walk, General, Natural History, Nature

A Big Day in the North

April 28, 2019 George Kitching 11 Comments

Blencathra via Doddick Fell, Mungrisdale Common, Bannerdale Crags, Bowscale Fell, Souther Fell

Wainwright describes no fewer than 12 ways to ascend Blencathra. When I chicken out of Sharp Edge due to high winds, I try his third best route—the exhilarating ridge of Doddick Fell. On reaching the summit, I ramble on over Mungrisdale Common, Bannerdale Crags, Bowscale Fell and Souther Fell, encountering foxhounds, Geordies and John Wayne. (Some of them are even real).

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”. The opening line of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet may have chimed with Alfred Wainwright in 1961, as he spent evening after evening sketching for his fifth book, The Northern Fells. While her words hardly described his marital life at the time (the fells and his books were his retreat from the unease of a failing relationship), they perfectly capture how he felt about Blencathra.

Wainwright spoke of a “spiritual and physical satisfaction in climbing mountains – and a tranquil mind upon reaching their summits, as though I had escaped from the disappointments and unkindnesses of life and emerged above them into a new world, a better world.” For AW, the southern face of Blencathra was “the grandest object in Lakeland”. He devoted 36 pages to this mountain (more than any other) and described 12 different ascents— “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”.

The southern face comprises five distinct fells fused together by the summit ridge. At either end, Blease Fell and Scales Fell are broad grassy flanks, but the middle three, Gategill Fell, Hall’s Fell and Doddick Fell, taper to narrow airy ridges separated by broad plunging gills. As far as dramatic mountain scenery goes, it’s an embarrassment of riches. Hall’s Fell Top is Blencathra’s summit, and from here, another short ridge dips then rises to Atkinson Pike to create the Saddle, the mountain’s iconic skyline that gives rise to its alternative name, Saddleback.

Hall’s Fell Ridge was Wainwright’s favourite ascent (indeed, he thought this the finest way up any mountain in the district). Second came Sharp Edge, the narrow arête that runs east from Atkinson Pike above Scales Tarn. Doddick came in third. But third is good isn’t it? Third out of twelve—that’s something. AW went walking in his third-best suit. Better than second, at any rate. Shakespeare bequeathed his second-best bed to his wife, and I can’t imagine she was overly chuffed. Probably raised some awkward questions about who got the better one…

OK, it’s a ridiculous train of thought, I know, but I’m standing at the bottom of Mousthwaite Comb trying to convince myself I’m not a chicken. Ahead, a path runs up to the col between Scales Fell and Souther Fell and, from there, climbs above the river Glenderamackin to Scales Tarn and the start of Sharp Edge. This was my plan for today, but the ridge is a razor edge scramble with sheer drops on either side. It’s not for the faint-hearted, and I’d quite like to lose my Sharp Edge virginity on a day when the wind isn’t gusting quite so hard. With the words “discretion” and “valour” repeating in my head like a mantra, I take the other path—the one that climbs over the toe of Scales Fell and heads for Doddick Fell.

I’ve climbed Halls Fell Ridge before. It has drama aplenty—an exhilarating scramble with steep sides, if not quite as sheer as Sharp Edge, still capable of instilling an air of danger. While holding few genuine difficulties, it does require care. Doddick is a similar slim ridge, but with fewer rock turrets and precipices so it should be a little easier. However, my scrambling abilities are tested before I even start the ascent. Scaley Beck separates Scales Fell and Doddick Fell, and its crossing requires a descent into a steep ravine. The way down is easy enough, but on the other side, a narrow path climbs to a large rock step with a dearth of decent hand and foot holds. After some shenanigans that are most accurately described as scrabbling rather than scrambling, I manage to get one knee over the parapet, and with a little inelegant huffing and shuffling, I haul myself up.

A few minutes later, I’m stuffing outer layers into my rucksack. Out of the wind, the sunshine is warm. It’s a beautiful spring day, quintessential May—except it’s February, and this is alarming. (Still, it would be churlish not to enjoy it).

As I start my winding ascent up the steep foot of Doddick Fell, the green fields of St John’s in the Vale stretch out below, walled into irregular squares like a patchwork chequerboard. Wisps of low cloud soften the charcoal peaks of Clough Head and the Dodds as they rise across the valley, and to the west, the ridges of Coledale and Newlands are dark sails in a sea of fine mist. At 450 million years old, they’re all newcomers compared to Blencathra, which has stood a full fifty million years longer, forged not from cataclysmic volcanic eruptions but formed, over imponderable millennia, from layer upon layer of sedimentary deposits on the sea bed. I can’t tell whether it’s the weight of such eternities, or simply the wind direction, but the noise from the A66 below seems to have disappeared.

Across the foot of Hall’s Fell, half a dozen foxhounds are trotting this way. Members of the Blencathra pack, perhaps? Kennelled at Gate Gill, they are a famed company with a lineage stretching back to John Peel, the huntsman immortalised in the seventeenth century song, “D’ye ken John Peel in his coat so gay”. Their master awaits further up the slope here on Doddick. Perhaps I’m just used to seeing farmers dressed in fleeces and coveralls, but in his tweeds, waxed jacked and flat cap, he seems the embodiment of tradition. In spite of myself, I find I’m enjoying the scene. I supported (and still support) the fox hunting ban, and I don’t subscribe to the Countryside Alliance’s view that it is a law passed by Townies who don’t understand country ways. Growing up in the countryside, I encountered as much anti-hunt feeling as pro, even among some farmers whose interests it claimed to serve. Yet, it is possible to acknowledge and appreciate a close working relationship between man and dog, and between both and the landscape, even if you don’t condone the endgame.

Of course, since the ban, the endgame is supposed to have changed. They no longer kill foxes, they pursue fell runners now (which surely even Oscar Wilde would consider fair game). Trail hunting, where a runner lays a trail scented with aniseed or fox urine, was big in Cumbria long before the ban, and the Blencathra Hounds’ website states emphatically that their events keep strictly within the law—any attempt to do otherwise will result in the hounds being returned to their kennels. How rigidly this is enforced, I don’t know, but there’s no bloodshed today, they’re simply exercising the animals. One of the hounds has already reached Doddick, and minutes later, he brushes eagerly past my leg. As I reach the top of the slope, I pass his master, and being British, we comment on the weather, “Aye, wam oop ‘ere”, he grins.

According to Wikipedia, one version of the folk song paints Peel’s coat as grey, not gay. This seems likely, as it was probably made from Herdwick wool. It also reminds me I know the song best from Porridge, where Norman Stanley Fletcher sings an entirely different lyric:

“D’ye see yon screw with his look so vain?
With his brand new key on his brand new chain;
With a face like a ferret and a pea for a brain
And his hand on his whistle in the morning.”

As the initial slope levels off, Doddick’s ridge is revealed. If you ask a child to draw a mountain, they draw a triangle, and this is the shape of things ahead—a perfect chestnut pyramid rising to a pale grey peak. At the top, this fell joins the ridge that curves round from Scales Fell. The ground between is scooped into a deep and wide gill, its high sides draped in dry heather, like the chocolate fleece of a Herdwick yearling.

To my left, is another higher horseshoe. Across Doddick Gill, Hall’s Fell rises to an imperious tower where it becomes Blencathra’s summit, its slopes, a great wall of exposed stone flecked with sparse patches of yellow scrub, topped with rocky turrets and riven by a narrow fissure running all the way down to its foot. It’s a view Wainwright calls “awe-inspiring”. I’m reminded of a friend who used to run the Coniston Launch. I once asked him how he lured punters away from his chief rival, the historic steam yacht, Gondola. “Ah well,” he said, “I tell them the best view of the Gondola is from The Coniston Launch.” The same may be true of Hall’s Fell and Doddick.

A man with a north east accent is similarly wrapt. He tells me he normally climbs Blencathra by Hall’s Fell or Sharp Edge but decided to try Doddick today for a change. He’s not dissappointed. I confess to chickening out of Sharp Edge because of the wind (which sounds lame because here in the lee of the mountain, there isn’t any). He smiles and assures me it’s not as bad as people make out, then as we start up the slope, he admits he’s regretting the six pints he had yesterday afternoon while watching the rugby.

St John's in the Vale from Doddick Fell — St John’s in the Vale from Doddick Fell

Our paths continue to cross as we climb the narrow ridgeline. When I reach Doddick Fell Top, I gaze back over the ascent. He’s two steps behind and looking beyond me.

“Sharp Edge”, he nods.

I turn, and there it is, towering like an impregnable wall over Scales Tarn. Its blue slate sides look well nigh vertical, and a tiny figure strides nervously along its battlements. Just then, we’re buffeted by a huge gust. My companion looks at me with a smile and nods, “Aye, bit windy today”. Then, as one, we glance back to check the solitary figure is still there and not floating in the tarn below.

The unseasonal weather has inspired people to pull on their boots, and Blencathra’s summit is crowded. A large group is posing for photo, so I make friends with their dog. We’re on tummy tickling terms by the time his grinning owner reclaims him. I stare down the spine of Hall’s Fell Ridge, falling abruptly away toward Thelkeld below. It promises thrills and adventure, but the day is young, and there are other summits I want to roam.

Hall's Fell Ridge from the summit — Hall’s Fell Ridge from the summit

I set off over the Saddle toward Atkinson Pike. On its eastern flank, lies Foule Crag and Sharp Edge, but to the west, a blue slate scree slope (known imaginatively as Blue Screes) drops to a flat plateau of upland moor—Mungrisdale Common. If Wainwright thought the southern face of Blencathra, Lakeland’s grandest object, he found Mungrisdale Common its least impressive. Indeed, he’s positively rude about it, claiming it “has no more pretension to elegance than a pudding that has been sat on”, and that its “natural attractions are of a type that appeals only to sheep”. But I’ve been reading William Atkins’ book, The Moor, and it’s left me with a deeper appreciation of these boggy, desolate wastelands.

While our moors are as hazardous as our mountains, we conceive of their dangers differently. Literature reinforces this: lofty crags are noble; to scale their heights, heroic; to die trying, worthy. Moors are bleak, lonely places, populated by outcasts; to drown in the bog is the ignominious fate of the wretched.

Atkins’ book teems with tales of men and women who have battled to turn moors into fertile farmland. Yet time and again, the attempt is futile and leads to ruin, even madness. For centuries, our peat bogs were seen as useless waste ground. Today, with the reality of global warming, we’re waking up to their value. We learn in school that plants take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, but when plants die they release all that stored carbon back into the atmosphere. The sphagnum moss that covers our wetlands is an exception. When it dies it forms the peat that lies beneath, and peat traps all the carbon it collected during its lifetime. Or at least it does if it stays wet. Drain our moors and we release the carbon. Protecting our wetlands is now a task of significant environmental importance.

As a carbon sponge, Mungrisdale Common’s diminutive size means it hardly registers in significance compared with the vast peat bogs of Exmoor, Dartmoor, The Peak District or North Yorkshire, yet as I step off the blue scree and on to the squelchy ground, I look at the green and red sphagnum with a new-found appreciation.

Finding the summit is more problematic. Wainwright declares that “any one of a thousand tufts of tough bent and cotton-grass might lay claim to crowning the highest point”, which means, I suppose, that walkers bagging the Wainwrights need only set foot on the Common to claim it. I decide it deserves more respect, and set off along the broadest of the visible paths heading for what I hope is a patch of imperceptibly higher ground.

Cloud has now swallowed the top Blencathra, but here on the Common, I’m still in sunshine, and the landscape assumes an air of the Wild West. Admittedly, cacti and Comanches are in short supply but there’s something about craggy mountains rising from a broad sweep of straw-hued flatland that evokes John Wayne. I’ve been to Denver a couple of times and always marvel at the plains running flat as a pancake all the way to Kansas, while in the opposite direction the vast wall of the Rocky Mountains rises out of nowhere. Skiddaw is no Pikes Peak, but it’s a giant in Lakeland terms, and it looks “mighty fine” (as they might say over there). The Common compliments Great Calva and Lonscale Fell to similar effect, and I conclude that AW must have been in a unusually unimaginative mood to resist to such charms.

I find a cairn which I count as the summit and turn heel for the Glenderamackin Col. At the col, the paths to Bowscale Fell, Blencathra and Bannerdale Crags intersect with a fourth that follows the course of the fledgling river down into the valley.

Bannerdale Crags looks unexciting from here, a nondescript grassy hillock basking in the shadow of Blencathra’s saddle. That changes entirely when you reach the summit. Here the views are utterly uplifting. To the east, Souther Fell rises over the infant River Glenderamackin, a last noble outpost of the Northern Fells. Beyond is the broad flat sweep of the fertile Eden valley, hemmed by the distant indistinct wall of the Pennines. Immediately to the north, the Tongue rises to the neighbouring peak of Bowscale Fell, and from here the pièce de résistance, the crags themselves, sweep round to meet it, a crescent wall of charcoal cliffs plummeting to apricot slopes beneath. It makes for an inspiring walk, and everyone I pass along its sweep has the same beatific smile.

On the summit of Bowscale Fell, I meet a man who’s sweating and puffing from the ascent. He’s come all the way up from the valley, past Bowscale Tarn, which, according to Wordsworth, is home to a pair of “undying fish”.

“That doesn’t get any easier”, he exclaims.

“Oh, I know”, I reply. “They get higher with age.”

“They certainly do!”, he grins, and staggers off for the sanctuary of the summit shelter.

I wander back down to the Glenderamackin col with the dark Saddle dominating the skyline and follow the stream down into the valley between Bannerdale Crags and Scales Fell. Above me on my right, Sharp Edge looms, looking no less daunting from this angle. Daunting but inspiring, and I find myself whispering, “next time”.

I leave the path where it rounds the bottom of White Horse Bent, cross the steam by the footbridge, and climb to the col where Scales Fell and Souther Fell meet. From here, the path leads down Mousthwaite Comb and back to Scales, where I left my car.

But Souther Fell is right there, the last bastion of the Northern Fells, and with the weather so amenable, aching legs would seem a small price to pay for making it a big day in the north.

In 1745, twenty six men and women swore they’d seen a ghost army marching over Souther Fell. For more on that, my ascent of Hall’s Fell Ridge and the legendary Celtic king who is said to lie beneath Blencathra, click here…

Sympathy For The Devil

I did eventually get to walk over Sharp Edge. If you’d like to read that account, here’s the link:

http://www.lakelandwalkingtales.co.uk/blencathra-via-sharp-edge/

Fell Walk, General, History, Legend

This Land is Your Land

August 19, 2018 George Kitching 7 Comments

A Dragon’s Back and a Right to Roam

An away trip to the Peak District, to walk the iconic profile of Chrome Hill, provokes a rumination on the right to roam, the mass trespass of 1932, and the fact I owe my life to the Ramblers’ Association. En route, we get spooked by the Quiet Woman in Earl Sterndale and have a chance encounter with the Sundance Kid.

Revolution

In 1917, the tyranny of the Russian Tsar had fallen to the hammer and sickle in a matter of months, but in Britain, a slow-burn revolution smouldered. Every inch as rooted in class conflict and social injustice, its aims were humbler: they demanded not the overthrow of the ruling elite, but the right to roam; the right for open access to land that had once been common, but for the last four centuries had been systematically enclosed—taken from the many and given to the few. Enclosure had swept away the old feudal system, where land was worked collectively for subsistence, and created a nation of landless poor and landed gentry. The land itself had become a commodity to be owned and worked for profit. Protest songs didn’t start with Bob Dylan—in England, a sixteenth century bard penned this:

Hang the man and flog the woman
That steals the goose from off the common
But leave the greater felon loose
That steals the common from the goose.

With industrialisation, the massed ranks of rural poor flocked to the cities to work the mills, mines and factories of the industrial north. New hardships, diseases and health problems awaited. By the beginning of the twentieth century the physical and spiritual benefits of the great outdoors were widely appreciated. In increasing numbers, men and women would escape the urban sprawl at weekends to seek out clean air and green space, and increasingly, they found their way blocked. England’s green and pleasant land had become a playground for the rich elite, populated with game and shooting lodges. Commoners were not welcome.

“We ramblers, after a hard week’s work, in smokey towns and cities, go out rambling for relaxation and fresh air. And we find the finest rambling country is closed to us … Our request, or demand, for access to all peaks and uncultivated moorland is nothing unreasonable”. So spoke Benny Rothman in his own defence at Derby Assizes. Twenty-one-year-old Benny was on trial for helping organise the mass trespass of 1932: on April 24^th, over four hundred men and women left Sheffield and Manchester to walk together in protest over Kinder Scout, in what is now the Peak District. The land was owned by the Duke of Devonshire, and he deployed a band of keepers armed with clubs to forcibly deter the trespassers. A full-scale fight broke out, and the keepers were easily overwhelmed. But the judge’s sympathies lay with the landowner, and Benny was jailed, along with four of his friends.

The sentences caused outrage and fuelled popular support for the right to roam. In 1935, the Ramblers’ Association was formed to advocate for walkers’ rights at a national level and to promote the benefits of rambling to ordinary people. Their efforts eventually bore fruit: in 1951, the Peak District became England’s first National Park. It was known as the “lungs of England”. By the end of the decade, the Lake District, Snowdonia, Dartmoor, Pembrokeshire Coast, North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales, Exmoor, Northumberland and Brecon Beacons had all followed suit. It took until the year 2000, however, for the Countryside and Rights of Way Act to secure open access for the public to all uncultivated upland and downland.

Away Trip

This is on my mind for two reasons: I’m driving south on the M6 for a weekend’s walking in the Peak District with my friend Tim; and the other night, my mum mentioned that my granny and grandad met on a Ramblers’ Association walk in the Lake District. I never knew. A love of treading the Lakeland fells had evidently skipped a generation in our family, but now my mountain passion seems less like an aberration and more a resumption of an older family tradition. My granny came from the mining village of Astley, near Manchester. She was warm, outgoing, outspoken and would laugh easily and heartily. My grandad was a southerner—serious, reserved, shy and meticulous. They complimented each other perfectly, but they most likely would never have met had it not been for the Ramblers’ Association—so without the Ramblers’ Association, I wouldn’t be here.

Beyond the urban sprawl of Greater Manchester, I crawl through Glossop. Under an overcast sky in dimming light, it appears drab and austere. I give way to a pedestrian at a pelican crossing. He’s in his early twenties, shoulders hunched, belly spilling over his belt, lank, greasy hair, plastered thinly across a forehead that wears the perennial look of defeat; his T-shirt bears the moniker, “the Sundance Kid”.

As Glossop’s answer to Robert Redford recedes into the distance, something magic happens: the buildings stop, the road leads uphill past a sign for “Snake Pass”, and without warning, I’m launched out into the sublime sweep of lonely, windblown, wilderness that is the Dark Peak. I’ve made this journey many times, and the soaring rush of exhilaration that kicks in at this point never ever diminishes. I think of Benny Rothman and how hard he fought for the right to roam here.

From here on, the drive is pure joy. The stresses of the week evaporate as this dramatic landscape casts its spell. Eventually, beyond the mesmeric glint of the Ladybower reservoir, the bright lights of Sheffield appear. Soon after, I’m knocking on Tim’s door, which he opens in a pinny with a bottle of wine in hand. This is good news—he’s a great cook.

Over dinner and several glasses of wine, Tim rattles off suggestions for tomorrow’s adventures. Kinder Scout is mooted, but intriguingly, he also ponders going further afield, to the White Peak, to walk the Dragon’s Back.

I keep a careful eye on the time. Tim’s kitchen is built on a wrinkle in the space-time continuum. I’ve been caught out many times before: if you let the hands of his clock reach half past midnight, you’ll look up a couple of minutes later to find it’s half past three (which doesn’t make for the best start to a day out rambling). I sneak off to bed at twenty-nine minutes past twelve.

The Dragon’s Back

Over breakfast, the Dragon’s back idea wins out, and we set off for the Dove valley near Buxton. The Peak District is a single National Park but encapsulates two very different terrains. The northern part, which juts up against Sheffield, is the Dark Peak, a dramatic expanse of untamed moorland: savage, intimidating, unkempt, and in early spring, still looking every bit the desolate winter scrub. Huge swathes of earthen colour—bands of brown, yellow and rust—are punctuated by long escarpments and outcrops of gritstone, weathered into smooth, rounded, surreal-looking formations like piles of pebbles on a giant’s beach.

As we cross into Derbyshire and Staffordshire, the aspect changes character completely. We find ourselves amid gentle rolling hills and green pastoral valleys. This is the White Peak—the Dark Peak’s prettier, softer sibling. Yet as we crest the top of a hill and head towards Longnor, Tim directs my gaze right, to an astounding sight, quite out of keeping with its surroundings. It’s as if two colossal dinosaurs, hibernating beneath the valley floor, have awoken and thrust their arched backs up through the earth, their spines ridged with jagged plates; and due to some inscrutable ancient mystery, they have become fossilised in the process, their skins turned to grass, and their armour plate into limestone pinnacles.

These are the iconic profiles of Chrome Hill and Parkhouse Hill, known collectively as the Dragon’s Back. In 1997, writer Jeff Kent brought Chrome Hill to wider attention, when he discovered it boasts a double sunset. If viewed from Parkhouse Hill or Glutton Bridge, on or around the summer solstice, the sun appears to set, then re-emerges and sets again. In an ideal world, we’d have read Jeff’s book, and we’d be visiting on the summer solstice to observe the spectacle. As it is, we’re two months early and I won’t find out about the phenomenon until I browse Wikipedia, a few weeks later. Nevertheless, I can’t wait to get my boots on when we park in Longnor.

The long easy walk-in takes us to Hollinsclough, past its chapel, and down through fields to a stream, where the dampness of the grass sends me tumbling for an early mud bath. The going gets firmer as we gain height. After a prolonged winter, the recent rain and warm April sunshine lend a spring vitality to a day that might almost be summer, were the trees not still bereft of leaves.

We reach a brow and Chrome Hill rises before us in all its quirky, spiky magnificence. We sip coffee at its foot then start to scramble up between its craggy pinnacles, minding our step—wet limestone is nearly as slippery as wet grass.

At 1394 feet, Chrome Hill stops some way short of a mountain, but on character alone, it outranks grassy domes more than twice its height. The Hill has a mountain personality and a mountain’s power. The narrowness of its ridge emphasises the steepness of its sides, and the rolling pastures of the White Peak stretch out forever below.

On the summit, two men and a dog are gazing out over the expansive views. We’re all beaming with the sheer exuberance of the experience (especially the dog).

The descent is severe, and we worry how we’ll stay upright, but these south-east slopes have been sun-kissed for several hours, so the grass is dry and the going proves easy enough. At the bottom, the slimmer, sharper, lower ridge of Parkhouse Hill rises enticingly, but there’s no right of way shown on the map, and we’re unsure of its status. Later, we’ll learn that it has been classified as open access under the 2000 act, but it was long disputed, and I realise the right to roam is not just the story of Benny’s battle from a previous century, but still very much a living, burning, contentious issue.

Our route meanders beside meadows alive with bouncing lambs and grazing ewes. You can almost feel the surge of new life bursting from the ground, and to walk amongst it is an emotional tonic just as much as a physical one. We find a bench-like boulder beside a dusty country lane, under trees chirruping with bird song, and tuck into our grub. Tim’s local baker has supplied a pork pie of Brobdingnagian proportions, forged with a finesse that would embarrass Heston Blumenthal. Tim has also packed veritable house bricks of Yorkshire brack, smothered with butter to a depth that James Martin would readily endorse. After gorging greedily on this fine fare, Tim checks the map and starts to chuckle.

“Guess where we are”, he says.

“I’ve no idea”, I reply.

“We’re in Gluttondale”, he smirks.

The Quiet Woman

After a couple of miles, the lane leads into a village. Tim, who’s a couple of yards ahead, stops abruptly and looks up with purpose. I follow his lead and my eyes meet a pub sign that’s immediately disquieting. It takes a minute to work out why. The artwork is slightly garish, bearing the hallmark of Hammer House of Horror film poster from the 1970’s. The pub is called the Quiet Woman and bears the inscription, “soft words turneth away wrath”, beneath which is a crude painting of a woman, presumably the landlady; only, something is missing… Oh yes, it’s her head.

The sign seems to be implying that a woman should be seen and not heard, and the most effective means of achieving this is decapitation. The exterior of the building is dark-beamed, and the windows latticed. Their glass reflects the afternoon sun, rendering them utterly impenetrable. It makes the Slaughtered Lamb in American Werewolf look positively hospitable. Suddenly, eerily, it feels as if we’ve arrived in Royston Vasey. In actual fact, it’s Earl Sterndale, which, as names go, is even more intimidating.

The story behind the pub sign is every bit as dark as you would imagine. The original landlady was an incessant nag and gossip, known locally as Chattering Charteris. Her relentless mithering proved too much for her beleaguered husband, who cut off her head. Far from provoking outrage, his action won the wholehearted approval of the villagers who clubbed together to pay for her headstone.

Someone is waving at us from one of the tables on the beer terrace out front. It’s one of the guys from the summit of Chrome Hill. They seem to be enjoying themselves, but perhaps they haven’t seen the sign, and now they’re walking unknowingly into a terrible trap, like Edward Woodward in the Wicker Man. Or perhaps they’re locals, and they’re in on it. We smile wanly and hurry on in the faint hope that our gender might spare us from the village executioner.

A little further on, a woman leans over the fence of a paddock where two children and a dog are trying to corral some young lambs. She greets us warmly and we chat. It’s a delightful scene that quickly dispels the darker suspicions of moments ago. Well almost. What if it’s a buttering up exercise, a diversionary tactic to lull us into a false sense of security, while the men of the village sharpen the axes or weave the last canes into the body of the wicker man?

We take our leave and walk on briskly past the arresting pyramidal hill of High Wheeldon, through a quagmire of mud and cow muck, and back to the safer environs of Longnor, where we risk a relaxing pint in the Market Square. Or at least, I do. Tim has a Coke, because he wants to stop on the way home to introduce me to a new micro pub in Sheffield, called the Itchy Pig (or the Itchy Anus as it’s affectionately known).

Just as we’re leaving, the two guys and the dog from the Quiet Woman arrive in the square. We wave less cautiously this time, relieved to see they’re still sporting their heads.

Outside the Itchy Anus, Tim insists we sit in the car for thirteen minutes, until the clock strikes six and the parking becomes free. Well when in Yorkshire…

Inside, I order two pints of a particularly fine IPA and some chilli pork scratchings.

“They’re hot”, says the barman, looking me right in the eye. “Very hot.”

I nod and carry them back to our table where we dig in. I look around and clock the barman staring over, waiting to gauge our reaction. I smile and hope he can’t see the plumes of steam that are now pouring out of my ears, and the fact that my face has turned crimson. I have it on the good authority of a contact in the chilli trade that Heston Blumenthal, with the help of an MRI scanner and a hapless sous chef, has proved that hot chilli activates the areas of the brain associated with happiness.

So, perhaps it’s the pork scratchings, or perhaps it’s escaping execution in Earl Sterndale, or perhaps it’s the grateful recognition that men like Benny Rothman have won us the freedom to roam edifying natural phenomena like Chrome Hill, but after an inspiring journey through Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire, I’m believe I’m grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Sources/Further Reading

The Ramblers’ Association. (No date). General History. Available at http://www.ramblers.org.uk/about-us/our-history.aspx (Accessed Aug 2018)

Eric Allison (2012). The Kinder Scout Trespass: 80 years on. The Guardian, 17 April. Available at

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/apr/17/kinder-scout-mass-trespass-anniversary (Accessed Aug 2018)

Fell Walk, General, History

Away from the Numbers

June 24, 2018 George Kitching 12 Comments

Grey Friar, Great Carrs, & Dow Crag from Seathwaite

It was to be my 100th Wainwright. Not quite halfway, but a minor milestone nevertheless. The day begins inauspiciously with a series of farcical calamities worthy of Basil Fawlty, but en route to the Seathwaite reservoir, the disarming beauty of the Duddon valley works its magic. After a splendid ridge walk, I celebrate in the rural charm of the Newfield Inn—the scene of a violent riot, 114 years ago, which ended in the fatal shooting of a navvy. Hard to believe these days, but I’m on my best behaviour just in case.

It’s not as if I was expecting fanfares, a red carpet and a Champagne breakfast on the terrace. That would be ridiculous—we haven’t got a terrace. But on a morning that marked a minor milestone in my fell walking career, I did, at least, want things to go smoothly.

It wasn’t to be. I awoke to find the cat had thrown up over the sofa cushions. He’d even managed to hit a car rug perched over the arm. The scatter pattern suggested he’d been projectile vomiting while spinning like a whirling dervish. Was he violently ill or possessed by a legion of demons? It didn’t look like it.

I’ve seen enough episodes of CSI to know how to work a crime scene, and here I found grass and a sizeable clump of matted fur (quite possibly not his own). Cat lovers will know that grass is an emetic which cats imbibe deliberately to shift fur balls. The ensuing upchuck is relatively controlled, so this extravagant distribution was clearly a matter of choice. The proud perpetrator was now standing by his bowl, demanding his breakfast.

After half an hour of intensive fabric cleaning, I stuffed Wainwright’s Pictorial Guide to the Southern Fells into my rucksack and set off for Seathwaite.

I’ve lived in Cumbria for twenty years and I’d never been into the heart of the Duddon valley. I’ve gazed down on it many times from the tops of the Coniston fells, ever struck by its lonely beauty. In autumn, the Seathwaite reservoir had shone like a sapphire on a baize of burnished gold. Today, the fields and trees are a swatch of fresh June green, licked into life by the early morning sun. I could easily lose myself in carefree reverie, but I need to concentrate because I’m not entirely sure where I’m going.

After Seathwaite, the map shows a fork in the road, with the right-hand prong giving way to the old quarry track that leads up to the Walna Scar Pass and on to Coniston. The reservoir track starts from the same point. Sure enough, the road forks where expected and there is even a sign saying “Coniston, unfit for cars”. But as the winding single-track road narrows to no more than my car width, I start to question why it is I think there is off-road parking at the end of it.

The road ends abruptly in a gate—with no parking space anywhere to be seen. A farmer on a quad bike is approaching from the other side. He clearly wants to come this way. I recall a distinct lack of passing places and the road is too narrow for a three-point turn. There’s nothing for it but to reverse back to the farm I passed quarter of a mile back.

Parking sensors are wonderful things, but they don’t know the difference between dry stone walls and cow parsley. Given the abundance of foliage overhanging the verges, my dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree and my ears are ringing from the continuous high-pitched beep. I reach the farm, but I’m too close to the opposite wall to back in. I effect a painfully faffing five-point manoeuvre, while trying to avoid the eye of the farmer, who I sense is laughing heartily. Eventually, I manage to let him past. He gives a cheery wave and speeds off down the lane, no doubt dying to get home and tell his wife all about his encounter with Mr Bean.

I follow him back to the Seathwaite road. On the edge of the village, there are four parking spaces. One is still free. Perhaps my luck is changing.

It’s a rash hope. I open the hatchback to find the top isn’t properly on one of my water bottles and it’s emptied itself entirely into one of my boots—the one I’d put my socks in. I pour 500ml of water out of the boot and wring out the socks as best I can, then I squelch one and a half miles back up the road to the gate. I go through and just on the other side, I find the parking spaces.

Then, I step in a cowpat.

As I tramp up the reservoir track, I feel every bit like Basil Fawlty scouting around for a branch with which to give the day a damn good thrashing… But subconsciously, I start to change gear. There’s a song going around in my head. It’s The Waterboys’ Don’t Bang the Drum—it was playing on the radio on the way here:

“Here we are in a fabulous place
What are you gonna dream here?
We are standing in this fabulous place
What are you gonna play here?
I know you love the high life, you love to leap around
You love to beat your chest and make your sound
But not here man – this is sacred ground
With a Power flowing through
And if know you you’ll bang the drum
Like monkeys do”

The song warns of being so pumped up with our own self-importance, or perhaps with peeved indignance at the banana skins life leaves littered in our path, that we can stand in the most astounding of places and fail to realise.

I stop to apply sun cream, and I wake up to where I am. The epiphany strikes like an earthquake. A minute ago, the Duddon valley was a place of cowpats, frustratingly hidden car parks and wet feet. Now it’s a place of astonishing power and disarming beauty.

Across the valley, a conspiracy of sun and shadow renders the Scafells as an Art Deco railway poster—broad, flat, angular and stylised.

To the east, the sheer green slopes of Brim Fell, Dow Crag and Walna Scar form a colossal rampart to rend the valleys of the Duddon and Coniston. And straight ahead, rising over rippling foot hills, is the grassy dome of Grey Friar—the only Coniston fell I’ve yet to set foot on. Except, it isn’t really a Coniston fell at all. As Wainwright points put, Grey Friar belongs entirely to the Duddon.

Grey Friar from the Seathwaite reservoir track

Ticking off all the Wainwrights hadn’t been a goal. I was more interested in getting to know my favourites well—experiencing all their ascents and ridge walks. However, some gentle hectoring from my neighbours, Paul and Jeanette, convinced me that tackling the full 214 is a great incentive to explore new ground. They’re right, and since committing to the challenge, my knowledge of the peaks has grown exponentially.

I’ve climbed all the other mountains in this range at least twice and some (like The Old Man) as many as eight times. But Grey Friar, I’ve been saving. It will be my 100th Wainwright.

The OS map shows no path, but Wainwright sketches two that wend in parallel up the south western ridge. The first, a grass rake, is clearly visible from the track, but the intervening ground is marshy. AW suggests continuing to the reservoir and starting from just beyond the outtake channel. His second path is more direct and starts from the same place.

After a mile or so, I crest the hill and the long buttressed curve of the dam wall appears at the foot of dark shadowy slopes. As I reach the walkway that traverses the top, the sun slips behind a cloud, so now over the parapet, the dark waters stretch out—a long black placid pool, cool and inscrutable.

The reservoir’s tranquillity belies the violence in its construction. The ancient tarn was dammed in 1904, to extend its capacity as a water supply. The summer was a scorcher; the work was hard, and tempers were frayed. In such a small and remote community as Seathwaite, tensions were strained between locals and the labourers drafted in to sweat and toil. It would only take a spark to ignite the tinder.

In the event, alcohol proved the accelerant. According to Dick Sullivan’s book, Navvyman (Coracle Press, 1983), Owen Cavanagh had been drinking heavily since 9am. By noon, the landlord of the Newfield Hotel (now the Newfield Inn) judged he’d had enough. As Cavanagh’s rowdiness threatened to get out of hand, the landlord demanded he and his mates leave the premises. The men refused. They smashed up the pub and stole bottles of whisky, then they spilled into the street where they pelted the church and the vicarage with rocks. The publican, a barman and an engineer confronted the rioters with firearms. Shots were fired wounding three—fatally in Cavanagh’s case. The gunmen were arrested but later acquitted on the grounds their actions were legally justified in protecting property.

A primeval peace pervades now. The ghosts of rampaging navvies don’t haunt the fruits of their labours. I follow the walkway along the top of the dam and cross the footbridge over the main and auxiliary tarn outlets.

Between the crags of Great and Little Blake Rigg, Grey Friar’s slopes are more forgiving—grassy terraces peppered with rocky outcrops. Where Wainwright shows the start of his direct route, the tiniest of cairns hints at a faint path. I augment the cairn with a couple more stones—now you’ll have to blink a fraction longer to miss it.

In places, you have to rely on instinct and common sense to determine the line of the path. In others, it’s more pronounced, but nowhere is there any difficulty. A moderate pull up grassy slopes attains the ridge, and I make for the summit. Two cairns, a little way apart, stake equally convincing claims. Wainwright judges the north-eastern contender to be the true summit but concedes the south-western has the better views. He’s right, I pull myself up a rocky step and hunker down beside it to gaze across at Harter Fell and the Scafells.

A blue haze, like a sea mist, transforms the peaks into a mythical realm, where black spires, full of menace and foreboding, rise above dappled flanks, pretty and beguiling, and dark hollows harbour mysteries, old as the hills themselves.

One hundred Wainwrights under my belt is still seven short of halfway. Even so, it’s a ton, a nicely rounded sum, and it feels like an accomplishment. Grey Friars was a fine choice. It’s an underrated mountain, but away from the numbers, these are the kind that can reward the most. It’ll be a different story across on Scafell Pike. At this time of year, walkers will be arriving by the coach load. The Let’s Walk the Lakes Facebook group are tackling that today. Three weeks ago, I climbed Skiddaw with them. It was my first outing with the group, and a nicer bunch of like-minded people you couldn’t hope to meet. I wave in their direction and look forward to our next hike together. Then I set off for Great Carrs.

Just shy of the summit is a memorial cairn to the wreck of a Halifax bomber that crashed here in 1944. I’ve written about that at length in Ghost of Canadian Airmen, so I won’t repeat myself here, but the cairn with its cross and its plaque, together with the little wooden crosses people plant among the stones to commemorate their own departed loved ones, never fail to move me.

I don’t know how this looked in Wainwright’s day. It’s been rebuilt, so perhaps its appearance is more poignant now, but I find AW’s casual dismissal of it as a pile of aeroplane wreckage a tad perplexing. I’ve always suspected his curmudgeonly character was a slightly tongue-in-cheek persona: the bonhomie and humour in his writing suggests someone a little better disposed to people than is commonly supposed. But this throwaway line in the Grey Friar chapter does seem to reveal a more damaged individual, either lacking empathy, or perhaps, so used to burying his feelings he found them awkward to deal with when they surfaced.

I cross the shoulder of Swirl How and head over Brim Fell. The sky darkens, and it spots with rain. The hills are now a solemn grey, the Seathwaite reservoir a sombre sheen. But the dark clouds above Dow Crag are clearing and the ones overhead are insubstantial. They lack the ammunition for a proper downpour. Halfway to Dow Crag’s summit, the sun breaks through in triumph. By the time I reach the top, it’s glorious.

I read a number of walking blogs, and I enjoy Tessa Park’s, not only because it’s called Mountains and Malbec (which scores double points in my book), but because she champions the use of the ARSE CRAMPON. The concept is not entirely new, Wainwright remarks on the usefulness of the posterior, particularly in descent, but Tessa coined the phrase and she deserves a shout-out as I make liberal use of this piece of equipment in scrambling off the summit rocks.

Dow Crag’s buttresses and gullies are some of most dramatic features to be found anywhere in Lakeland. Its top is peppered with plunging vistas of heart-stopping beauty. Intrepid climbers perch on precarious outcrops high above the blue glimmer of Goat Water.

On the way down over Buck Pike and Brown Pike, Coniston Water is a hazy aquamarine wash to the east, while to the west, a band of barley forms a golden heart in the Lincoln green of the Duddon Valley. On reaching the Walna Scar Road, I turn right and descend past the old quarry into the pastoral perfection of Dunnerdale. Harter Fell looms ahead and Tarn Beck burbles over rocks as I meander lazily back to Seathwaite.

The Duddon valley from the Walna Scar track

The Newfield Inn is the epitome of a charming rural pub. I sit in its pretty beer garden, enjoying the warm sunshine and a cool hoppy pint of Mosaic from the nearby Foxfield brewery. It’s impossible to imagine this was the scene of a violent riot and fatal shootings one hundred and fourteen years ago.

I’m quite sure the landlord doesn’t keep a loaded firearm behind the bar anymore, but just in case, I return the glass, thank him kindly and take extra care not to break anything on the way out.

Fell Walk, General, History

Jimmy Hewitson and The Howitzer

April 8, 2018 George Kitching 10 Comments

Coniston, Tarn Hows, Black Fell & Holme Fell

“Some men become national heroes for superlative acts of bravery in service to their country. Others become heroes locally, because they stand up for the underdog when the establishment runs roughshod over them.” Jimmy Hewitson was both. I hear his remarkable story from his grandson, John. It’s a story of courage, compassion and the redemptive power of the Cumbrian landscape.

Courage

On the radio, a mother bravely describes losing her son in the Manchester Arena bombing. She says, “as soon as I heard about the explosion, I knew he was dead”. Some unfathomable maternal instinct tapped into something deeper than radio silence and sensed a severed emotional connection. By morning, she knew for certain that he hadn’t been admitted to any of the city’s hospitals, but it took a full twenty-four hours for the police to confirm her worst fears.

I can’t begin to imagine how those twenty-four hours felt. What that poor woman went through. What she is still going through. Every hour must have seemed an eternity, hoping against hope she was wrong, powerless do anything but wait for that dreadful knock on the door.

Benjamin Kirkby’s mother waited almost a year.

Ben was a Coniston lad and a quarryman. When World War One broke out, Ben, like many of his mates, answered Lord Kitchener’s call for volunteers. He enlisted in the King’s Own Lancaster Regiment (now the Duke of Lancaster’s) and was assigned to 1/4 brigade. Ben didn’t see action until the Somme, on 8th August 1916; after that, he would take no further part in the war. He was killed that day, as were two of his friends, Richard Usher and Sol Robinson. Richard and Sol’s deaths were confirmed within days, but Ben was reported as wounded, then wounded and missing. It was a full eleven months before his parents heard their son was dead.

Benjamin Atkinson Kirkby (courtesy of the Ruskin Museum)

I’ve just come from The Ruskin Museum in Coniston where curator, Vicky Slowe, has been showing me a file of remembrance; it has a page for each of the soldiers. A display case holds some personal artefacts: Ben Kirkby’s commemorative scroll; Richard Usher’s death penny and the official army communique to his parents, informing them of their son’s death. It also holds a painting by Richard of a boat on a lake, presumably Coniston Water. It looks peaceful and serene, evoking a long, lazy, carefree afternoon. A happy memory he held with him, perhaps, in the bitter, bloody turmoil of the trenches.

Ben Kirkby Commemorative Scroll (courtesy of the Ruskin Museum)

Beside the display case is a Matchless motorcycle that belonged to James Hewitson, another local lad who fought beside Ben, Sol and Richard in The Somme. Vicky and I were joined by John Dodd, James’s grandson, who recounted his grandfather’s remarkable story.

Some men become national heroes for superlative acts of bravery in service to their country. Others become heroes locally, because they stand up for the underdog when the establishment runs roughshod over them. Jimmy Hewitson was both. His grave lies in the Coniston churchyard, beside the fine Celtic cross of the war memorial, designed by W. G. Collingwood, who founded the Ruskin museum and designed Ruskin’s gravestone, as well as a series of war memorials including those at Hawkshead, Ulverston and St Bees, and the plaque on top of Great Gable.

Coniston war memorial — Coniston War Memorial (courtesy of the Ruskin Museum)

In 2018, on April 26^th, a new plaque was laid beside the Coniston memorial to mark the 100^th anniversary of the action that earned James Hewitson the Victoria Cross.

Hewitson survived the Somme; by 1918, he had been promoted to Lance Corporal, and his brigade had moved to Givenchy. A photograph in the museum shows a boy, seemingly too young for the military uniform he is wearing, but his courage and daring on April 26th were outstanding. He was recommended for the Victoria Cross in May 1918, and on 28^th June, this report appeared in The London Gazette:

“For most conspicuous bravery, initiative and daring action. In a daylight attack on a series of crater posts L/Cpl Hewitson led his party to their objective with dash and vigour, clearing the enemy from both trench and dugouts, killing in one dugout six of the enemy who would not surrender. After capturing the final objective, he observed a hostile machine-gun team coming into action against his men. Working his way round the edge of the crater he attacked the team, killing four and capturing one. Shortly afterwards he engaged a hostile bombing party which was attacking a Lewis gun post; he routed the party, killing six of them. The extraordinary feats of daring performed by this gallant non-commissioned officer crushed the hostile opposition at this point.”

King George V presented James with his Victoria Cross in France, on 8^th August 1918. It must have been a day of bittersweet emotions for him, as it was the second anniversary of the Somme action that killed his friends.

James Hewitson's Grave — James Hewitson’s Grave

Defiance

When the troops returned home in 1918, the mood was very different from the surge of patriotism that had seen so many enlist, four years earlier. The men bore deep scars, emotionally as well as physically. Today, we recognise post traumatic shock disorder. Back then, it was little understood and was known crudely as shell shock. Soldiers showing symptoms in the trenches had been shot for cowardice or desertion; demobbed squaddies kept shtum and suffered in silence. Many others were conspicuous by their absence.

The survivors were less reticent when it came to demanding change. Across Britain, there was a feeling among veterans that if they were going to risk their lives fighting for their country, they wanted a say in how it was governed. The Representation of the People Act of 1918 gave the vote, not only to women, but to all working-class men.

In a politically opportunist attempt to recapture some patriotic fervour and whip up a sense of triumphalism, The War Office presented many British towns and villages with war trophies. Ulverston received a German tank which stood at the bottom of Market Street until the 1960’s (the roundabout on the A590 is still known as “tank square”).

Coniston was presented with a German howitzer. It’s hard to imagine a more clumsy and insensitive gesture to a community licking its wounds and mourning its dead than to foist upon it the very instrument of its grief. It would be an understatement to say it didn’t go down well with the residents, especially those who had served. One evening, some young veterans were enjoying a pint when the conversation turned to the hated gun. Opinion was unanimous: they’d all spent enough time staring at the front of one of those things; there was no way they wanted to stare at the back of one now. After a few more pints, they decided to do something about it.

Jimmy Hewitson was at home, but such was his standing, they decided to run their plan past him, first. Jimmy’s wife answered the door; her husband had already gone to bed. When they told her what they were planning, she ran straight up the stairs to rouse him. It took no time at all for Jimmy to shout his response from the landing, “Give me a minute to get some pants on, and I’ll give you a hand”.

The howitzer had been placed outside the Ruskin museum. Being a field gun, it was on wheels. The men got behind it and, with a lot of heaving and shoving, managed to push it down the back street, past the Black Bull, over the bridge, and down to the lake. It must have been a struggle to keep something that heavy under control on the downhill stretch. They were aiming for the steep drop into the deeper water, but in the dark, they steered to the left of it, near the stone-built jetty, and pushed it into the shallows. It didn’t sink very far.

A half-submerged howitzer wasn’t quite the act of good riddance they’d been hoping for, so one of them suggested they have a word with Prissy. Priss was the captain of the Steam Yacht Gondola that ran daily excursions up and down the lake, acting as a water bus for locals and a sightseeing experience for tourists. He was only too happy to help and told them to be ready in the morning when he’d sail the Gondola past the spot on the way to her first pick up. The next day, they tied a rope around the gun and threw the end to Priss; he towed the howitzer out into the middle of the lake, where he left it to rust on the bottom.

John was only little when his grandad died, but his older brother recalls hearing the story first hand. John does remember seeing the howitzer exhumed sometime in the very late 1960’s or early 1970’s. It was pulled from the lake, loaded on to a trailer without fuss or ceremony, and swiftly driven away to sit in some private collection.

Purification and Renewal

In his post-war years, James Hewitson dug ditches, cut hedges and repaired roads, but he was hospitalised several times for shell shock and for surgery to remove shrapnel. Like many of his peers, Jimmy’s heroism came at a high personal cost. As a nation, we were ill equipped to help. Shell shock was seen as form of a neurasthenia: a supposed mechanical exhaustion of the nerves (it’s no longer a recognised condition in western medicine). Treatments were experimental and sometimes barbaric. We can only hope Hewitson escaped our worst medical follies. Certainly, he seems to have seen some improvement in later years: he was able to attend two regimental reunions and the museum has a wonderful photograph of him as an old man astride his beloved Matchless motorbike.

On leaving the museum, I walk down through a field of charcoal-fleeced Herdwicks to Coniston Hall, on the lake shore. In the soft grey light of an overcast afternoon, the rugged grandeur of this Elizabethan building appears sculpted from the earth, rough-hewn from Silurian stone, abandoned to ivy, repurposed as farm-house, a wide grassy ramp rising to its once opulent hall stripped of its oak panelling in its rebirth as a barn. Its conical chimneys stand tall and turret-like against a pale wash of sky.

Beyond is the lake, the water gently ridged with ripples, a soft bluish pewter, silver where it escapes the shadows. I walk the shore path to Torver, and most of the way to Brown How. Underfoot, the beach is mud, stone, moss and shale, overhung with a twiggy latticed canopy of naked branches, as if lightly sketched in soft graphite where they spring from heavily shaded trunks. I pass stone boat houses and little wooden jetties where an orange dinghy and an orange buoy are isolated splashes of colour amid the soft, earthy monochrome. To the north, is the high mountain drama of the Fairfield Horseshoe, stark in snow, a skyline rigidly defined, mighty and intimidating. But here, beside the water, is tranquillity.

I think of Richard Usher’s painting. Is this where he came in his head to escape the harsh reality of French battlefields? I think of the lake’s benevolence in swallowing the gun, and I think of James Hewitson’s battle with shell shock; I wonder if he found solace here. Across the beach lies the uprooted trunk of a silver birch, its branches outstretched like limbs reaching out to touch the water. The Coniston war memorial is a Celtic cross. In Celtic mythology, the birch was a symbol of purification and renewal.

Two days later, I’m at Tarn Hows. After some harsh weeks of winter, spring is here, pregnant with the promise of light and warmth. In a few hours, the circular shore path will be thick with sightseers, but at half past eight, I have it almost to myself. The water is a perfect mirror, rendering the dark curtain of trees in ink wash. The shore is a Ruskin watercolour of russet and brown. I pass a bench that bears an inscription: “In memory of Jane Aldworth (1959 – 1995) who loved this place”. Thirty-six is a tender age to die. War is not the only thief of youth. I wonder what happened to her; what comfort she found here. And again, I’m struck by the redemptive power of the landscape. Purification and renewal.

I leave the shore and climb a path that joins the Cumbria Way, which I follow east for a few hundred yards, then turn left to climb to the wilder summit of Black Fell. As a landscape yawns awake from hibernation, it’s possible to experience all seasons at once. Black Fell is a perfect podium for the humble punter. The Fairfield Horseshoe is draped in thin grey clouds, like wisps of Herdwick wool; on Red Screes and the Kentmere Fells, flecks of snow cover mellow tints of autumn. Windermere is a long stretch of sombre silver, Esthwaite Water, a white shimmer, disrupted by the hatched reflections of branches. Tarn Hows is a prelude to Coniston, pale blue beyond; Wetherlam is mighty, dark and wintery, and largely lost in cloud. As I watch, Bowfell and Crinkle Crags are swallowed entirely. And yet above, a summer-like sky is blue and streaked with the slenderest wisps of cirrus. A church bell rings below in Hawkshead, and I shed an outer skin, warm in spring sunshine.

I walk on through a landscape of seasonal transition, of spring skies and winter trees, of distant snow and imminent growth. I pass a farmhouse where a woman skilfully executes a Tai Chi kata. I cross the Coniston to Ambleside road and climb the track past a paddock of belted Galloways to Hodge Close quarry. Sheer faces of rock, tunnelled with caverns and streaked with rich veins of red mineral, fall to a deep pool of copper blue. Many of the King’s Own Lancaster volunteers were quarrymen. Some may have worked here. Now it’s a playground for climbers and divers.

Beyond the quarry, I follow a path up to the old reservoir, an azure jewel in a cloak of russet and straw grass. A boggy expanse leads to the craggier outcrops of Holme Fell. I scramble up a rock step to reach the summit. Coniston Water stretches out below, a languid sheen of white sparkle. I drink coffee from a thermos and think about Jimmy Hewitson and the howitzer.

In January 2014, the then Education Minister, Michael Gove, wrote a piece for the Daily Mail in which he attacked dramas such as Oh What a Lovely War, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder for perpetuating “left-wing myths” that depict World War One “as a misbegotten shambles – a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite”. His point seemed to be that criticism of the war and the military tactics somehow “denigrate(s) virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage”. As Philip Hedley pointed out in The Guardian, Gove was so keen imagine a left-wing conspiracy, he conveniently ignored a significant fact: “important source material (for Oh What a Lovely War) came from the Tory MP Alan Clark’s book, The Donkeys, the title of which came from the phrase describing the soldiers as ‘lions led by donkeys’.” Gove was being disingenuous: historians may argue over the donkeys, but the courage of the lions has never been in question.

Mr Gove may not agree with the wide-held view that The Somme was the “epitome of military futility”, but Vicky told me there is some evidence that Sol, Ben and Richard came under friendly fire. I’m not really sure it would have made much difference to their mothers whether it was German, French or English hands that fired the fatal rounds. They’d have been devastated it was anyone.

If you re-read Michael Gove’s piece now, you’ll find he’s keen to draw parallels with modern challenges: “migrant populations on the move, rapid social upheaval, growing global economic interdependence, massive technological change and fragile confidence in political elites” – themes he’s revisited several times since, in the context of the European Union. In retrospect, it reads very like a politician hoping to use the WW1 commemorations to lay the groundwork for a referendum campaign. Whatever your view on Brexit or contemporary politics, manipulating the memory of ordinary men who made an extraordinary sacrifice, is cheap. It’s political opportunism, not a million miles away from placing a German howitzer in front of a grieving population. If you’d pulled a stunt like that on men like Jimmy Hewitson, Michael, I have a sneaking suspicion they’d have told you to jump in a lake.

For a map and directions for the Tarn Hows, Black Fell, Holme Fell walk, visit WalkLakes:

https://www.walklakes.co.uk/walk_111.html

Fell Walk, General

White Winter Hymnal

January 28, 2018 George Kitching 14 Comments

The Old Man and the Raven

After days wrapped in a Christmas cocoon of lethargy and overeating, the sun returns and I head up the Old Man to savour the snow-capped splendour of the Coniston fells. On Raven Tor, I find my inner pagan.

Long before a star shone over a stable in Bethlehem, December 25th was the pagan festival of Midwinter – the winter solstice or the shortest day. It celebrated the rebirth of the sun god and an end to his lingering death, manifest in the ever-declining daylight. From here on, the days would lengthen, and warmth and fertility would return.

A deity who dies and rises again. That sounds somewhat familiar.

In our secular world, Christmas still bears the trappings of a Christian festival, albeit one at sea in a mass consumer bonanza. But we’re a nation of many faiths, and most of us are agnostic. That’s not to say that Christmas doesn’t mean anything. Even us unbelievers can get behind a season of peace and goodwill, and of course, we enjoy the bank holidays. But it resonates in a profounder way, which has everything to do with its pagan roots. However much our high-tech global reach divorces us from natural cycles, we can’t escape the seasons. We are of the planet and respond to its rhythms in a primal way that daylight bulbs, and strawberries in December, and 24-hour TV can do little to dissipate. Indeed, the December telly guides are full of retrospectives, celebrating the dying year: top 50 news stories, films, records, books, celebrity gaffes, you name it. We look back, take stock, make resolutions for the year to come; let go the stresses of the preceding months; make merry and recharge. Death and rebirth: a spiritual impulse as old as man.

In our Gregorian calendar, the winter solstice falls on December 21st, but let’s not split hairs. Christmas Day, 2017, is so overcast, it feels like the shortest day. Wrapped in a warm cocoon of family, lethargy and overeating, it’s full of good cheer and comfort and a welcome retreat from the dank, dark drizzle outside.

The sun god sleeps on through Boxing Day but makes an appearance the day after, when the temperature plummets and the snow falls, causing widespread traffic chaos. Unfortunately, we’re driving home to Cumbria. The roads on our route are clear, but it seems everyone in the country has picked this day to travel. With diversions and roadworks, we spend nine hours in a nationwide traffic jam.

We arrive back on Wednesday night, unpack, light the fire and put our feet up. I’m due in work on Friday but have tomorrow free. The forecast is clear, cold and sunny. It’s time to break out of the cocoon.

I wake later than intended, stuff warm layers into a rucksack and head for Coniston. I park in the village and head up the track beside the Sun Inn, a fitting temple to the god who’s very much in evidence today. I make a mental note to pop in later and offer my devotions.

The path climbs beside the waterfalls of Church Beck, passes Miners’ Bridge, and emerges from the trees into dazzling light at the foot of the Coppermines valley. Straight ahead, beyond the spoil heaps of the slate quarry, stands Raven Tor, the spur that juts out from Brim Fell and separates the two mountain corrie tarns of Low Water and Levers Water. Low Water lies to its left, enclosed by Brim Fell and the Old Man; Levers Water to its right, enclosed by Swirl How and Wetherlam. The mountains are cloaked in snow. It’s enough to make your spirit soar.

I follow the path to Crowberry Haws and join the quarry track up the Old Man. This is the tourist route. The “back way”, by Goats Water, under the imperial cliffs of Dow Crag, boasts the greater natural splendour. By contrast, this route reveals the scars of industry. Even so, it holds interest. Only the fallen tower of the aerial tramway and its rusting cables, slumped across the path like slain iron snakes, are foreign bodies. Everywhere else, human intervention has simply shaped and rearranged what is naturally here. A neat wall of slate encloses the track on the approach to the old quarry, where stone buildings lie in tumbledown ruin. Slowly the Old Man reclaims what is his, erasing our imprint, and reasserting his natural form. His scars are healing. In a thousand years, there will be little trace of us. For now, there is heritage, softened by the elements and slowly integrating back. This was once a thriving industry that supported the village below; testimony, if you like, to the Old Man’s benevolence to those at his feet.

Slate quarry ruins - The Old Man Of Coniston — Slate quarry ruins – The Old Man Of Coniston

Slate Quarry - Old Man of Coniston — Slate Quarry – Old Man of Coniston

Beyond the quarry, a stream has turned the steps to ice. A few of the ill-equipped soldier on, seeking out the snowy edges. Others turn back. The rest of us sit down and pull Microspikes over our boots. Once attached, the going is easy. There is a satisfying crunch as the little teeth bite into the ice and hold firm.

By the time I reach Low Water, the hand of man has withdrawn and the landscape is altogether wilder. Today, it is a realm of shadows, where dark waters ripple in vivid contrast to the snowy slopes that surround. Here and there, the sun god penetrates and turns the water bronze. I walk along the shore and stare up at Raven Tor, a bright and regal perch, swathed in a thick cloak of virgin snow.

I return to the main path and climb the steep zig zags that lead to the Old Man’s summit. In places, the path is a uniform sheet of ice and I watch a spike-less man opt instead for the snowy slopes. We meet where he re-joins the stone pitching. He bemoans the fact the mountain is steeper now than five years ago. I smile, and he recounts his last walk in here in snow. He didn’t have spikes then either, so to avoid coming back down this icy section, he made a round of Brim Fell to Raven Tor, then found a way down its flanks to Low Water. I trace his route with my eyes and a vague notion hatches into a plan.

With height, the lower reaches of Levers Water appear beyond the Tor; a second dark pool to balance Low Water; two black eyes to the Raven’s nose. Beyond, the snow-kissed summit of Wetherlam rises from an umber midriff.

The sun god reigns supreme on top. Out from under the Old Man’s shoulder, the light is magical; the god himself, a white star in an expanse of azure. Below the blue, a fluffy blanket of cloud is trimmed in soft yellow. Golden rays sparkle in the crystalline snow. The summit’s beehive cairn is an altar where hooded figures bow to Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun, a deity reborn in youthful vigour.

Beyond the trig point, the snow-capped ridge sweeps on over Brim Fell. A few well-wrapped wanderers are hastening this way. I’m the only one striding outward. Its soon becomes apparent why. A different elemental force takes charge on Brim Fell. A bitter wind sweeps over the Duddon valley from the Irish Sea, blowing stinging snowflakes in horizontal sheets. Despite a hood, a hat and a tightly wound woollen scarf, my face takes a lashing and I’m buffeted by gusts. It’s brutal but exhilarating. Past the summit cairn, I hurry toward the edge. Once over the parapet and on to the Raven’s outstretched wing, I’m protected, and I pause to drink in the scene.

Coniston Fells ridge - Scafells behind — Coniston Fells ridge – Scafells behind

I’m entirely alone. A few small silhouettes of people are visible on the Old Man’s summit, but here is virgin territory. Well almost. I find one set of footprints and follow them for a short way. For a brief minute, I glimpse a hooded figure on the slopes below, just above the shore of Low Water. But in a blink, he’s gone, and soon after, so are his tracks. The sun dances over the untouched snow, knee-deep now. I imagine I’m exploring uncharted ground as I descend the Raven’s wing to her shoulder, following the line of rocks and grassy tufts that just protrude, in the hope of avoiding unseen fissures. I climb the Raven’s neck to the cairn perched on her head. Across Levers Water, Black Sails ridge stands proud, a muscular right arm to the head of Wetherlam. The amber rocks of the Raven’s cairn crown her white mantel. There’s about two hours of daylight left but the light is already softening, assuming the warm glow of afternoon. I’m toasty from the exertion, but after five minutes of taking photos, I’m blowing into my gloves to warm my frozen hands.

The snow has drifted into soft deep blankets on the slopes that fall away to Low Water. I follow a tinkling stream for most of the way down, then veer left for a gentler descent. At the bottom, I leap a beck at its narrowest point and climb to the shore path, where I stood earlier. Cold, dark and tranquil, Low Water is a pool of primeval mystery, snugly enclosed in the arms of the Old Man and the Raven.

Low Water - Old Man — Low Water – Old Man

I cast a last reverential glance at these snow-clad Titans then return, past the quarry, to the world of mortals. In the Sun Inn, a fire crackles in an old, black, cast-iron range; a tiny Sol Invictus bestowing light and warmth as the sky outside darkens. I sup a welcome pint of Loweswater Gold and watch the flames dance around the logs. I’ve never thought of myself as religious, but today I’m in touch with my inner pagan.

Fell Walk, General, History

Born To Be Wild

December 26, 2017 George Kitching 8 Comments

Millican Dalton and Castle Crag

Wainwright called the Jaws of Borrowdale, “the loveliest square mile in Lakeland”. In the first half of the twentieth century, a cave on the slopes of Castle Crag was home to Millican Dalton, who quit his job in a London office to become a self-styled “Professor of Adventure”. On this walk up Castle Crag, I consider his life, visit his cave and recall a WWI Christmas story that seems to echo his essential message.

The Other

In David Guterson’s novel, The Other, Neil Countryman is an English teacher and an aspiring writer – his desk drawers are full of unpublished novels. Despite being the first Countryman to go to college, he identifies himself as someone “familiar with the middle of the pack”.

Countryman formed a deep and enduring friendship with John William Barry; “The Hermit of the Hoh”, as the newspapers dub him when his body is discovered in the riverside cave that had become his home. Barry was a rich boy, privately educated and heir to a fortune. He met Neil running track and the two bonded over a slightly rebellious outlook and a love of the outdoors. Rebellion to Countryman meant cutting classes and smoking the odd joint. To Barry, ultimately, it meant rejecting civilised society and adopting a life of primitive isolation, deep in the woods of Washington state.

The novel is Neil’s retrospective examination of their friendship and a search, perhaps, for understanding. John William was undoubtedly troubled and, as the pieces of the jigsaw fit into place, an impression is formed of a tormented young man, driven to an ascetic life by personal demons.

On a mundane Monday morning, which of us hasn’t dreamed of escaping the rat race and living a life of adventure closer to nature? For most of us, though, the perfect outdoor expedition ends with a cold pint and a hot bath. If we hear of someone who really has gone feral, we suspect a Barry figure, replete with deep emotional scars. But John William is a fiction. The reality can be surprisingly different…

The Professor of Adventure

“Meet Mr Millican Dalton. He is one of the creatures of the wild. He lives in a cave up in one of the wooded crags that are the glory of Borrowdale… Mr Dalton is 73½ years of age, is tall, spare, hard as a fell toad and if you were to meet him you would agree that in his Tyrolese hat, decorated with a heron’s plume, his plaid drawn over a brown tweed coat, his green corduroy shorts, sinewy legs, sometimes encased in puttees and climbing boots, he looks a fine figure of a man.”

Millican Dalton's Cave, Borrowdale — Millican Dalton’s Cave, Borrowdale

Thus, began an article in the Whitehaven News on January 30^th, 1941. It went on to quote a gloriously upbeat Millican. ‘I was a clerk in a London office. The life stifled me. I longed to be free. I gave up my job and ever since I have camped out. Today I live rent free, rate free, tax free. It’s the only kind of life worth living.’ ”

Dalton was born in 1867, in Nenthead, Cumbria, near the borders of Northumberland and Durham. His family moved south when he was seven and he spent many of his formative years in Chingford, Essex, close to Epping Forest, where he and his brothers embarked on endless adventures, camping and tree-climbing. Holidays in the Lake District saw Millican graduate from tree climbing to rock-climbing and experiment with raft-building. When he left school, he found the working week dull by comparison. He spoke of feeling “constricted, like a caged animal” and longed for the outdoor pursuits, which afforded him full self-expression. A vegetarian and ardent socialist, Millican placed little value on material things (apart from Woodbines, which he smoked with a passion). In 1904, he decided to treat his life like a “chemical experiment” and jack in the humdrum in favour of a life of adventure and romance.

Dalton spent his winters in the south, initially in Essex and later in Buckinghamshire, where he swapped bricks and mortar for a wooden cabin. His summers, he spent in the Lake District, and from around 1914, moved into the cave on the slopes of Castle Crag. Dalton became an accomplished mountain guide, building a loyal following, keen to experience his advertised “Camping Holidays, Mountain Rapid Shooting. Rafting. Hairbreadth Escapes.” He made his own clothes and pioneered lightweight camping equipment. He was an early member of the Fell and Rock Climbing Club, documenting trail-blazing ascents, such as Dove Crag, in their journals. Unconventional through and through, Millican had little truck with the prevailing notion that rock climbing was an exclusively male pursuit. He introduced several women to the sport, most notably Mabel Barker, whose initiation took her to the top of Napes Needle. Barker went on to become something of a figurehead for women’s climbing and remained a lifelong friend of Dalton’s.

Millican Dalton's Cave — Millican Dalton’s Cave

In 1940, the Blitzkrieg wrought destruction on London. With his Buckinghamshire home, a little close to comfort, Dalton opted to over-winter in Cumbria. By now, he was something of a national celebrity. The Daily Mirror declared, “Today this seventy-three year old hermit is less affected by the war than any man in Britain”. This was wrong on two counts.

Living in a cave was about the only thing Dalton had in common with Guterson’s “hermit of the Hoh”. Millican hadn’t taken to the woods to escape from people. Indeed, his campfire played host to a constant stream of visitors, coming to sample his home-baked bread, home-grown vegetables and engage in lively conversation with this most convivial, gentlemanly and strongly opinionated of characters. Mabel Barker recalled, “in long association, I never knew him charge anything for his services beyond a trifle for camping expenses”. What he would readily accept in lieu of money, were Woodbines and newspapers (specifically, the Daily Herald). This was not a man, hiding from society. Quite the contrary, he had a keen interest in politics and current affairs. Had he stuck with insurance, he might have become a middle manager. As it was, he became a self-styled “Professor of Adventure”.

The Daily Mirror was also wrong to suggest Millican was untroubled by the war. At the behest of blackout wardens, he had to put out his campfire and brave the winter nights in an unheated cave. He obliged, but was far from happy with the arrangement, and wrote to Winston Churchill several times, demanding that he stop the war as it was impinging on his personal liberty.

Dalton’s opposition went deeper than a dispute over a campfire, however. He had been in his forties when the First World War broke out, so was too old to serve in either. Had he been younger, as a committed pacifist, he would almost certainly have been a conscientious objector.

Despite his gargantuan appetite for Woodbines, Millican remained fit as a fiddle all his life. Every spring, he climbed Napes Needle, with the promise that as soon as it proved too much for him, he would retire from climbing. He never did, but his outdoor existence did finally catch up with him. On returning to Buckinghamshire, he inadvertently burnt down his cabin. Millican survived the fire, but attempted to see out the rest of the winter under canvas. January 1947 was particularly harsh, and this proved too much for his seventy-nine-year-old body. A month later, he died in Amersham hospital of acute heart failure, pulmonary bronchitis and bronchopneumonia.

Today, Millican Dalton’s cave is something of a shrine for those who love the outdoors, but his appeal is broader. Like Neil Countryman, many of us find we are familiar with the middle of the pack. Hopefully, few turn out as troubled as the hermit of the Hoh; but perhaps, a little part of the Professor of Adventure lives in all of us (even if its expression has nothing to do with caves and mountains). Dalton’s story inspires because it says, “to hell with convention”, “be who are you are and live the way that makes you happy”.

Into the Jaws of Borrowdale

It’s early November, when I decide to pay the cave a visit. Between the flanks of High Spy and Kings How, Borrowdale is squeezed to a narrow passage, barely wide enough for the road and the river Derwent to co-exist. This dramatic opening is aptly named “The Jaws of Borrowdale”. Castle Crag is the impressive incisor, rising from the river on the western side. At just under 1000 feet, Bill Birkett considered it too small to include in his Complete Lakeland Fells. Wainwright took a different view, however: “Castle Crag is so magnificently independent, so ruggedly individual, so aggressively unashamed of its lack of inches, that less than justice would be done by relegating it to a paragraph in the High Spy chapter.” He goes on to describe the Jaws of Borrowdale as “the loveliest square mile in Lakeland”.

The River Derwent, in the Jaws of Borrowdale

I climbed High Spy in June when the slopes were as green as a Granny Smith. Now, deep into autumn, they resemble a Russet or a Cox’s Orange Pippin. I park in Rosthwaite and take the track beside the Flock Inn Tearoom that leads through a farmyard to the river. The trees are already sparsely leaved, allowing golden sunlight to gild the waters and do ample justice to Wainwright’s eulogy. I cross the pretty stone arch of New Bridge and bear right along the bank. Castle Crag rises ahead, and I can pick out the direct path to the summit. This will be my way down.

By the water, a herd of Galloway cattle grazes lazily on hay. I stick on the path that skirts the slope and follows the river into the trees.

Where Guterson depicts the forests of Washington State as a savage wilderness, High How Woods are a sylvan idyll. They would be a harsh home in winter, mind. The Daily Mirror piece had photo of Dalton in his cave, standing before a curtain of giant icicles. To camp out here in January, with no campfire, would take a hide considerably thicker than mine.

The path snakes away from the river and, before long, a cave appears on the left. This was not Millican’s, but according to my directions, his lies above. I follow a sketchy path that climbs behind it, turning into a semi-scramble over rock and a spoil heap. On reaching the top, a cavern lies ahead, but it is shallow and dripping with water – by no means inhabitable. I notice a better path rising from the right, which continues upwards to a more likely cave. Someone has chalked a heart and “MD” on a slate by the entrance, so I know this is the place.

It’s roomy and the opening provides just enough light that my head torch isn’t really needed. I switch it on anyway and the beam reveals the unexpected grandeur of the rock. I’d imagined uniform walls of slate-grey, but here, dark charcoal gives way to sparkling white crystal and strata of red, ochre and terra cotta.

Millican Dalton's Cave, Castle Crag — Millican Dalton’s Cave, Castle Crag

I climb the loose stone staircase to the upper level, which Dalton called “the attic”. This was where he slept; someone has bestowed his bed with a fresh mattress of bracken. The Whitehaven News gave a vivid insight into how this looked in Millican’s time: “Everything within is ‘wondrous neat and clean.’ Cleverly packed is the cave-dweller’s camp equipment and cooking utensils, which have all been picked out of village dumps. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place. In one corner was Millican Dalton’s lying-up place. Bracken for a bed and a plaid and an eiderdown for covering. And on this deadly cold night Millican had, as is his wont, taken off his day clothes before he stretched himself out to sleep. Which of us accustomed to the luxury of a bed in a well warmed house would not have been frozen stiff?”

Looking up to the attic, Millican's cave — Looking up to the attic, Millican’s cave

Millican Dalton's bed of bracken, Castle Crag — Millican’s bed of bracken, Castle Crag

By the entrance, just beyond his bed, a motto is carved into the rock: “DON’T!! WASTE WORRDS Jump to conclusions”. The inscription may not be Dalton’s, but that of a Scottish friend, whom he frequently chided for doing just that – chiselled, no doubt, as a joke after an infuriating debate.

Inscription in Millican Dalton's cave — Don’t waste words…

Incription in Millican Dalton's cave — Jump to conclusions

Below the cave, I follow the river through the woods, then turn left along the bridleway to Honister. As I climb beside Broadslack Gill, Castle Crag rises in a sheer cliff to my left, while behind, the valley is a patchwork of autumnal pigment as it bows to Derwent Water and the imperious summits of Skiddaw. Just past the cliff face, a path forks sharply left, climbs a stile and zig zags up the steep gradient toward the summit. On the way, it passes a bench and stone plaque to Sir William Hamer, the former landowner, in whose memory, his wife Agnes, bequeathed this land to the National Trust. Agnes made this bequest in 1939, at the onset of the Second World War. Several years earlier, the couple had bequeathed the summit, in memory of their son, John, who died in World War One.

The path winds through spoil heaps to the summit quarry, where successions of walkers have arranged slates into a makeshift sculpture park. Many stand on end like tombstones to by-gone industry and the many millions of boots that have marked this passage. Others are more ambitious in their arrangement. One resembles a creature with the back of a stegosaurus and the toothy jaw of a shark. A large beehive cairn crowns the southern extent and marks a spectacular view, over the neat, green meadows of Borrowdale, to the wild, precipitous face of Eagle Crag. A red squirrel hops among the trees and for a while I’m undisturbed. It’s deeply peaceful and a strange, beautiful equanimity settles; a profound ease; a quiet, unruffled calm; a serene, sense of belonging.

Castle Crag war memorial — Borrowdale from Castle Crag quarry

No Man’s Land

A grassy path leads up, above the quarry, to the summit proper. Set into the rock is the memorial, not just to John Hamer but to all the men of Borrowdale who died in the trenches. A poppy wreath from the Association of the Royal Engineers has been placed below. My Dad was a Royal Engineer. Perhaps that’s why the plaque holds my attention; or perhaps it’s the backdrop of Derwent Water; or the little wooden cross with the ballpoint inscription, “Danny Glynn”; but as I read the roll of names, I’m very moved by these young lives, cut so cruelly short.

Simple hilltop memorials, like this, speak louder to me than the televised parades and pageantry that accompany Remembrance Sunday. I think of Wilfred Owen’s Anthem for Doomed Youth:

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.”

These men of Borrowdale were barely out of boyhood. Had they returned, they might have spent summers trading Woodbines for hairbreadth escapes with Millican Dalton. In years to come, they could have climbed Castle Crag with their grandchildren; and told tales of the eccentric old man in a Tyrolean hat, who lived in the woods and taught them all they knew about the fells.

That journey across the Channel may well have been their first outside the county. If they left seeking glory, it wasn’t what they found. Across the fields of Flanders, they faced men just like themselves. Farm workers, colliers, shopkeepers, railwaymen, butchers and miners. Ordinary blokes with simple aspirations and little sway or interest in world affairs. The kind who care for family and friends and a beer or two on a Friday night; all sent to the slaughter for the blind folly of oligarchs.

Deep down, they knew it too: on Christmas Eve, 1914, men on both sides put down their rifles and climbed over the barricades to trade jokes, swap cigarettes and play football. Bloke-ish things that ordinary fellers do. For a few fleeting hours, a bunch of soldiers at the centre of a brutal conflict, did what Millican Dalton had done all his life. They defied the expectations of others and stayed true to themselves. In the dark heart of No Man’s Land, a brief candle of humanity shone very brightly. And that, forever, is a Christmas message worth repeating.

For detailed direction for this walk, visit Walk Lakes

For more on Millican Dalton, I recommend Matthew Entwistle’s book, Millican Dalton A Search for Romance & Freedom

Fell Walk, General, History, Literature

In My Time Of Dying

October 15, 2017 George Kitching 31 Comments

Haystacks and Wainwright.

As a teenager, my overriding aspiration was to move to the city and form a band. It was the start of a journey that would take me from the clubs of Newcastle to the pages of the NME and the very cusp of success, only to change direction and drop me in the wilds of Cumbria. En route, Jimi Hendrix would make room for a Borough Treasurer from Blackburn who disliked music, didn’t much like people, but loved the hills and whose writing opened my eyes to a whole new world. I pay tribute to this unlikeliest of heroes on top of Haystacks, the heather-clad hill where his ashes are scattered.

From Hendrix to the Hills

My heroes were all musicians: Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Gram Parsons, Paul Weller, Black Francis… I could go on. I grew up in the country among the gentle hills of Wiltshire, but when I was 18, it wasn’t higher fells I craved, it was the city. Somewhere with nightlife and a thriving alternative music scene; somewhere I could join a band and play loud electric guitar in dark, sweaty, smoky clubs.

I secured a place at Newcastle University but my studies came second to my musical aspirations. After some false starts and a few years learning how to make noises other people might deign to listen to, I found friends with the right collective chemistry and we formed a band that was half decent. We were called Hug, and together we achieved most of our teenage ambitions. We toured the country in a transit van; played support to some of our heroes; we secured a record contract and released three e.p.’s and an album. We recorded sessions for Radio 1; and, at the start of 1991, the New Musical Express named us, alongside the Manic Street Preachers and Ocean Colour Scene, as one of their top tips for the coming year.

Unfortunately, we were the exception that proved the rule. While others on the list shot into the arena of international stardom, our journey stalled at the perimeter, performed a three-point turn and deposited us back at the Gateshead DHSS, where our hopes of evading more traditional employment were unceremoniously quashed.

I signed up for a course at Newcastle Poly or Northumbria University, as it had just become (supposedly an eleventh-hour name change, after some bright spark on the committee realised that rebranding it, “The City University of Newcastle upon Tyne” wouldn’t abbreviate well). I was to learn about IT, a far cry from my original vision of a career, but one that might, at least, earn me a living.

I hadn’t long qualified when my wife, Sandy was offered a dream job in Cumbria. I urged her to take it and set about seeking opportunities for myself, eventually securing a role with a small company developing medical software for managing people on dangerous drugs (the prescribed, not the proscribed kind). It seemed an interesting and worthwhile use of my new skills and we settled in the South Lakes.

Our first house was on the edge of a wood, right out in the sticks. It took a few weeks to adjust. I’d never really understood the term, “the roaring silence” until then. When you live in a city for any length of time you stop hearing the constant hum of traffic, but it becomes a vaguely hypnotic backdrop; a subliminal reassurance that the buzz of human activity continues as normal. To have it suddenly removed was disconcerting. I remember lying awake, acutely aware that I could hear absolutely nothing. Then a barn owl screeched outside the open window and I nearly shot through the ceiling. A few months later, I heard the bark of a stag for the first time and thought the Hound of the Baskervilles was coming through the wood.

But the countryside had started to work its magic and, before long, I felt the draw of the mountains. I invested in a set of OS maps and some walking guides, including a set of laminated cards, which I still use, although their age is now apparent from the supporting notes, which advise the intrepid explorer to “invest in a pair of walking stockings and a spare pullover”.

An Unlikely Hero

As my interest grew, I become acquainted with a name that seemed almost synonymous with the Lakeland fells. In the Carnforth Bookshop, I chanced upon a second-hand copy of one of his books, “The Southern Fells” and snapped it up to see what the fuss was about. The pocket-sized tome was a little dog-eared and it had obviously witnessed, first-hand, the summits it described; but it was all the more special for it. Its content, however, was a revelation: a series of pen and ink drawings, part map, part sketch that ingeniously captured the essence of a mountain and rendered it on a 2D page in such a way that the reader instantly understood its character and topography. I had always admired the way artist, David Hockney could convey so much with such an economy of line. Here too, the author accomplished a similar feat; and the accompanying text was pure, heartfelt poetry. It spoke volumes in a few simple paragraphs shot-through with warmth, humour, passion and practical advice.

Suddenly, Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townshend had to shuffle along to make room for a pipe-smoking, whiskered, staunchly conservative old curmudgeon, who went by the name of Alfred Wainwright. An unlikely coalition to say the least – Wainwright once assured a bemused Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs that, “music has never played an important part in my life. It’s never been an inspiration to me. Rather an irritation, very often.”

Born in Blackburn, Alfred Wainwright grew up in relative poverty. His father was an alcoholic, who drank much of what little he earned as a stonemason. The young Alfred was bright and a model pupil at school, where he consistently scored top marks, but he was forced to leave at thirteen in order to support his mother.

He got a job as an office boy with the Blackburn Borough Engineer’s department, but continued his studies at night school and eventually qualified as an accountant, which enabled him to climb the career ladder and become Borough Treasurer.

If the young Wainwright’s diligent attempts to better his lot were an attempt to escape the hardships of his upbringing, poverty was not the only thing he wanted to flee. From an early age, he had shown a keen interest in walking and cartography. He produced his own maps and frequently eschewed the industrial urban environment for long days in the tranquility of the countryside.

At the age of twenty three, Alfred, or AW as he preferred to be known, came to the Lakes for a walking holiday with his cousin, Eric. They climbed Orrest Head, above Windermere, where they witnessed the Lakeland fells for the first time. He described the experience as “magic; a revelation so unexpected that I stood transfixed, unable to believe my eyes”.

A year later, AW entered into a disastrous marriage with Ruth Holden. Throughout their courtship, Wainwright kept his cap on. When he finally removed it on their wedding night, the sight of his red hair revolted her and both parties rapidly came to regret their decision. Despite the birth of their son, Peter in 1933, domestic relations did not improve and the lure of the Lakes as an escape grew ever stronger.

Wainwright’s biographer, Hunter Davies is convinced that had AW found happiness in his first marriage, he would have “walked far less and written nothing”. As it was, his trips to the fells became a weekly pilgrimage and he eventually took a pay cut to move to Kendal in 1941. Eleven years later, he started writing his Pictorial Guides as a “love letter” to the landscape that held him in such rapture.

That AW sought solace among the summits is abundantly obvious throughout his books. He describes finding “a balm for jangled nerves in the silence and solitude of the peaks” and of “man’s search for beauty, growing keener as so much in the world grows uglier”.

An intensely private man, he disliked crowds and disapproved of group excursions as evidenced in his mournful description of the popular route up the Old Man of Coniston: “This is the way the crowds go: the day trippers, the courting couples, babies and grandmothers, the lot. On this stony parade, fancy handbags and painted toenails are as likely to be seen as rucksacks and boots.” This is accompanied by a sketch of a lone walker looking to the fells while a crowd stares in the opposite direction, trying to spot Blackpool Tower.

By his own admission, Wainwright was a shy child who grew up to be anti-social, but the popular perception of an old curmudgeon is a little unfair. Bonhomie toward like-minded explorers runs right through his writing and his dry humour is everywhere.

In a personal note at the conclusion of his final Pictorial Guide, “The Western Fells”, AW lists his six best Lakeland mountains as “Scafell Pike, Bowfell, Pillar, Great Gable, Blencathra and Crinkle Crags”, then quickly qualifies the list, explaining, “These are not necessarily the six fells I like the best. It grieves me to have to omit Haystacks (most of all)”.

Haystacks is not technically a mountain, being just short of the requisite 2000 ft, and AW is being objective in omitting it on these grounds; but this relatively diminutive hill captured his heart more than any other. He describes it as standing “unabashed and unashamed amid a circle of higher fells, like a shaggy terrier in the company of foxhounds”… “For a man trying to get a persistent worry out of his mind, the top of Haystacks is a wonderful cure.”

The “persistent worry” of his home life continued until, in his own words, “my wife left me, took the dog and I never saw her again”. AW eventually found matrimonial happiness when he married an old friend, Betty McNally. She became not only his spouse but his walking companion. After his death in 1991, Betty carried out AW’s long-held wish and scattered his ashes by Innominate Tarn on top of his beloved Haystacks.

Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike

It’s been years since I climbed Haystacks and when I did, the top was shrouded in mist. It’s high time I return. I leave the house at 6:00 am for a glorious drive that runs the full lengths of Windermere, Rydal Water, Grasmere, Thirlmere and Derwent Water. From the high level drama of the Honister Pass, I descend to Gatesgarth with Buttermere stretched out before me, sparkling in the September sun.

I park the car and follow the stream through the farmyard and out toward High Crag, towering ahead. To my left, Fleetwith Edge soars up over Low and High Raven Crags to the top of Fleetwith Pike. This is my intended descent. It looks a little daunting from below, but the views will be outstanding. Between these two loftier neighbours lies Haystacks, a dwarf in comparison but no grassy hillock, its craggy rock-face hints at the interest on top.

I must have slept at an odd angle as I have a stiff neck which the drive has turned into a dull headache. Wainwright famously declared, “one can forget even a raging toothache on Haystacks”, so I’m sure it won’t bother me for long, but as I round a little coppice of trees, I find a sealed tray of paracetamol in the path. I don’t really believe in fate but can’t deny the serendipity and it feeds a strange feeling that I’m somehow supposed to be here today.

I start the climb up to Scarth Gap between Haystacks and High Crag, pausing occasionally to cast an eye back over Buttermere and Crummock Water. On reaching Scarth Gap, I’m greeted with fine views over Ennerdale to two of Lakeland’s heavyweights, Pillar and Great Gable. Pillar’s precipitous northern slopes are bathed in green shadow, sheer and formidable. I try to trace the High Level Traverse between the crags to the magnificent column of Pillar Rock, from which the mountain takes its name. I lose the line of the path (apparently it’s not much easier to follow when you’re on it).

A cloud floats across the face of Gable, a huge dark turret rising from the valley head. Over Buttermere, the bulky mass of Grassmoor dominates, while here, across the saddle, the path climbs steeply to the rocky heights of High Crag. These are the “foxhounds” in whose company the “shaggy terrier” behind me stands “unabashed and unashamed”. I turn around and continue the climb to discover why.

The question is quickly answered as the ascent turns into a scramble; nothing technically difficult, but challenging enough to establish this as mountain terrain, good and proper, and the rival of any of its neighbours. On reaching the parapet, Haystacks’ treasures are revealed in full – a heather-clad castle of rocky towers and tiny tarns, leading eyes and feet in a merry dance of intrigue. Two excrescences of stone vie for the distinction of summit, although the honour is usually bestowed on the farther one, which boasts a cairn as its crown.

Cloud shadows dapple the flanks of High Crag as I look back across a small blue pond that glistens like an overture to the watery expanse of Buttermere beyond. I’m almost entirely alone, but for two distant figures perched precariously atop the turret of Big Stack, framed against the plunging crags of Fleetwith Pike. Everywhere I turn is magical and somehow otherworldly. Haystacks has all the rugged drama of its neighbours but here, in place of a desolate wilderness of boulder, is a wild beauty and a pervading sense of tranquillity.

Walker perched on Big Stack with Fleetwith Pike behind — Walkers perched on Big Stack with Fleetwith Pike behind

High Stile over summit cairn, Haystacks — High Stile over a summit tarn on Haystacks

I cross a depression and clamber to the true summit for another breathtaking panorama; then meander down through the heather, where herdwicks graze happily, to the peaceful shore of Innominate Tarn. AW’s wish to be scattered here is expressed more than once in his writings, but never as fully and eloquently as in Memoirs of a Fellwanderer, where he says this:

“All I ask for, at the end, is a last long resting place by the side of Innominate Tarn, on Haystacks, where the water gently laps the gravelly shore and the heather blooms and Pillar and Gable keep unfailing watch. A quiet place, a lonely place.

“I shall go to it, for the last time, and be carried – someone who knew me in life will take me and empty me out of a little box and leave me there alone. And if you, dear reader, should get a bit of grit in your boot as you are crossing Haystacks in the years to come, please treat it with respect. It might be me”.

I’m transfixed by the gently rippling waters and could easily linger all day. AW was not a religious man. He knew heaven was right here and to mingle with this soil and feed the heather was his hope for an afterlife. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…

To Wainwright, true music was here – in birdsong, or the tinkling of a mountain stream, or the sound of the wind among the peaks. I can’t argue with that. It’s perfect.

Eventually, I wrestle myself away and follow the path as it wends down through some remarkable rock scenery to Dubs Bottom, from where I start the ascent of Fleetwith Pike.

The contrast could not be more striking. The intoxicating spell of a natural Shangri-La is broken by the harsh scars of industry in the spoil heaps and engineered gullies of Dubs quarry. From here, the path follows the line of an old works tramway to the head of Honister Crag, known as Black Star. Wainwright describes Black Star as “a place without beauty. A place to daunt they eye and creep the flesh”. The crag itself is not in view, but on the horizon a spoil heap rises, battleship grey, like a dark and sinister tower. If Haystacks was a fairy tale fortress, the vision ahead is the Castle of the Dolorous Guard, straight from the page of Arthurian legend. “Dub” is a Celtic word for black and right on cue, the sky darkens. It’s enough to send a slight shiver down the spine.

It would be remiss to imply the old quarry workings are a lamentable eyesore, however. Industrial heritage holds its own fascination, especially as it is slowly reclaimed by nature. AW understood that Lakeland isn’t a true wilderness. The hand of man is everywhere, from the intricate pattern of dry stone walls enclosing lush green grazing pastures in the valley bottoms to the shafts and tunnels of old mines that pierce the fell sides. As he put it (in describing Honister), “there is no beauty in despoliation and devastation but there can be dramatic effect and interest and so it is here”.

But the desolate outcrop of Black Star is not my destination and I turn left after Dubs Hut (maintained as a bothy by the Mountain Bothies Association) and climb beside a slate-filled gully to two spoil heaps where I pick up a path left, which meanders over open moorland to the summit of Fleetwith Pike. Here, one of the finest views in Lakeland awaits, looking straight down the valley over Buttermere and Crummock Water with distant Loweswater curving off to the left.

I sit and stare at this majestic scene as I eat my lunch, then begin the plunging descent of Fleetwith Edge. It’s not nearly as daunting as it appeared from below. There are some steep rock steps to negotiate and some minor scrambling, but nothing too difficult if due care is taken. The path follows well chosen zigzags and is impossible to rush, not only because you need to watch your footing, but also because it’s absolutely necessary to pause frequently and marvel at the improving vista.

At the bottom, I join the road and I’m suddenly struck by the hope that my gaitors have done their job. What if I find a bit of grit in my boot? I can’t leave AW in the car park, he hated cars.

I look back and notice the white wooden cross low on the fell side. This marks the spot where Fanny Mercer, a servant girl from Rugby, fell from Fleetwith Edge in September 1887 (130 years ago, this month). Her simple memorial is a sobering reminder that the fells can be treacherous as well as beautiful. It’s heartbreaking to think one so young was robbed of her life on what should have been a joyful excursion.

Fanny Mercer's cross — Fanny Mercer’s cross

Tragic accidents occur daily, some of much greater magnitude than the sad story of a servant girl from over a hundred years ago. And yet this simple cross remains affecting because there’s no objective yardstick for pain. That whole communities are devastated by fire, flood, disease or famine doesn’t negate the suffering of someone bruised by a failed relationship or grieving the loss of a loved one. We all have our crosses to bear, however big or small, but ironically, it’s often hardship that sharpens our senses to the beauty in the world. The most affecting songs are rooted in heartbreak and it was perhaps the pain of a loveless marriage that led Wainwright to find hope, inspiration and validation among these hills. I hope Fanny experienced a little of that wonder too, before her life was cut so abruptly short.

“The fleeting hour of life of those who love the hills is quickly spent, but the hills are eternal. Always there will be the lonely ridge, the dancing beck, the silent forest; always there will be the exhilaration of the summits. These are for the seeking, and those who seek and find while there is still time will be blessed both in mind and body” – A Wainwright.

Crime, Fell Walk, General, History

A Walk on the Wild Side

September 10, 2017 George Kitching 17 Comments

The Mosedale Horseshoe and a Night at Black Sail

A tough but beautiful walk around the Mosedale Horseshoe takes in some of England’s finest mountain scenery and ends with a night at the country’s remotest youth hostel, deep in the wilds of Ennerdale. It begins by the shore of Wastwater, where the sight of divers kitting up in the car park, stirs memories of a notorious 80’s murder enquiry.

The Lady in the Lake

There’s something utterly wild about Wastwater. Forget the pastoral prettiness of Windermere or Coniston, England’s deepest lake is a feral beast; savagely beautiful but ever poised to bare its teeth. On this July morning, the sky is overcast and there’s a distinct chill in the breeze. The choppy waters are gun-barrel grey, rippled with white-crested waves; dark and inscrutable, daring you to guess at the secrets beneath.

In the wooded parking area beside Overbeck Bridge, two men are preparing to find out. As they don dry suits and all manner of sophisticated diving gear, Tim remarks they must reckon it’ll be seriously cold. One of the divers looks up and smiles, “yeah, at 40 metres down, the temperature stays pretty much the same all year round”.

40 metres is the limit for diving with compressed air. Below that, special suits and gas mixtures are needed to survive. For all the lake’s imagined mystery, what most divers find is an endless expanse of mud; or perhaps, if they’re lucky, the gnome garden, introduced by an enterprising soul to add a bit of novelty to the view.

On occasion, though, Wastwater has yielded darker secrets. In 1984, Neil Pritt was diving at a depth of 34 metres when he spied a rolled-up carpet tied to a concrete block. At first, he dismissed it as the efforts of an ambitious fly-tipper, but aware that police had recently searched the lake, looking for missing French fell-walker, Veronique Mireille Marre, Neil took a closer look. His suspicions were confirmed – the carpet concealed the body of a woman.
But it wasn’t Veronique. Whoever she was, she’d been down there some time. The cold had preserved her so well, it was only a matter of days before police made a positive ID. In the meantime, the press dubbed her “The Lady of the Lake”.

When investigators removed her wedding ring, it bore the inscription, “Margaret 15-11-63 Peter”. Detectives made the connection with the case of Margaret Hogg from Guildford, reported missing by her husband, Peter in 1976. Peter was arrested. Under interrogation, he capitulated and confessed to killing his wife but claimed extreme provocation. He told the Old Bailey how Margaret had been having an affair, which she made little effort to conceal. According to his testimony, on the night in question, Margaret tired of merely taunting her husband and physically attacked him. Peter retaliated by grabbing her by the throat and squeezing hard. When the life went out of her eyes, he stopped. When she slumped to the floor, he realised she was dead and coolly hatched a plan that very nearly proved the perfect crime.

After wrapping Margaret’s body in an old carpet, Peter put her in the boot of the car with a rubber dingy, a roll of carpet, and a concrete block. Then he drove through the night to Wastwater. Had Peter rowed out a few metres further, Margaret’s body would have fallen into the “abyss” and sunk all the way to the bottom, at nearly twice the depth a diver could reach. As it was, she came to rest on a shelf just under half way down, where she would remain for the next eight years.

I’m not sure what a modern jury would have made of Peter’s defence, but in 1984, a woman’s infidelity was enough to hand the moral high ground to the man. Peter was acquitted of murder and given three years for manslaughter, plus an extra year for obstructing the coroner and committing perjury in divorce proceedings.

Veronique’s body was later found at the bottom of Broken Rib Crag. The coroner returned an open verdict, but there was nothing to suggest that this was anything other than a tragic accident.

The Mosedale Horseshoe

For all its brooding solitude, Wastwater is magnificently beautiful. The vista over lake, to the fells at its head, has been voted Britain’s favourite view. Great Gable takes centre stage, while in the foreground, resembling the hull of an upturned boat, stands Yewbarrow. Yewbarrow is the start of the Mosedale Horseshoe, an airy circuit that boasts some of the finest mountain scenery in Lakeland. Tim and I are going to walk the ridge to its highest point on Pillar. From there, we’ll descend into the wilds of neighbouring Ennerdale for a night at England’s remotest youth hostel – the Black Sail hut.

We leave the car park following the stream, cross a stile, and turn right on to a steep and unrelenting grass slope. Ahead is the formidable face of Bell Rib. There doesn’t appear to be a way up for mere mortals. Indeed, Wainwright declares it “unclimbable except by experts”, adding, “maps showing paths going straight over it are telling fibs”. Fortunately, the Ordnance Survey is less aspirational. Their route skirts left and climbs between Bell Rib and Dropping Crag. Such is the gradient, we’re looking for the fork long before we reach it.

The path ends abruptly at a steep, stone-filled gully. We put hand to rock and start to climb. At just over 2000 ft., Yewbarrow is the baby of the group, but it’s no mean mountain and won’t surrender its summit without a struggle.

At the top, a grass slope leads to a narrow ridge beyond Bell Rib. Behind us, Wastwater is a shimmer of silver beneath the whitening cloud. When we reach the crest, a dramatic cleft in the crags, known as The Great Door, frames a canvas of rich but sombre tones: the shadowed lake a dark sash of royal satin, deep and vivid blue; hemmed by the solemn Screes, their slopes mottled with daubs of gold and green, and deftly flecked with feathered brushstrokes, like copper flames that flicker up to kiss a scarf of purple heather.

Poised above the water’s edge, a dark vestigial verge of coppice, a lone patch of fur on an else clean-shaven pelt.

Cupped high among bottle-green spires, Burnmoor Tarn is a glint, a duck-egg glimmer, a hint of hidden brightness, cajoling the bashful sun to break cover.

A few easy rock steps remain between here and the summit. When we arrive, the panorama is remarkable; Pillar rises like barnacled leviathan from the mossy sea of Mosedale; sunlight gilds the green skirts of Kirk Fell and, to the east, the Roof of England is cloaked in cloud, Mickledore just visible through the mist like a gateway to Middle Earth.

Across a depression, we stride up Stirrup Crag and glimpse our onward path. Thin wisps of cloud float like wood smoke around the top of Red Pike. A faint path snakes through charcoal crags to a carpet of olive green above.

The way lies across Dore Head, some 300 feet below. If we’d studied the contours we’d have known the path that swung left, a little way back, was the easier proposition. As it is, we stick with the one we’re on and climb down the crag itself; descending abruptly through a maze of chimneys; easing down bulwarks on jagged ledges; stepping back from dead-ends that stop in sudden drops. It’s slow and a touch unnerving, but there’s only one sticky moment: a parapet I think I can shimmy down in two small stretches. But I misjudge. Now, over-committed, I’m obliged to jump – a little too far for comfort. Thankfully, I land well, with all extremities intact, and manage not to career over the next edge.

Once down, we’re slightly shocked at how severe Stirrup Crag looks from below and wonder if we’d have attempted it had we known. I later read that Wainwright left a trail of blood over these rocks and feel relieved they weren’t craving a fresh sacrifice. For some reason, Tim chooses now to mention that the Black Sail Youth Hostel cancellation policy includes a plea to the effect – “let us know if you are not coming. If we’re expecting you and you don’t show, we’ll send out Mountain Rescue.” I’m not sure whether it’s a comfort or a concern.

A party of around 15 fresh faced teenagers has arrived at Dore Head ahead of us. They took the sensible path. In fact, they may have bypassed Yewbarrow altogether. They’re now comfortably ensconced in a rest and refreshment break that looks set to extend indefinitely. If they’re going to tackle the full round at this rate, it could prove a very long day. I hope they’re not descending from here, though. The traditional way down to Mosedale is a notorious scree slope. Once the delight of scree runners, it’s now so dangerously eroded it looks concave from below. A grass rake offers an alternative but even that looks severe. I think of Veronique Marre and conclude some risks just aren’t worth taking; then try not to think about that as I look back over Stirrup Crag on the way up Red Pike.

Once on top, isolated shafts of sunlight steal through cracks in the cloud. Scoat Tarn sparkles to the south, the adamantine lustre of lost treasure, scattered in the bracken. Haycock is now in sight, while, northward, Great Gable rises over Kirk Fell, a pyramid no more, but a mighty dome, surged from the earth in an ancient eruption of volcanic violence. Beyond the summit, we perch on crags above Black Combe and eat pies, looking across to Pillar and the stiff stream of scree tapering to the col of Wind Gap.

Out of the breeze, it’s warm. Certainly, warm enough for midges to swarm around Tim. Apparently, he only had space in his rucksack for one bottle, so it was a toss-up between sun cream and midge repellent. He went with sun cream, which is probably why the sun has, so far, been so coy. Tim swears by a midge repellent that’s marketed by Avon as a moisturiser. It’s called Skin So Soft and whenever he produces a bottle, he feels compelled to assure me “it’s what the SAS use”. He retreats into the breeze and the midges turn on me, so I’m compelled to join him.

We climb the saddle to Scoat Fell and catch our first sight of Ennerdale Water, a pale sheen against the dense green of the pine plantations on its banks. The summit lies a little to our left and a fine ridge runs out to Steeple, which looks as inspiring as its name. It’s all too tempting for anyone with fire in their blood. But we’ll have fire in our bellies too and we still have some way to go before we reach Black Sail. Supper is served at seven, so to arrive ravenous and find we’d missed it would be miserable. There’s also that thing in the cancellation clause that convinces us to press on to Black Crags without detour. From there, we descend to Wind Gap and begin the tough pull up to Pillar. With the exertion, any residual disappointment at skipping Steeple turns to quiet relief.

Few labours reward so richly, however. As we reach the summit, the sun breaks through, illuminating the landscape in way that is nothing short of magical. Pillar Rock rises majestically above a sward of conifer; Great Gable is a tower of rugged glory; Broad Stand, finally free of cloud, a brutal bastion on the ramparts of Sca Fell. But as shafts of sunlight dance across the slopes, this terrain of intransigent rock manages to evoke nothing so much as a swirling Turner seascape: the white splashes of exposed rock are surf and spray; dark crags, the welling eddies; the wave upon wave of rolling peaks, a surging ocean, every shade of green.

High Crag, Robinson and Hindscarth from Pillar

All the way down to Looking Stead, I linger, attempting to capture this on camera. It’s beyond my skills and if I lavish words, it’s only to try and convey what pictures fail to tell.

At the top of Black Sail Pass, we meet a man who asks us if we’ve seen a party of 15 teenagers. They’re not late, he’s just bored of waiting. Something tells me he’s in for a long day.

Black Sail Hut

We descend into Ennerdale, where, in the remotest corner of this wildest of valleys, lies an old shepherd’s bothy: The Black Sail Hut, now a Youth Hostel and our home for the night. A warm welcome and cold beers await. We sit outside on wooden benches in the golden light of evening and watch the Galloway cattle, that roam free like big black bison, old as the hills.

Tim disappears for a shower and I watch a small figure wend her way down the long path from Windy Gap, between Great and Green Gable. When she arrives, she unshoulders her pack, grabs a beer and joins me outside. We compare notes on our routes. As we chat, I suddenly realise why she looks familiar. It’s Yvonne, a friend of my wife’s from about ten years ago. Yvonne is a high-powered consultant to head gardeners. I’ve only met her once, when she led a tour of the grounds in a Lakeland stately home, dispensing invaluable tricks and tips, some of which I wrote down and perpetually promise to put into practice. She asks about Sandy and we laugh out loud at the odds of meeting like this. Tim reappears around the corner, and the midges make a bee-line for him. Yvonne proffers a bottle of repellent. “Skin So Soft” he beams delightedly, then drops his voice an octave and adds “the SAS use it, you know”.

Great Gable from Black Sails Hut — Great Gable from Black Sail Hut

Relaxing at Black Sails Hut — Relaxing at Black Sail Hut

After supper, we sip beers and swap stories with two guys sharing our dorm. They’re old friends from London, who have moved out of the capital in different directions but meet up once or twice a year for walking holidays. They’ve been in the Lakes all week, tramping the hills and staying in hostels. There are three of them but the third has turned in for an early night. Unsurprisingly, he’s the first up in the morning. I join him for a coffee while we wait for breakfast. He tells me how they got a light soaking on top of Haystacks late yesterday afternoon.

“That’s odd” I say, “we were on Pillar around that time, looking down on Haystacks. It looked as if it was in sunshine.”

He looks puzzled, then shrugs, “perhaps it was earlier – three-ish possibly”. Very localised showers are possible in the hills, but it still doesn’t quite add up.

“We stayed at Honister Youth Hostel, last night”, he continues.

“No, you didn’t”, I shout (silently), “you stayed here. I’ve just seen you get out of bed”.

“We’ve been lucky today though”, he goes on, “it’s been dry all day”.

Incredulous, I want to scream, “It’s quarter to eight in the morning. You’ve not been anywhere yet and besides, it’s bucketing it down”… but then I realise, he’s just a day out. By “today”, he means “yesterday”, “yesterday” means the day before. Suddenly, everything makes sense. It’s pretty much the same account we got from his mates – you just have to subtract a day.

It’s an odd idiosyncrasy, but I can think of two possible explanations: he’s either a timelord or, after several consecutive days on the fells, the days begin to blur. I’ve been out for one night and I can already understand that.

Everything that seems so integral to our existence – the bustle of the working week, its routines, schedules, deadlines – simply dwindles in importance out here; it’s all fluster, all folly, all “sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Our own inflated sense of self-importance, seems equally ridiculous. Set against the timeless scale of this primal landscape, our hive and industry seem no more significant than the swarming of midges.

I scratch the bites and the simile suddenly seems poignant – we too do disproportionate damage. Wainwright called Ennerdale’s pine plantations an act of vandalism – a defacing of the indigenous landscape – but we do much worse than this. And with a climate change denier in the White House, efforts to curb our excesses are under threat.

In the 60’s, a NASA scientist called James Lovelock wrote a book called GAIA, in which he argues the Earth acts like a single living organism. Its ecosystems adapt and evolve to marginalise or eliminate threats. If he’s right, even now, the planet could be developing a natural strain of Skin So Soft to send us blighters packing.

My mind wanders back to the here and now where my new acquaintance is finishing his account. I conclude he’s a timelord and we refer to him thereafter as the Doctor.

With the cloud down and heavy rain set in, we abandon plans to climb Great Gable and head back over the Black Sail Pass. It’s an opportunity postponed, not lost, as one thing is certain. We’re coming back here.

Art, Fell Walk, General, Ghost Story, History, Natural History

Ghosts of Canadian Airmen

July 16, 2017 George Kitching 21 Comments

Wetherlam, Swirl How & Great Carrs via Steel Edge

An Andy Goldsworthy sheepfold and the wreck of a wartime bomber bookend a thought-provoking walk over the Coniston fells, ascending Wetherlam by a route that evaded Wainwright.

Sheep Folds

Good art transforms a space. It introduces something new, often forged from foreign materials like canvas, paint, bronze or stone and worked into a form that redefines and enriches its setting. It can bring the outdoors in, or life to a sterile cityscape.

But placing artworks in natural settings can be problematic. The Countryside Code compels us to leave no trace of our presence, so the notion of introducing something man-made is counter-intuitive. Even given an artist’s skill in complementing their surroundings, it seems somehow arrogant to assume we can improve on nature.

And yet we do this all the time. Agriculture and horticulture are both attempts to instil an artificial order on the natural world, editing out the bits we don’t want and cultivating the bits we do. Why should a well-tended flower bed be somehow less of an aberration than a sculpture made from concrete and steel? Perhaps because the garden showcases our stewardship of nature while the sculpture is an attempt to impose something alien upon it. A wheat field and a quarry are both examples of harvesting natural resources, yet one appeals to our sense of aesthetics while the other offends it. For all their artifice, the garden and the wheat field are part of nature; born of the wild, their order is ephemeral – if left untended, they will quickly revert.

We may embrace art in the landscape, but we often find it less controversial when in the ordered environment of a garden or sculpture park; or perhaps, like Gormley’s figures on Formby beach, where we expect human activity.

Placing artworks in wilder settings takes a special skill and sensitivity. It’s these qualities that have enabled Andy Goldsworthy to succeed. Goldsworthy seldom imposes foreign objects on the landscape. Instead he works with materials that are already there, like pebbles, petals, twigs and ice. His sculptures are designed to be washed away by waves, melted by sunlight, scattered by the wind. He simply reorganises parts of the environment so they assume a fleeting new identity then lets the natural order reassert itself. Usually, the only enduring evidence is photographic.

Some of his works persist a little longer however. In 1987, he was commissioned by Grizedale Forest to produce “Taking a wall for a walk”, a dry-stone wall that snakes in and out of the trees as if the pull of nature had compelled it to abandon its straight, utilitarian function and revert to a more organic form.

Andy Goldsworthy Touchstone Fold, Tilberthwaite

Goldsworthy’s initial thought was to source the stone from a quarry but as he started to work with wallers he learned that, where possible, they try to reuse existing stones. The significance of this was not lost on Andy, “Originally I felt that I shouldn’t even touch a mossy old wall, but then this idea of an old wall becoming a new one is very important to the nature of the way walls are made… What looks like randomly placed stone has been selected, touched, worked, and when one waller touches a stone worked by another waller he knows that. There’s a wonderful connection there.”

Again, it was intended that slowly the work should be reclaimed by nature – clad in moss, dislodged by wind, toppled by the spreading roots of trees – until it returned to the tumble-down disarray in which it started. Ironically, its popularity is such that it has been repaired several times.

1996 was The Year of The Visual Arts and Goldsworthy was commissioned to create an ambitious series of works in Cumbria. His proposal was to rebuild a large number of old sheepfolds turning each into a sculpture or using it to enclose a sculpture.

In some cases, the only evidence of the original sheepfold was its mark on an old map, but by the end of the project in 2003, Goldsworthy and his team had restored and transformed nearly fifty of them. Some enclose perfectly formed stone cones; others surround boulders carefully selected for their shape and form.

Before the emergence of the railways Cumbria was a major highway for the movement of sheep and cattle from Scotland to Yorkshire and Lancashire. Using old maps, Goldsworthy carefully traced these old “drove” routes and constructed sixteen sheepfolds as way markers, temporarily enhancing each in turn with a small red sandstone arch that he transported all along this ancient thoroughfare, assembling and dismantling it at every stage.

Elsewhere Goldsworthy worked in other features that define the landscape. A striking example is the large square Touchstone fold at Tilberthwaite. The four stone walls are inset with rectangles of local slate. Each rectangle encloses a circle. The slates in each circle are set at a unique angle, so each deflects light differently and collectively they suggest the cycles of the sun and the seasons.

Andy Goldsworthy Sheepfold, Tilberthwaite

Goldsworthy has a fascination with slate and its inherent layering. He describes it as “an extraordinary book of stone… as you lift one piece off another, you’re looking back in time really”.

As an artwork, The Touchstone Fold possesses the perfect geometric beauty of a Barbara Hepworth, while the way the sloping slate plays with sunlight makes your eyes dance in the way a Bridget Riley painting does. But Goldsworthy’s work has an even stronger sense of place. Tilberthwaite and Wetherlam (the mountain above) have been quarried for slate for centuries. In Thomas West’s 1779 Guide to The Lakes, he wrote of the Coniston houses, “all are neatly covered with blue slate, the product of the mountains”. Goldsworthy conceived his sheepfolds as a monument to agriculture, but The Touchstone Fold is much more than that. It is monument to the industry wrought from these slopes; indeed; a monument to the mountain itself.

Steel Edge

Steps lead up from the parking area opposite the sheepfold to a path that skirts the south-eastern bank of Tilberthwaite Gill. The first thing you encounter is a disused quarry. It’s easy to imagine quarries as ugly grey scars, but here rivers of colour run through the mineral rich rock; veins of red, yellow, green, blue and purple marbling its milky face.

From Elizabethan times, deep levels were driven into the sides of Tilberthwaite Gill to extract copper. Cheaper imports eventually killed the domestic industry, but the Victorians, who had just begun to revere the Lakeland landscape as a place of beauty, re-purposed the remaining wooden bridges as platforms for viewing the waterfalls. Along the path, the sound of the falls is ever present but sightings are confined to an occasional sparkle through the foliage.

The path crosses the head of the gill and fords Crook Beck. A little further along I come to a wooden footbridge. Crossing here would join the route that leads over Birk Fell to Wetherlam Edge. This is the ascent that Wainwright describes from Tilberthwaite, but I’m going to leave that for the way down. Up to my left lies a route that evaded Wainwright – the short, steep ridge of Steel Edge.

Steel Edge is named on the OS map but there is no indication of a path. A sketchy semblance of one does exist, however, and climbs beside an old mine level to the crest of the ridge.

Here rocky outcrops give way to a grass ramp. The ground drops steeply on either side but the back is broad, so doesn’t feel overly exposed. It’s a glorious May morning and the wintry landscapes of past months have transformed into a palette of new growth: the olive and umber of the lower fell side giving the way to the vibrant green of the lowland fields, dappled with darker clusters of forest as they roll east to Coniston Water. To the north, beneath a clear blue sky, blankets of cloud smother the hill tops like snow.

After a short while, the grassy slope terminates in a tower of rock and an easy but exhilarating scramble ensues. I climb through a gully of white stone, streaked with rust and patterned with intricate black lines like a Jackson Pollock painting. A rudimentary lesson in local geology at Coniston’s Ruskin museum suggests this might be Paddy End rhyolite, a glassy rock formed when fine particles of ash fused together in the intense cauldron of volcanic eruption some 450 million years ago.

Steel Edge delivers me to the largest of three tarns that skirt the Lad Stones route up from Coniston. I turn right to cover the remaining ground to the summit, pausing more than once to admire the magnificent views across Levers Water to The Old Man. On reaching the top, a jaw-dropping vista opens over Great Langdale to the Pike O’ Stickle. Wetherlam Edge drops away to Tilberthwaite below, but the day is young and I’m not done with the peaks just yet. I decide to press on over Swirl How to Great Carrs in search of a mountain top memorial to a tragic misjudgement.

Pike O'Stickle from Wetherlam — Pike O’Stickle from Wetherlam

LL505 S for Sugar

At 02:05 pm on October 22nd, 1944, Halifax bomber LL505, named “S for Sugar”, left RAF Topcliffe in Yorkshire on a navigational exercise. With the exception of one Scotsman, the crew were all Canadian. At 33 years old, navigator Francis Bell was by some stretch the eldest. Pilot John Johnson was 27 and the rest were aged between 19 and 21. By 6pm they had become disoriented in fog. Topcliffe dispatched a Mosquito, equipped with the latest night navigation gear, to guide the bomber home, but unaware of its proximity, Johnson took a fateful gamble. He decided to descend so Bell could get a visual fix on the ground. The Mosquito arrived just in time to see “S for Sugar” crash into the top of Great Carrs.

Locals rallied to reach survivors. It was an effort that would lead in time to the formation of Coniston Mountain Rescue Team. Sadly, on this occasion it ended in failure – all the crew had been killed.

The RAF posted sentries to guard the wreck until the munitions could be recovered. It was impractical to remove the plane itself, so it was broken into pieces and pushed down the steep cliff into Broad Slack where bits of it remain. Some items have since been salvaged and one of the Merlin engines is now on display at the museum in Coniston.

The undercarriage still lies on top of the mountain where a large cairn has been constructed and topped with a wooden cross as a memorial. A stone plaque bears the names the dead.

Memorial to the Crew, Great Carrs — Memorial to the Crew

I descend to Levers Hawse and climb the steep path of the Prison Band to Swirl How. From here a sickle shaped ridge curves round to the right over the plunging crags of Broad Slack to the top of Great Carrs. A little shy of the summit, the wreckage comes into view.

The cross stands proud against a dramatic skyline of Sca Fell and Scafell Pike. As I approach, a patch of red catches my eye. People have laid wreaths of poppies and placed little wooden crosses in amongst the stones. Some of the crosses have words scratched into them – people’s personal messages to their own departed loved ones: “Pete – gone but not forgotten”, “Dad, love Mick”. Others have photographs attached. It’s incredibly moving. I read the names and tender ages of the airmen and wonder if their families know this simple mountain memorial has become a shrine where strangers come to share their loss.

Mountain Top Memorial, Great Carrs — Mountain Top Memorial

Haunted

John “Jack” Johnson’s widow probably did, thanks to a curious tale involving a retired electrical engineer from Bath. Ken Hill was described as “level headed” and not hitherto someone likely to have given much truck to the supernatural, but after visiting the Great Carrs memorial and pocketing a small fragment of metal as a memento, he became convinced he was being stalked by the ghost of the dead pilot.

On the journey home, Ken felt a distinct presence in the car with him. Over time, the impression faded. Then on the day the Merlin engine was recovered from the fell side, Ken’s bedside radio started switching itself on and off at random. Hill was convinced that it was Johnson making his presence felt. Later the airman appeared, clear as day, leaving Ken with the conviction he was supposed to contact the pilot’s family. It wasn’t an easy task but after some years of trying, Hill finally tracked down Johnson’s widow, Nita, in Canada.

What Nita made of it, I don’t know. But whether or not you believe in the supernatural, love and loss are the deepest and rawest of human emotions and here, beside this hill top shrine, the strength of feeling is palpable.

Monuments

As I retrace my steps over Swirl How and Wetherlam the sun catches the slopes of Bow Fell and the Langdale Pikes, bathing them in a haunting light, and I think (with apologies to Rupert Brook) that if there must be a corner of a foreign fell that is forever Canada, there can be no finer spot.

Like many scrambles, Wetherlam Edge is probably easier to ascend than descend. I spend time weighing options, lowering myself gingerly down rock steps and scouting around for the path. Things improve as I near Birk Fell from where an obvious route leads down to Dry Cove Bottom (named with irony) and along the near side of Tilberthwaite Gill.

Back at the start, the shifting sun has affected a subtle transformation in the sheepfold, lighting slates that lay in shadow before. I recall Goldsworthy’s words about looking back in time – I’ve been doing that all day. It’s been a poignant, thought-provoking journey, punctuated by two monuments: one to a way of life; one to life extinguished; and both inextricably bound to the mountain.

For a route map and directions for this ascent and descent of Wetherlam, visit Walk Lakes. Please note, these directions do not include the detour over Swirl How to Great Carrs.

Fell Walk, General, History, Natural History

Axis: Bold As Love

June 18, 2017 George Kitching 17 Comments

Bow Fell via Whorneyside Force and the Climbers’ Traverse

Bow Fell feels like the centre of the world with valleys radiating out like the spokes of a wheel and panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. The ascent via Whorneyside Force and Hell Gill is one of striking contrasts and the final section along The Climbers’ Traverse and up the side of The Great Slab is simply breathtaking. The descent via Rossett Gill is steeped in smuggling history.

Centre of the World

As anyone who has stood on its summit in sunshine knows, Bow Fell is the axis on which the world converges. The broad shoulder of The Band plunges east to Great Langdale while the fine ridge of Crinkle Crags runs south to Red Tarn and the Furness Fells. At contiguous points of the clock, the green valleys of Duddon and Eskdale sweep in to lay their heads at Bow Fell’s foot; and the soaring Scafell massif circles over Esk Pike to meet its western flank. Gaze north and Grassmoor looms while the valley of Langstrath rolls in from the north-east and the distant peaks of Skiddaw and Blencathra. Turn full circle and see the full length of Helvellyn unfurl, linking arms with Fairfield over Grisedale Tarn, while the high ground of The Langdale Pikes swings over Stakes Pass to meet the mountain’s northern bounds.

Of course a wider world exists, but that’s a place of tarmac and traffic; of hubbub, hassle, frayed nerves and short tempers. If you’ve climbed the 2962ft to get here, you’re probably inclined to forget all that for a while. Scafell Pike is about 250ft higher, but that’s splitting hairs; on Bow Fell, you are Zeus looking down from Olympus – at the centre of the world and on top of it. Forgive my flights of fancy, but I defy anyone to stand here on a clear day and not experience a soaring rush of exhilaration.

The axis notion is not entirely fanciful. Geographers have compared the Lake District to a wheel, the valleys and lakes radiating out like spokes. The real hub is about 14 miles away near Dunmail Raise. But Dunmail Raise is a cairn in the middle of a dual carriageway; on top of Bow Fell, you don’t need a map to get the picture.

By the looks on their faces, the small group of fellow walkers sharing the summit feel similarly elated. Some have come directly up the Band. A couple have climbed over Crinkle Crags. One has come via The Langdale Pikes and plans to return over Crinkle Crags. He’ll sleep like a baby tonight. I took a lesser trodden route that offers some striking and secluded scenery.

Old Dungeon Ghyll

George Macaulay Trevelyan believed that common people have a more positive effect on shaping history than royalty. His historical writings were passionate, poetic and partisan celebrations of his liberal beliefs. During his lifetime he was lauded as “the most widely read historian in the world; perhaps in the history of the world.” Subjective historical narrative fell out of fashion however, and Trevelyan was later dismissed as “a pontificating old windbag”.

Fortunately, his other legacies have fared better. He was the first president of the Youth Hostel Association and a dedicated conservationist. In the early 1900’s he bought Middlefell farm in Great Langdale and donated it to The National Trust. It became The Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. The stables were converted into a dining room and the shippon into The Climber’s Bar, which still sports the cow stalls.

British climbing clubs used the bar for their gala dinners and after conquering the north face of the Eiger, Chris Bonnington and Ian Clough gave a trial run of their lecture here before delivering the real thing in Keswick. What better starting point for a mountain expedition, albeit a slightly less ambitious one than Bonnington and Clough’s.

Whorneyside Force and Hell Gill

I follow the road down to Stool End Farm and, once through the farmyard, ignore the usual route up The Band, keeping straight on through a field and some stock pens heading for Oxendale. Off to the left, a footbridge crosses Oxendale Beck to ascend Crinkle Crags. I ignore this too and follow the stream.

The sketchy path starts to climb over wilder and rockier terrain, gaining height and fording the feeder streams that flow down from the fell-side. The views back along the length of Great Langdale are already impressive. After about two thirds of a mile, I cross a bridge and follow the bank on the other side. Soon the crash and hiss of cascading water grows louder with every step. The path turns left to climb the fell but I stick with the stream, rounding an outcrop to come face to face with Whorneyside Force.

Here the beck plunges 40ft into a deep green, bowl-shaped pool; the foaming jets forming two white legs that cross at the bottom like some giant reclining stick figure. Below a sky of pure blue and in sharp relief against the dark exposed rock, it’s utterly hypnotic, beautifully offset by the winter yellow of the surrounding scrub.

A steep scramble up a mud and scree bank makes for a fun if inelegant way to rejoin the main path, which climbs above the waterfall then descends to cross the beck a little further on. A few hundred yards later, I’m staring into the mouth of deep ravine.

White winter skeletons of stunted rowan trees jut from jagged rock at unnatural angles. The spindly lattice of branch and twig fragments the view. Glaring sunlight casts black shadows that disorient further. Steep slabs of bare rock are intercut with patches of impossibly sloped grass. White water cascades down sheer steps. Everything is angular and irregular. In contrast to the tranquillity of Whorneyside Force, the ravine is topsy-turvey; chaotic, confusing, striking but inhospitable. Perhaps this is why it has earned the formidable name, Hell Gill.

Stepping stones afford a way across the water. A stone pitched path climbs the bank on the far side to the grassy moorland above, basking in the shadow of Crinkle Crags with the rocky summit of Bow Fell ahead.

From above, where the winter grass is a uniform blanket of yellow decay, Hell Gill is an oasis of vibrant green, but no less disorientating. Indeed, I hesitate to get too close, not only because the ground is slippery, but because staring down its sheer side is dizzying. Its walls descend through a series of steep stone trellises, like an Inca temple, bedecked with grass and spindly white trees. Its presence seems wholly out of context with the rugged mountain scenery, as if a chasm has opened up into another world.

The Climbers’ Traverse and The Great Slab

Eventually what remains of a path turns away from the ravine to follow the stream of Busco Sike. When it’s narrow enough, I step across and make toward the towering summit. In the foreground are the first people I’ve seen since Stool End. They’re following the path from The Band which crosses to the col of Three Tarns and a well-trodden route to the peak.

But there’s a more dramatic way to reach the summit and it lies over the ridge in front. I cross the Three Tarns path and climb the open fell-side. After a short scramble, I join a higher, narrower path that takes me over the crest to the start of the Climbers’ Traverse.

The east face of Bow Fell comprises three sheer rock faces: Flat Crag, Cambridge Crag and Bowfell Buttress. The cliffs are precipitous and the slopes below drop steeply to the valley floor. Not a place to wander without ropes and climbing equipment you might think, but a narrow path leads across the foot of the crags, allowing the walker to venture where they otherwise might not. You need a reasonable head for heights as it does feel exposed but in dry conditions the going is easy and presents no real problems. I venture out on to the Climbers’ Traverse and the views take my breath away.

To my right, the Langdale Pikes are revealed in all their top-to-bottom glory; the conical peak of the Pike O’Stickle to the fore. Looking behind, the Pike O’Blisco rises over the ridge. Ahead, beyond the valley of Langstrath, distant Blencathra pierces the horizon. Everywhere, the sunlit winter landscape is a palette of warm ochre and purple shadow.

As I approach Flat Crag I have an eerie feeling I’m being watched. I look up to discover a striking rock formation striped with blue, red and purple quartz; above, the crags have eroded to resemble a giant pair of eyes and a long flat nose. Rock face indeed! If Hell Gill had put me in mind of an Inca temple, then Flat Crag is Easter Island. I start to wonder what it was I poured on my cereal this morning.

Rock Face - Flat Crags — Rock Face – Flat Crag

I later share some photos on Facebook and Fred James recounts how he fed a mouse some malt loaf on the Climbers’ Traverse when it was covered in deep snow. A place of magical encounters it seems.

The spring that perpetually gushes from the foot of Cambridge Crag feeds a small oasis of green. It also marks the exit. There’s no way up Bowfell Buttress without ropes, but a scrambly path leads up beside Cambridge Crag over a “river of boulders”. I start to climb. When I draw level with the top of Flat Crag, another striking feature unfurls: the huge slope of polished stone known as The Great Slab. It’s a magnificent sight and the views across it to the Langdale Pikes are staggering. Wandering away from the boulders and out into the middle could be a short lived pleasure, however. One slip and you might find yourself in Mickleden, earlier than planned and in a great many more pieces.

Summit

Reaching the top I look back over the Slab to Windermere glistening in the distance; then climb the remaining boulders to the summit.

“Is that Scafell Pike?”

“Yes”,

“And that’s Sca Fell?”

“Yes, it is”. I’ve been joined by a beaming young man in combat fatigues.

“And that’s Great Gable?”

“No I think that’s Great End”, (I’m wrong, it’s Esk Pike but I haven’t had a chance to check the map and it looks like the end of the Scafell massif).

“Is this Great Gable?”

“This that we’re standing on?”

“Aye.”

“No, this is Bow Fell.”

“Ah right, Bow Fell. I’ve come from ‘Cisco”,

“Do you mean The Pike O’Blisco?”

“Aye right enough”,

“Over Crinkle Crags”,

“Aye probably”.

My new companion tells how he drove from Dumfries and slept in his car to be on these hills at first light. He might be muddling names but I get the impression he knows roughly where he’s going; besides, he exudes such a boundless energy and enthusiasm that, even if he doesn’t, I feel sure he’ll get there.

Windermere from the top of the Great Slab

Over a few more boulders to the summit cairn and the world converges. I’m almost grateful for the breeze that starts to chill – without it I might have sat here all day. Eventually I pull on my rucksack and head north toward Esk Pike. My new Scottish friend emerges from over the crags to my right where, thanks to my mis-identification, he’s been searching for that very fell. He laughs when I apologise and we chat as far as Ore Gap, where he heads on up the real Esk Pike and I turn right for Rossett Gill.

Smugglers’ Footsteps

When Bow Fell’s northern ridge falls away, Rossett Pike is revealed to my right over the blue waters of Angle Tarn. I follow the path down to the water’s edge. It looks so inviting I’m tempted to dive in, but these hills were under snow last week and I doubt the water’s warmed. Besides, there are people picnicking; the sight of me skinny dipping would put them off their sandwiches. Instead, I walk up to Rossett Pass and climb to the Pike’s summit, which affords a fascinating retrospective on my route.

Back at the pass, I follow the good, stone pitched path that zigzags down beside Rossett Gill, a welcome replacement for the steep stony slog that Wainwright describes in “The Southern Fells”. Intriguingly, Wainwright also mentions an old pony-route, believed to have been used to smuggle illicit goods from the port of Ravenglass.

Lanty Slee was a legendary Langdale smuggler. Officially, a farmer and quarryman during the early 1800’s, Slee’s main source of income came from the stills he had secreted around Little Langdale: one in Moss Bank Quarry; another beneath Low Arnside Farm. To divert attention, Slee connected the latter to a long underground pipe, doubtless prompting passers-by to puzzle why steam was rising from a hedge in the middle of a field.

Lanty sold his moonshine for 10 shillings a gallon, transporting the excess to Ravenglass and returning with contraband tobacco. He was convicted twice and kept the Ambleside courtroom well entertained with the wittiness of his defences. The excise men routinely failed to seize his whisky however, and some may even remain stashed in the caves around these crags.

When Chris Jesty revised Wainwright’s works, he insisted no trace of the old pony-route remained, but in an excellent blog that describes another way up Bow Fell, Martin Crookall gives some canny pointers on how to follow its course:

https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/great-walks-crinkle-crags-bowfell-esk-pike/

With tired legs and the tempting prospect of a pint in the Old Dungeon Ghyll Hotel, I leave archaeology for another day and follow the stone steps to the valley floor. The final stretch through Mickleden leads beneath the Langdale Pikes and the steep southern scree slope of the Pike O’Stickle. A couple of indefatigable souls are attempting a direct ascent. My thoughts turn from a notional axis to Neolithic axes – but that’s another tale.

For a map of this route and detailed directions, visit Walk Lakes

Fell Walk, History, Natural History

Redemption Song

February 19, 2017 George Kitching 7 Comments

The Herdwicks of Harter Fell

From Eskdale, a walk up the heather-clad flanks of Harter Fell sets in motion a train of thought about the herdwick sheep and how they were nearly wiped out by foot and mouth disease. Recollections of those dark days in 2001 turn into a tribute to the remarkable men and women who brought this iconic breed back from the brink.

Epidemic

I’d lived in Cumbria for three years when foot and mouth disease struck. In early 2001, it was easy to tap into the collective anxiety as the news reports rolled in, but at first it felt like something that was happening somewhere else.

Then one day, I drove home from work to find the sky thick with black smoke. I didn’t put two and two together until I stepped out of the car and the smell hit my nostrils. I knew it at once and it evoked classrooms – familiar, faintly nostalgic, sickening it its current context – it smelt of glue.

Several animals on one of the nearby farms had tested positive for the disease. The panicked government policy at the time wouldn’t allow for isolating the infected and protecting the healthy; instead, slaughter-men were summoned to dispatch the whole herd. Now, they were burning the carcasses and the air was thick with the smell of collagen from the rendered hides and hooves.

Several other neighbouring farms followed suit. These were just over the county border in Lancashire, where things were bad, but the toll in Cumbria itself would become the worst in Britain. In a desperate effort to contain the disease, the government introduced a policy of “contiguous cull”, which meant all animals within 3km of an infected site were slaughtered. Farmers would sit with OS maps sprawled out on their kitchen tables, anxiously awaiting the news bulletins and plotting the distance from the latest outbreaks to their own fields, breathing sighs of reprieve or collapsing into despair depending on the report.

Children in infected areas were not allowed to go to school as the virus can survive for up to two weeks on contaminated clothing. Teenagers studying for A levels were sent to stay with friends and not permitted to return for the duration of the epidemic. Yet, in the distant halls of Westminster, Margaret Beckett announced that “farmers aren’t in quarantine”.

Large areas of the Lake District National Park were closed to prevent visitors spreading the disease. Businesses built on tourism were hit hard and farmers who’d diversified by building holiday lets on their land suffered a double-whammy.

Every day heart-breaking stories were recounted, not only of the slaughter itself, but of its bungled government-directed execution: calves discovered alive under the carcasses of their mothers; ill-briefed slaughtermen killing the sheep dogs along with the flock; dead animals left to bloat and rot for days before their burial or cremation could be arranged; and, almost inevitably, given the depth of despair among those who had lost everything, there were suicides.

The exact number of animals culled has never been admitted, but the Visit Cumbria website, that worked hard to make information available during crisis, estimates the national toll to be in the region of 20 million. Visit Cumbria’s Foot and Mouth pages are now closed, but they have left in place four poignant reports from those dark times, which you can find at: Visit Cumbria – Foot and Mouth Disease

They all warrant reading, but perhaps the most harrowingly evocative is Annie Mawson’s Open Letter to the People of Cumbria:

An open letter to the people of Cumbria

As an “offcomer” with no root in the local farming community, Foot and Mouth was something I glimpsed from over the wall, but Annie was right in the heart of it. At one point in the letter she says this, “I have always compared the herdwick sheep to men like my dear Dad, who once farmed the Wasdale fells: just like them he was wise and hardy, strong and sensitive, gruff and gentle, and for the first time in 10 years, I am glad he is not alive to witness this hell on earth.”

Herdies

Nothing is perhaps more iconic of the Lake District than the herdwick. These hardy mountain sheep are remarkable. I recently watched one on a rocky outcrop on Dow Crag caught between two sheer gullies and apparently in some distress. I feared the worst and could hardly bear to watch, convinced she was about to fall. Ten minutes later, the reason for her agitation became clear – she wasn’t distraught about how to get down, she was trying to find a way up to sparse patch of grass on a little plateau above. When she figured it out, she stood grazing triumphantly on the most precarious pasture imaginable. Half an hour later, she had found her way back down to the bottom of the crags with no bother at all.

Herdies, as they are affectionately known, are born black but turn a chocolate brown within a year. After their first shearing, their fleece lightens to a grey which whitens with age. They are hardy enough to withstand the harsh conditions on the high Cumbrian fells. Each flock knows its own territory or “heaf” and stays within these invisible boundaries. This knowledge is passed down from ewe to lamb. Cumbrian farms traditionally have small amounts of privately owned “in bye” land in the valleys, but hold common grazing rights to the fell sides. As the turf knowledge of each heaf rests with the sheep, the animals change hands with the land, meaning some flocks have been in residence for centuries longer than their current owners’ families.

For those of us who love to walk the Lakeland hills, these ovine custodians are an inextricable part of the landscape, but that nearly changed forever with Foot and Mouth. The majority of herdwicks are farmed within 14 miles of Coniston, a concentration that made them very vulnerable to such an outbreak. As the virus spread and the culling escalated there were real fears that this rare breed, so emblematic of the Lakes, might be wiped out completely.

But Cumbrians of both the two-legged and four-legged varieties are made of sterner stuff. In 2015, after Storm Desmond wreaked havoc in the county, artist Andy Watson produced a variation on the standard flood road sign. It’s image, snapped in situ on the approach to a Carlisle bridge, went viral. It said simply:

Welcome to Carlisle
Weak Bridge
Strong People

It’s an epithet that’s been earned time and again, but never more so than in the wake of Foot and Mouth when farmers and shepherds began the painful and painstaking process of rebuilding their flocks, herds and lives. With herdies, there were added complications as the territorial knowledge that resided with the animals had been largely lost and shepherds had to re-“heaf” newcomers, spending long hours out on the hills teaching the sheep to recognise their invisible boundaries.

It wasn’t the first time herdies had been threatened. In the early twentieth century, farmers were largely turning to other more commercial breeds. Children’s author, Beatrix Potter bought a farm with the profits from her first book and together with her shepherd, Tom Storey, began breeding herdwicks. During the 1930’s, she won several awards at county shows and even became president of the breed association for a period. By the time of her death, Potter owned 15 farms spanning some 4,000 acres, which she bequeathed to the National Trust on the understanding they continue to breed herdwicks. As such, herdies owe their persistence, in part, to a carrot-pinching, blue-jacket-wearing rabbit called Peter.

This wasn’t a train of thought I was expecting to follow when I bagged the last roadside parking place at the foot of the Hardknott pass, just beyond Boot and Jubilee Bridge. As I crossed the stream and turned right up a path to the grassy slopes of Harter Fell, nothing but the joys of a Saturday morning hill walk in the south western Lake District were drifting through my mind.

Harter Fell

I veered left at Spothow Gill to follow the cairned path that winds up to the summit through the swathes of purple heather. Half way up, I paused and gazed west over the wild expanse of Birker Fell toward the Irish Sea, shimmering in the distance. As I turned my eyes back to the slopes before me, I recalled Wainwright’s perfect description, “not many fells can be described as beautiful, but the word fits Harter Fell, especially when viewed from Eskdale. The lower slopes on this flank climb steeply from the tree-lined curves of the river Esk in a luxurious covering of bracken, higher is a wider belt of heather, and finally spring grey turrets and ramparts of rock to a neat and shapely pyramid”.

But, as I sit here on the highest of the three rocky outcrops that comprise the peak, looking out over this timeless terrain, and I watch two herdwick ewes with their young lambs, jet black apart from the white rings around their eyes and mouths that make you think they’re wearing balaclavas; and two more, playfully vying for the pre-eminent position atop a lofty boulder; I appreciate how easily this might not have been. It’s daunting to think how bereft these slopes would be without the herdwicks that define them. And I acknowledge, not for the first time, that this county I have made my home, and which I have come to love so deeply, is not just about spectacular landscapes, it’s also about some pretty remarkable people and some very resilient animals.

It also has the most bloody fickle weather imaginable. The Met Office promised sunny spells and excellent visibility and on the way up that looked a likely prospect. My planned descent to the crest of Hardknott Pass is famed for its spectacular views of Scafell Pike, but just as I’m leaving the summit, a bank of low lying cloud rolls in and obscures the Scafell Massif completely. I have one of those disconcerting moments where the path forks and my instinct is to keep right, but, with the key landmarks hidden, I check the compass. It is unequivocal in directing me left. This feels completely wrong, but experience has taught me to distrust instinct and, in the event, the compass doesn’t let me down. The descent is boggy and the path sketchy. In the end, I lose it completely and decide to follow the line of a fence, knowing I must cross it at some point lower down. Progress is painstakingly slow as the grass is long and covers a quagmire, so I have to test every step to ensure I don’t sink.

Hard Knott Roman Fort

It’s with some relief that I attain the road that runs over the pass. This is surely England’s most scenic white-knuckle drive. The gradient is 1 in 4, even 1 in 3 in places and the hairpin bends are ridiculously tight. You might question the wisdom of stepping out on foot on to such a treacherous-sounding thoroughfare, but, at walking pace, you’re not going much slower than the traffic.

I walk down to the first hairpin where a girl is cycling up the impossible gradient with all the steely determination of a herdwick. When she reaches me, she stops for a breather. I express my admiration and she tells me she fell off lower down and shows me the grazes to prove it. I leave her to tackle the next section and turn right away from the road on to a footpath, then promptly sink, almost knee-deep, in black bog water. Cursing myself for taking my eye off the ball, I extricate myself and tread more carefully over the intervening ground to the Hardknott Roman fort.

Encountering the well-preserved remains of a Roman fort, high on a Cumbrian fell, is an impressive experience, but you’re left in no doubt as to why they built it here. It commands panoramic views over Eskdale, breathtaking for the leisure walker, but no doubt of more strategic significance to its original inhabitants. It would have been harsh in winter, mind, and there must have been many a young auxiliary, used to gentler Mediterranean climes, who stood shivering on guard duty, cursing that flirtatious dalliance with the captain’s daughter, or whatever indiscretion earned him this remote posting.

I read an information board that tells me I’m standing in front of the Commandant’s house. It would have been quite a residence in its time, befitting of status and rank, with a central courtyard and easy access to the communal bath house. Today a herdwick ewe grazes within its walls. It’s on her heaf. She’s the commandant now; and who am I to argue?

Post Script

In 2012, Lakeland Herdwick meat was awarded Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status, putting it on a par with Stilton cheese and Melton Mowbray pork pies. This means that only animals that were born, reared and slaughtered in Cumbria can be sold as “Lakeland Herdwick”. It’s a vital step to safeguarding the authenticity and quality of the breed and provides a justly deserved protection for the farmers. With Herdwick lamb and mutton finding its way on to the menus of top London restaurants, Cumbrian farmers can now enjoy a measure of financial security in reward for their commitment.

Fell Walk, Ghost Story, History, Legend

The Boatman’s Call

January 17, 2017 George Kitching 2 Comments

Claife Heights and Sawrey

The western shore of Windermere in the English Lake District was home to children’s author Beatrix Potter. Its wild uplands are also said to be haunted by the tortured spirit of a Cistercian monk, whose blood-curdling cries lured ferrymen to their doom. On this walk through these atmospheric woods, I recount the ghostly legend and consider how Potter’s legacy stretches way beyond her enchanting books.

The Crier of Claife

The first rays of sun blaze blood orange through the dark skeletons of December trees, casting flame-yellow auras around their stark reflections in the pewter pool of Windermere. As the lake becomes the River Leven under the old stone parapets of Newby Bridge, these shafts of warmth conjure a mist from the tranquil surface to shroud the shores in secrecy. Eerie and arcane, the scene evokes a primeval power that the uninhabited boats and empty tables of the hotel terrace can do little to dispel. Fitting then, that my thoughts should turn to the supernatural.

On Windermere’s eastern shore a long line of grand lakeside residences gives way to the honey pots of Bowness and Ambleside. By contrast, the western shore is wild and remote; and supposedly, haunted.

It is said that the wooded uplands of Claife Heights imprison the troubled ghost of a Cistercian monk from Furness Abbey. His quest was to save the souls of immoral women but the temptations of the flesh overthrew the aspirations of the spirit and he fell madly in love with one of his charges, abandoning his vows and pursuing her to Claife. She shunned his advances and the rejection destroyed him. He spent the rest of his days wandering the Heights wailing in anguish. When his weakening body gave up the ghost, it proved to be one the grave could not contain, and his tortured soul continued to haunt the woods with riven wails.

Fearing no good could come from a meeting with the spectral Crier of Claife, the ferrymen of Bowness chose to ignore his blood-chilling summons whenever they came echoing across the lake after dark. But eventually, a young recruit arrived who laughed at their superstition. Whether out of bravado or a noble concern that the plaintive cries might belong to the living, the fearless newcomer heeded the call and set out across the choppy waters.

When he returned, his boat held no passenger – at least none the mortal eye could see. But he was fatally deranged: his eyes wide in terror, his brain apparently fried and his powers of speech utterly lost – all he could manage was to shake and sob in abject fear. He died two days later without ever regaining the power to describe what he saw.

Naturally this raised considerable alarm among the locals and another monk was summoned from Lady Holme island to perform an exorcism. As darkness fell and the howls once more sent shivers down the spines of the ferrymen, the monk rowed out with a bible and a bell. The demented spirit proved a powerful adversary and, despite his best efforts, the monk was unable to exorcise the ghoul completely, but he did succeed in confining it to an old quarry where he compelled it to stay until such a day “as men walk dry shod across Windermere”.

Furness Abbey and Bekan’s Revenge

The fate of the Crier’s monastic brethren was equally dark. According to the history books, Henry VIII laid waste to Furness Abbey and seized its lands during the dissolution of the monasteries. In John Pagen White’s 1853 poem – The Rooks of Furness – however, the seeds of monks’ doom were sown centuries before.

The abbey was built in the dale of Bekan’s Ghyll, so called for a Norse sorcerer, whose bones lie buried in the earth and whose name was originally given to the herb with which the valley abounds. The herb, better known as Deadly Nightshade, is a toxic hallucinogen associated with both witchcraft and medicine. According to the poem, it was once sweet-tasting and benign, but its roots and fibre were entwined with Bekan himself. When the monks began to harvest the plant, they disturbed the sleeping sorcerer. He wrought his revenge by turning its taste bitter and endowing it with poisonous qualities:

“Witchery walked where all had been well:
Well with Monk, and well with maid
That sought the Abbey for solace and aid.
But the lethal juices wrought their spell:
One by one was rung their knell:
One by one from choir and cell
They floated up with a hoarse farewell;
And the altars fell, and the Abbey bell
Was hush’d in the Deadly Nightshade Dell.”

Furness Abbey built over Bekan's Ghyll — Furness Abbey built over Bekan’s Ghyll

The souls of the monks are said to inhabit the rooks that caw continually from the trees that surround their ruined monastery.

Beatrix Potter

By the time I reach Ash Landing beside the Claife ferry terminal, the sun has risen and the western woods have lost their menace. Now the trees are bathed in dappled sunlight and the forest floor is a carpet of red and ochre leaves. The lake is a cool expanse of blue.

As I cross the fields by St Peter’s church, the ground is crisp and white with frost. Dark and troubling images recede before the winter sun and make way for the kind of enchanting whimsy associated with the parish’s most famous past resident, Beatrix Potter. As I enter Near Sawrey, her house, Hilltop, is on the left, its garden straight from the pages of Peter Rabbit.

Just past the pub I turn right down a lane between cottages and on to the bridleway to Claife. After a gentle ascent the idyllic expanse of Moss Eccles Tarn appears. This was one of Beatrix Potter’s favourite spots; in fact she loved it so much, she bought the land. An information board displays her memoir of a romantic summer evening spent in a boat on its calm waters with her husband, William.

Beatrix Potter's House, Hill Top at Near Sawrey — Beatrix Potter’s House, Hill Top at Near Sawrey

It would be easy to imagine Potter leading a charmed life of privilege, spending her days sketching animals and writing children’s stories. In reality she fought hard for her independence. As a gifted natural historian, she battled a scientific establishment that would give her no platform because she was a woman. She weathered the disapproval of her family and devoted herself to farming and conservation. Her stewardship of the Lakeland landscape and its indigenous Herdwick sheep won her much respect.

When she died she left nearly all her land to the National Trust and it was her bequest that made it possible to preserve much of the area that now constitutes the Lake District National Park.

A little further up the track, the magnitude of her legacy unfolds as the gentle countryside gives way to sweeping Lakeland grandeur, the mighty Wetherlam rising dramatically across Wise Een Tarn with Crinkle Crags, Bow Fell and the Langdales arcing round to its right.

Claife Heights

I follow the track up into the woods, past a tarn and out into the open once more. As the track bends round to the left, I turn right to follow the way-marked footpath that leads all the way back through the wooded slopes to Ash Landing on the lake shore.

I miss the sign pointing uphill to the trig point (apparently it’s a little overgrown), but find a track that runs beneath the summit instead. This route at least allows short detours through the trees to glimpse beautiful vistas of Belle Isle and the lake with its flotillas of moored yachts. Soon enough, I pick up the signposts to the ferry which confirm I’m back on track.

Eventually, a steep descent leads down through the trees to a ruined tower. Imagination fires and I wonder if this is where the ferryman faced the Crier. Alas, the notion is a fanciful one; this is the Claife Viewing Station, built in 1790 to provide the first wave of Lakeland tourists with a purpose-built platform from which to marvel at the magnificence of Windermere. It fell into disrepair in the 1900’s but has been rescued and recently reopened by the National Trust who have restored its coloured glass window panes, which give filtered views of the lake suggesting how its appearance might vary with the seasons.

But the tower may have something in common with the spook after all. In her fine blog on Cumbrian history, Diane McIlmoyle makes a strong case for the story of the Claife Crier being a 19th century concoction, perhaps, like the viewing station, intended to attract tourists. Read Diane’s full post here:

The Claife Crier: Windermere’s famous spook

However, even Diane concedes the tale was probably stitched together from fragments of older stories. If this is true, the question still remains: did something sinister happen here centuries ago that terrified the locals and could not be easily explained away?

In the midday sunshine, these woods look pretty and inviting, but in a few hours time as the light dies and the colours drain; and the temperature plummets and wind picks up a pace, whipping through the hidden hollows and around the stark silhouettes of trees, making all manner of ungodly noises, you’d be forgiven for experiencing a quickening of the pulse and a shiver down the spine. And should the mist roll in, you might just find yourself glancing anxiously lakewards, hoping to catch a glint or a shimmer or some reassurance that a great body of water is still out there as a barrier to men walking dry shod across Windermere.

Fell Walk, History, Legend

Standing on the Shoulders Of Giants

December 18, 2016 George Kitching 2 Comments

Scafell Pike and Sca Fell via Foxes Tarn

A homicidal jester, the world’s greatest liar and a notorious whisky smuggler are all part of the history that surrounds this spectacular hill walk to the top of England’s two highest peaks, Sca Fell and Scafell Pike. The wild majesty of the summits provokes a meditation on why we climb mountains and the true meaning of the word sublime.

Tom Foolery

It was a risky business asking directions in Muncaster in the mid 1600’s. If the amiable chap under the chestnut tree turned out to be Thomas Skelton, you’d better hope you made a good impression. If he liked you, he’d help you find a safe passage over the river Esk. If he took exception, he’d direct you to the quicksands. Not everyone lived to tell the tale.

Skelton was the jester at Muncaster castle; a charismatic and famous entertainer, who may have been the original “Tom Fool”. Some have speculated that he was Shakespeare’s inspiration for the joker in King Lear, but in truth, Skelton was born in 1620, four years after Shakespeare’s death. Nevertheless, he was a malevolent soul, whose notoriety rocketed when his master’s daughter, Helwise, took a shine to a local carpenter.

This didn’t sit well with Sir Ferdinand, a knight with his own designs upon the girl. Ferdinand turned to Skelton for help. Tom put it about that the carpenter had stolen money from him, while feigning friendship with the lad and promising to help him elope with Helwise. One night, pretending to lend a sympathetic ear, Skelton got the boy drunk on cider, then carried him back to his workshop, where he murdered him, cutting off his head and hiding it under a pile of wood shavings. When he arrived back at the castle, Skelton bragged that the lad would not so easily find his head when he awoke as he had done Skelton’s coins.

The river Esk meets the sea at nearby Ravenglass. It shares an estuary with the river Irt, which begins its short passage a few miles away in Wastwater. Wordsworth described Wastwater as “long, stern and desolate”. It is England’s deepest lake, framed by its highest mountains, with the perfect pyramid of Great Gable centre stage. So ruggedly beautiful is this panorama that it was voted Britain’s Favourite View in 2007.

In the 1800’s, the Wastwater Hotel (now the Wasdale Head Inn) had its own court jester. Landlord, Will Ritson was famed for his tall tales; and his motivation, if not his methods, may have been similar to Skelton’s. Mountain climbing gained popularity during the Victorian era and the hotel enjoyed an influx of visitors. Some of the city folk considered themselves superior to country bumpkins, but those affecting such airs in Wasdale would likely fall victim to Ritson’s yarns. There was no malice in Will’s antics though, just good natured leg-pulling; he’d see how far he could string along his sap before they realised they were being had, at which point he’d push his story to a preposterous conclusion.

One tale involved a turnip, his father had grown, that was so large it took a year to hollow out. He used the carcass as a shed. Another told of an injured eagle that Ritson had rescued and nursed back to health in his chicken coop. Panic ensued one night when an excitable dog escaped her master and raided the pen. The hound was caught and returned home and, to Will’s immense relief, the eagle was unharmed. A couple of months later though, the bitch gave birth to winged puppies.

The Roof Of England

Even taller than Will’s tales are the mountains that ring the valley. The summit of Scafell Pike is known as The Roof Of England because, at 3208 ft, it’s the nation’s highest point. Despite this distinction, it takes its name from its neighbour, Sca Fell. From certain angles the pair look like giant stone beasts squaring up to each other. Sca Fell’s bulky shoulder appears to roll forward making it look the aggressor, while Scafell Pike’s peak is set back giving the impression of retreat. Perhaps, this is why Sca Fell was designated the superior mountain.

Today, if my fitness levels permit, I intend to ascend both. I’ve climbed the Pike twice this year only to find the summit shrouded in cloud. Today, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and I hope my luck will change.

From the National Trust car park at Wasdale Head, I take the permitted path past the Brackenclose Climbing Club hut, over the wooden bridge and out on to the open fell. The first challenge is to ford Lingmell Gill, which can be an impassable torrent when it’s in spate. It rained heavily last night, so I’m little concerned my adventure may be thwarted before it’s begun. Happily, the water levels are normal and I step across the stones with relative ease.

A little further up, the path forks and I’m faced with a decision that could have been scripted by J. K. Rowling: turn right for Mickledore or carry on through the Hollow Stones. Mickledore is the narrow ridge that separates the two stone giants. Its ascent from here is the more dramatic way up, but I’ll be crossing it later, so I opt for the Hollow Stones and zigzag up the steep grass slope to Lingmell Col. Here the slog is rewarded with a spectacular view down to Sty Head Tarn, at the start of the famous Corridor Route from Borrowdale. Great Gable rises magnificently on the left.

Great Gable and Styhead from Lingmell Col — Great Gable and Styhead Tarn from Lingmell Col

Wadd and Whisky

The high level path that skirts the base of Great Gable, and links Wasdale to Honister, is known as Moses Trod, after a shadowy slate worker called Moses Rigg. Moses was an accomplished smuggler of wadd (graphite), then a hugely valuable and highly guarded natural resource. The story goes, he used the path to move his contraband through Wasdale and on to the coast at Ravenglass.

But wadd was not his only line of business. Rigg is supposed to have built a hideout high up in the crags of Great Gable, well out of the way of the excise men, where he distilled illicit whisky from bog water. As far back as 1966, Wainwright claimed that no trace of this mythical building remained. Given that the only historical accounts of Moses Rigg stem from Will Ritson, you’d be forgiven for thinking this local legend is simply that. However, in 1983 an expedition, by Jeremy Ashcroft and Guy Proctor from Trail magazine, discovered four stone walls and a stone floor on a small and obscured plateau below central gully, about 200m from Great Gable’s summit. In the middle of the floor was a lump of wadd.

To my left, Lingmell’s summit is in easy reach and offers even better views of Gable. But with two higher mountains to conquer, I bear right and start the stony ascent to the Roof of England. From here on, the landscape changes. Gone are the green slopes that led up from the valley. This is proper mountain terrain now; a steep staircase through a barren field of boulder; hard underfoot, demanding of concentration and a fittingly testing way to attain the country’s pinnacle. When I reach the summit, the sky is clear and the views are breathtaking. My luck is in.

Perspective

The top of Scafell Pike does not meet any conventional notion of beauty. It is a wasteland of rock where little or no vegetation grows. But, on a clear day you can see for miles, and there is no denying the special feeling you get when you stand here. On a weekend, it can be overrun with sponsored fund raisers and three peak challengers (who aspire to climb Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis in 24 hours). Even so, there is still a strange, desolate magic to this place. You are literally at the top of the country and it tends to put into stark perspective the small stuff you spend most days sweating.

Indeed, this summit inspired Wainwright to write a soliloquy, asking why men climb mountains, when they might otherwise be sitting in a deck chair on the beach, eating ice-cream and watching girls in bikinis (being a glutton and a lech, in other words). But, if we skip over the unreconstructed sexism of the early 1960’s, AW draws some beautifully poignant conclusions: “they find something in these wild places that can be found nowhere else. It may be solace for some, satisfaction for others: the joy of exercising muscles that modern ways of living have cramped, perhaps; or a balm for jangled nerves in the solitude and silence of the peaks; or escape from the clamour and tumult of everyday existence. It may have something to do with man’s subconscious search for beauty, growing keener as so much in the world grows uglier. It may be a need to re-adjust his sights, to get out of his narrow groove and climb above it to see wider horizons and truer perspectives.” It’s a passage that speaks volumes to me and one I muse on, as I sit on the summit platform and stare across at Bow Fell.

Twenty minutes later, as I’m readying to set off for Sca Fell, the cloud comes down, cutting visibility to almost nothing and causing the temperature to plummet. All of a sudden, what seemed rugged and inspiring seems hostile and intimidating. Scafell Pike’s summit is notoriously disorientating in mist. As it comprises entirely of boulders, there are no paths, so you have to follow the cairns and it is all too easy to pick the wrong line, especially if you can’t see them. Mountain Rescue are frequently called to the aid of walkers who have descended to the wrong valley; a humbling reminder of human frailty in the face of elemental forces.

This counsels caution and I consider abandoning my plan to ascend Sca Fell. However, given the speed at which the cloud is racing, it seems likely this will clear. I resolve to head on for Mickledore. If the mist sets in, I can return to Wasdale from there.

Fortunately, it starts to lift and the outline of Sca Fell slowly emerges through the gloom. Bit by bit, its imposing bulk is unveiled until only the very summit is lost in mist.

I hear footsteps and I’m joined by an athletic young man in running gear, beaming with pride at having achieved the Pike’s summit in an hour (it took me two). He’s planning to go back down, change into his walking gear and trek up Moses Trod to have a look at Napes Needle (a slender, sheer-sided rock pinnacle on Great Gable). Suddenly, my plan to conquer the twin peaks doesn’t seem quite so ambitious. His utter passion for being out here is infectious and we chat warmly about our plans. He’s a taxi driver from Lancaster, but spends all his free time on the fells. His ambition is to become an outdoor instructor so he can do this full time.

Shock and Awe

We part ways on the ridge of Mickledore. By now the sky is free of cloud and Sca Fell stands before me in sunlit glory. A direct ascent is barred by the towering rock face of Broad Stand, a haven for climbers but beyond the capabilities of any walker, who lacks specialised scrambling skills and a casual indifference to continued living.

The only alternative is to descend about 800ft and circumnavigate the cliff by scrambling up one of two gullies. On the Wasdale side is famous Lord’s Rake, but recent rock falls have made that a dangerous proposition. I opt instead for the Eskdale side and the Foxes Tarn outlet gully.

This gully can be dry at certain times of the year, but today a sparkling stream cascades down its rocky steps. Where Scafell Pike draws crowds, here feels wonderfully secluded and remote. I’m not entirely alone, however. Half way up is a solitary figure. He looks back, spies me, and waves – the brotherhood of track-less-beaten.

I begin to climb. Some of the stones are large but they are firm and relatively easy to clamber up. The trick is to stay where it’s dry, the volcanic rock being precariously slippery when wet. This means keeping right until about a third of the way up, where the route crosses the stream and ascends on the left. Above, the sky is bright blue and the large natural amphitheatre that surrounds the top looks spectacularly inviting. When I finally stand in its midst, it doesn’t disappoint.

By contrast, Foxes Tarn itself is no more than a puddle and you wonder where all the water running down the gully is coming from. From here, a steep trudge up a bank of loose scree brings me to the saddle below Symonds Knott, with its curious cross of stones. Bearing left, I reach the summit.

If Scafell Pike invokes feelings of awe and reverence for its sheer size and desolate majesty, those emotions intensify amid the wild grandeur of its neighbour. The panoramic vistas are staggering. The blue expanses of Wastwater and Burnmoor Tarn lie side by side as you look down on the high Screes that separate them (those slopes that look so steep from the water’s edge).

Burmoor Tarn and Wastwater from Sca Fell summit

In his book, The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton devotes a chapter to the sublime. In its rightful sense, sublime does not mean merely beautiful. To qualify as sublime, landscapes must overwhelm, intimidate, shock and awe, strike fear as well as wonder. Ultimately, they must make you acutely aware of your own weakness and insignificance in the face of something so vast, noble and infinitely more powerful.

These wild terrains were forged 450 million years ago by colossal volcanic explosions that must have exceeded any vision of Armageddon the imagination can conjure. They will remain long after our flesh and bone is gone. Up here, larger than life characters like Skelton, Ritson and Rigg are mere pinpricks in the fabric of time; indeed, the whole of human history is a tiny blip on an unfathomably large axis. It makes you feel very, very small, and it’s the most uplifting thing imaginable.

De Botton suggests that because we spend our lives imagining we’re powerful, and feeling frustrated when we can’t make little things happen, it is intensely liberating to be reminded we’re a tiny, insignificant part of something so overwhelmingly vast. I think he’s right. In the inscrutable context of the universe, what is truly remarkable is that we’re here at all; so being right here, right now, experiencing all this is, to some, proof of the divine; to the rest of us, it’s the most astonishing accident.

After a long while, I retrace my steps to the saddle, turn left, then bear right to follow a path along the top of the cliffs above Wasdale Head. Eventually, it descends the steep bed of a dried up stream back to Brackenclose.

In the car park, I chat with a woman who’s just ascended Scafell Pike via Mickledore. She’s an outdoor instructor and it’s her day off, so naturally she’s spent it climbing a mountain. She says her services don’t include challenges like the Three Peaks as she objects to these on ethical grounds. I’m curious but I don’t push. Somehow, that seems a topic for another day – too mired in the politics of human hubbub. Right now, we’re basking in something grander. We swap cursory accounts of our routes and marvel at how striking the views were. Our conversation is punctuated by long pauses and much looking back and up. There’s nothing awkward in our silences however – we’re sharing something not easily expressed in words: the beatific, humble elation that comes from standing on the shoulders of giants.

Click here for a map and detailed directions for this walk at walklakes.co.uk

Fell Walk, History, Legend, Natural History

Trial by Water

November 29, 2016 George Kitching 10 Comments

Grisedale Pike and Force Crag Mine from Braithwaite

The fate of osprey chicks born on Bassenthwaite Lake this summer, the last days of Force Crag mine, an innovative ecological solution to deal with its legacy and what the legend of Long Meg can teach us all feature in this account of a cracking fell walk up Grisedale Pike.

Walking Around With Your Head in the Clouds

I was descending Skiddaw when I first really noticed Grisedale Pike. A gloomy ascent, dogged with fog, was compounded by a viewfinder at the top taunting me with hints of what lay beyond the cloud. Resigned, I picked my way back along the summit ridge, squinting to discern each cairn through the murk, humming Husker Du’s “Walking Around With Your Head in the Clouds Makes No Sense At All” and cursing the Met Office to a solitary herdwick, my only companion.

Then, a sudden flash of blue sky and the cloud broke, revealing a riveting vista over Derwent Water; cool and inviting where it lapped Keswick; dark and Arthurian on its southern shore, where the clouds still rolled above.

My journey down over the subsidiary peak of Little Man and the heartlessly named, Lesser Man was bathed in glorious sunshine. Across the lake, the slopes of Catbells were lush and green; but to their right, a narrow U shaped valley, ringed with fells, caught my attention. At its forefront, a mountain rose steeply from the valley floor to a needle sharp peak, high above the village of Braithwaite. A path ran unbroken from base to summit, appearing almost impossibly steep at the pinnacle.

A quick study of the OS map revealed the valley to be Coledale and the mountain, Grisedale Pike. I vowed then to return and climb it. Today I’m making good that resolution.

As I approach Braithwaite on the A66, Grisedale Pike soars and I wonder why it has never stood out to me like this before. I drive through the village to the informal roadside parking area opposite Hope Memorial Park. From here, steps lead up above the road, through a thinly wooded area and out on to the open hill side.

The stiff initial gradient means the views reward early. To the east, Skiddaw looks magnificent as the October sun lights its plunging western slopes. To its right, shimmers Derwent Water; wisps of cloud drifting low over its silver waters. To the north, Bassenthwaite Lake glistens under a clear blue patch of sky.

It was Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s fancy that Sir Bedivere returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake in Cumbrian waters; and a stay at Mirehouse, overlooking Bassenthwaite, inspired his Morte d’Arthur.

Bassenthwaite – The Return of a Raptor

In summer, visitors to Dodd Wood, on the lake’s shore, may be lucky enough to spot an osprey diving to snatch a trout or perch. These fish-eating raptors, with a five foot wingspan, were once common in Scotland and probably in England too. But during the 18th and 19th centuries, persecution saw numbers dwindle. The last nesting pair were destroyed in 1916, leaving ospreys extinct as a breeding species in Britain. Happily they returned in 1954, when a visiting pair nested in Strathspey. An intensive wardening programme was established to safeguard breeding and Scottish numbers have gradually increased to around 160 pairs.

During the 1990’s, the Forestry Commission and Lake District National Park Authority, in partnership with the RSPB, worked hard to encourage visiting ospreys to stay at Bassenthwaite, even constructing a purpose-built nesting platform. In 2001, their efforts paid off and the first eggs were laid. Since then, over 150 chicks have hatched here. A dedicated team keeps watch during the summer months to document developments and deter egg thieves. They have installed a webcam over the nest. They ring the chicks and fit transmitters so they can track the birds through their autumn migrations and their overwintering in Africa.

Three chicks hatched this year, but tragically two were taken by Magpies while only a day or two old. Magpies had been observed stealing fish tails and leftovers from the nest while the parents are away fishing, but they had never been known to take a chick. Naturally fears were high that the third chick would meet the same fate. Against the odds, she survived and was ringed and named Bega in June. She made her first fledgling flight in July.

Bega migrated to Senegal in September, but has since moved on to Guinea and sadly the team has lost contact with her transmitter. It’s possible the transmitter is damaged or detached, but first migrations are fraught with danger; only 20-30% of young ospreys make it to full adulthood and go on to breed themselves. There will be some anxious days in April at the Whinlatter Visitors’ Centre as the team wait to see if Bega returns to her place of birth. You can follow developments at http://www.ospreywatch.co.uk

Peaks and Pies

The initial slopes give way to a grassy depression. Beyond, a broad bank climbs to a thin ridge below the sharp rise of the summit. When I spied Grisedale Pike from Skiddaw, its flanks were green. Now, autumn has turned the dying bracken brown and the sun adds a red hue to the steeper reaches, in splendid counterpoint to the immaculate blue of the sky. The green line of the path dissects the ruddy expanse like a Richard Long artwork. The peak towers, charcoal, above. Like an ageing diva, on stage for the final time, the fell’s flora saves its most flamboyant finery for its curtain call.

The unexpected clemency of the weather means walkers pause here to stuff fleeces into rucksacks and steel themselves for the tough pull ahead. On attaining the ridge, layers are rapidly retrieved as the breeze picks up and begins to bite. It’s been a long pull up but the steepest and most exposed section still lies ahead. Ominously, across Coledale, Causey Pike is veiled in cloud, and it’s only a matter of time before it reaches here. Happily the sky is still clear as I haul myself up the final rock steps to the summit. The ground drops away precipitously on both sides and the wind again ups its game.

I find shelter on the north side just below the summit and hunker down to enjoy the view while I can. It stretches all the way to the Solway Firth. Whinlatter forest is a rich canvas below; broad swards of evergreen jut against a dappled palette of deciduous decay. In my bag I have a Toppings pork and chilli pie, so right now there is no finer place to be. Oh I know lard is not necessarily the fell walkers friend – energy bars and bananas are a far more effective quick-burn fuel – but the unrelenting pursuit of health and efficiency is a soulless exercise and perching in the lee of a mountain peak, with the northernmost part of England stretched out before you, demands a pie!

View Hobcarton Crag — View from the ridge

To my left, the ridge drops to Hobcarton Crag then veers round and climbs again to Hopegill Head. As I study the line to to pick out the next section of my route, it disappears, lost as the mist rolls in.

Just then, I hear voices. I get up and hoist my rucksack on to my back as a Geordie couple appear on the summit. “I could see the Solway Firth five minutes ago!” the woman exclaims. “I know it was lovely till you arrived”, I joke, “did you have to bring this with you?” They laugh and tell me this always happens to them up here. They are planning to do the Coledale Horseshoe taking in Hopegill Head then following the high level route back to Braithwaite via Eel Crag, Sale and Causey Pike. They are worried they might get all the way round and not see anything, but the cloud is already thinning so I think their concerns are premature. Within minutes, it is almost clear over Hobcarton Crag. We make our way down together as the last low lying wisps blow across the path like smoke, then lose each other as we variously stop to take pictures en route to Hopegill Head. By the time we all reach the summit, the cloud has lifted considerably and we can see the north shore of Crummock Water. A mountain rescue helicopter flies past and we hope it’s a training exercise.

We part company and I make my way over the grassy top of Sand Hill and down the steep scree to Coledale Hawse. Eel Crag lies ahead but the horseshoe will have to wait for another day. Today, there’s something I want to see in the valley below.

Heavy Metal Plunder – Force Crag Mine

From the hawse, the path zig zags down toward the head of Coledale. As I near the bottom, the sheer dark face of Force Crag comes into view. Force Crag was mined from 1860, initially for lead, then later for zinc and barytes. Barytes are used in oil drilling, car production and medical imaging, but also in the manufacture of munitions. During the Second World War, this tiny corner of the Lake District was a hive of activity, with trucks carrying ore from adits high on the fell side down a precarious track known as the Burma Road.

Force Crag outlived all other mines in Lakeland but conditions were harsh and, with large quantities of water flowing through, it was a constant battle to keep the mountain from caving in on it. One of those battling to keep the levels open through their final days was Alen McFadean. In his blog post, The Black Abyss, he gives a fascinating account of “sloshing about in knee-deep water” to “shore up rotten timber work then, spending Saturday night curled up in the back of a freezing Land-Rover and waking the next morning with a thick head and in an impenetrable mountain mist.” Harsh working conditions by anyone’s standard, but to Alen it was a labour of love. You can find his full account (and his recollection of this same walk) at: https://becausetheyrethere.com/2010/01/06/the-black-abyss-grisedale-pike-and-force-crag-mine

Ultimately, it was a battle the mountain won. In 1990, a collapse occurred in level zero, from which there could be no recovery. Today, nature is slowly reclaiming the ground; the corrugated iron of the buildings, rusting to resemble the autumn bracken of the slopes that surround.

In its death throes, the mine dealt a wounding blow, however. The water that has built up in the disused levels leaches metals from the exposed rock, contaminating Coledale Beck and pouring up to a tonne of zinc, cadmium and lead into Bassenthwaite Lake each year. A study for the Environment Agency identified the environmental impact as one of the worst in the UK. Metals like zinc are toxic to fish. If fish populations decline, the ospreys will go too.

It’s a problem common to disused mines. Elsewhere large, costly water treatment works have been built to fight the problem with chemicals. At Force Crag however, an innovative ecological solution, devised by The Coal Board in partnership with Newcastle University, is underway. The water is diverted into two vertical flow ponds, created from recycled parts of the old mill workings. These ponds are lined with a geomembrane and filled with a compost treatment mix, which filters out the metals. From there, the water flows through reed beds that trap more of the solids, before it finally discharges into Coledale Beck. The scheme is performing even better than expected, removing between 94% and 98% of the contaminants. The fish and the ospreys can rest easy.

Why Are We Still Hanging Witches?

Coledale Beck babbles beneath the old mine track, which I follow, all the way back through the valley, to the parking area. And it gets me thinking…

Drive east to Little Salkeld, just beyond Penrith, and you come to one of Britain’s largest stone circles, Long Meg and Her Daughters. Legend has it they were a coven of witches, turned to stone by the thirteenth century wizard, Michael Scot, for profaning the Sabbath. It is said that no-one can count the stones twice and come up with the same number. If anyone succeeds, the spell will be broken and bad luck will rain down upon them. If Long Meg herself is fractured, she will shed real blood.

It’s all delicious hokum of course – the circle dates from the late Neolithic / early Bronze Age era while the name itself is thought to derive from a 17th century witch, Meg of Meldon. As Simon Sharma points out in The History of Britain, history often reveals more about the time it was written than the time it describes and the same is true of folklore. The fact that people in the 17th or 18th centuries invented supernatural stories about the origin of the stones reflects the widespread fear of witchcraft in Britain at the time. In those days, if a stream was poisoned and the fish died, or the crops failed, or villagers fell ill for reasons no-one could readily explain, people were likely to blame black magic and look for a scapegoat to punish. Hundreds of women were hung for no crime other than being poor or different; barbarism born of ignorance and superstition.

Today, we live in more enlightened times; we can devise brilliant ecological schemes to strip pollutants from our natural water courses and undo the damage of our industrial past; we can encourage endangered species back from the brink. Yet, when the failings of our political and economic systems leave large numbers homeless, without secure jobs, with falling wages, rising costs, and reliant on food banks, we blame “benefit scroungers” and immigrants. The poor and the different.

Dark Ages cast long shadows.

Click here for detailed directions at WalkLakes.co.uk

Fell Walk, History, Scramble

King of the Copper Mountains

November 14, 2016 George Kitching 4 Comments

Dow Crag via the South Rake, The Old Man of Coniston, Swirl How and Levers Water

Dow Crag is one of the finest rock faces in the Lake District. It is usually thought to be the preserve of climbers, but a hidden gully known as the South Rake affords the adventurous walker an ascent that doesn’t require ropes. In this post, I recount an exhilarating scramble to the top via this route and delve into the rich history of the Coniston area and the nearby port of Whitehaven, which was once so strategically important that it was invaded by the US navy during the war of independence.

Coniston, Copper and the Birth of a Sausage

When I was little I had a favourite book called The King of the Copper Mountains. The story hailed from Holland but the title could easily apply to Coniston. The Cumbrian village enjoys a commanding position at the foot of the copper-rich Furness fells, overseeing the lake that shares its name – a name that derives from the Norse for king.

Coniston Water has a history of aquatic adventure. It is the setting for Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons and it’s where Donald Campbell set four world water speed records between 1955 and 1964 in his boat, Bluebird. It was here too that he made his final, fatal attempt to reach 300mph in 1967.

Brantwood, on its eastern shore was home to John Ruskin, the leading Victorian art critic, philanthropist and social reformer. Ruskin declared the view from his house to be the “the best in all England”, although, to be fair, he said the same of Church Brow in Kirkby Lonsdale and described a vista on Friar Crag as the finest in Europe. In fact, when it came to lavishing his affections on superlative views, Ruskin was a bit of a brassy tart, but such was his love of Brantwood, that shortly before his death in 1900 he declined the opportunity to be buried in Westminster Abbey, preferring to be laid to rest in the peace of the Coniston churchyard.

Today Coniston thrives on tourism but its past prosperity owed much to slate and copper. Its copper mines reached their zenith in the early 19th century when the ore produced here was used to make coins and weaponry and even to clad the hulls of the naval fleet. The original shafts were dug two centuries earlier under the patronage of Elizabeth I, who licensed German engineers to spearhead the effort. The Germans brought more than mining expertise however. They also brought a recipe for a coarse, spicy, unlinked sausage which proved so popular with the locals that it evolved into a regional delicacy. Copper mining may be long gone but every Cumbrian butcher worth his salt can boast an award winning Cumberland sausage.

American Invasion

Spices were in steady supply due to Coniston’s relative proximity to Whitehaven. In its heyday, Whitehaven was a major port. Indeed, so great was its strategic importance that in 1778, at the height of the War of Independence, the town was subject to a hostile American invasion. The assault was the brain-child of John Paul Jones, a US naval commander of Scottish descent, who had spent his early working life in Whitehaven. Jones planned a raid to burn the boats in the harbour and inflict significant damage on British ships and supplies. But his enthusiasm was not shared widely among his crew and by the time the USS Ranger dropped anchor on the evening of April 22nd, they were close to mutiny; a situation that can’t have been helped by the arduous three hour row to the harbour.

The raiding party was divided between two boats. Jones himself took charge of one, which was to storm the Lunette battery and disable the guns, thus securing a safe passage back to the ship. Meanwhile, the other boat, led by Lieutenant Wallingford, was to make for the quay and torch the ships that were docked there. His crew must have rowed the final furlong steeling themselves for a bloody skirmish only to find that on a cold night in Whitehaven, with no prior warning of their arrival, there was no-one around to fight. Furthermore, their primary mission of burning the boats faltered when they realised they had no matches and the candles they’d brought had long since blown out. Faced with such compromising circumstances, Wallingford’s men did the only reasonable thing. They went to the pub, where they were soundly defeated by the strength of the local ale.

By the time Jones arrived back from the battery, half his men were three sheets to the wind. Undeterred, he improvised matches from strips of canvas dipped in sulphur and managed to start fires in a couple of the cargo holds. The invaders then beat a hasty retreat, hoping to watch the town go up in flames from the safety of their ship. Fortunately, the townspeople were one step ahead. With the Great Fire of London a recent memory, Whitehaven had invested in fire engines, which were swiftly deployed, successfully extinguishing the flames before they reached the rigging.

In the meantime, the guards that Jones had overpowered at the fort had freed themselves and got the guns back in operation. The resulting canon fire failed to hit the retreating rowing boats but the loud bangs can’t have done much for the burgeoning hangovers, kicking in among the crew. As the people of Whitehaven returned to their beds, Jones and his men sailed back to America with their tails between their sea legs, their bungled raid destined to become a footnote in the history books; everywhere but Whitehaven that is, where it is still a cause for celebration.

A Coward’s Route up Dow Crag

The Coniston Coppermines Valley is flanked on three sides by majestic mountains: Wetherlam, Swirl How, Brim Fell and the Old Man of Coniston. Beyond the Old Man lies Dow Crag which Wainwright described as one the grandest rock faces in the Lake District. Its cliffs and gullies are a big draw for rock climbers and it has a particular attraction for me as I can see it from my house.

The Crag is usually ascended along the ridge from the Walna Scar Pass or from Goat Hawse, which links Dow Crag to the Old Man. Its imposing cliffs, with the deep clefts of Great and Easy Gully, look unassailable to walkers although climbers class the latter as a scramble. In his Pictorial Guides to the Lake District, Wainwright pours gentle scorn on this classification, concluding that climbers have no concept of “easy” and suggesting that, while a walker might manage to get up that way if he were being chased by a particularly ferocious bull, it is best avoided on all other occasions. He does reveal, however, that there is a “coward’s way up”. It should be stressed here that Wainwright is using “coward” in an ironic sense to mimic the climber mindset that named Easy Gully, “Easy”, but nevertheless, he goes on to describe a steep and loose scramble that will take those, unaverse to putting hand to rock, all the way to the top of the crags without the need for ropes. At the time, it was unnamed – Wainwright proposed “the South Rake” and the moniker stuck.

My friend, Tim, is an ardent hiker with a taste for adventure, so what better challenge for the pair of us than to tackle the South Rake and walk the ridge to Swirl How? We set out with a little trepidation at the prospect, not least because I’d climbed the Old Man two weeks earlier and spied the Rake, which looked well nigh vertical from there. Reserving the right to declare discretion the better part of valour and take the soft option if necessary, we started up the steep tarmac lane from Coniston to the start of the Walna Scar road, a stony track leading to the Walna Scar Pass.

About a mile down the track, a wooden sign directs us right along the footpath leading to the Cove. With the southern slopes of the Old Man on one side and imposing face of Dow Crag towering ahead, we climb steadily to the copper-green tarn of Goats Water. On the far shore, scree slopes rise sharply to the foot of the Crag. A quick peek through the binoculars reveals a group of climbers perched below the main buttress and other tiny figures, further to the left, ascending diagonally up a gully that must surely be the Rake. Reassuring ourselves that we’re not the only ones daft enough to attempt this, we pick our way around the foot of the tarn and follow a faint path up the steep scree. As we reach the bottom of the Crag near the dark gash of Great Gully, the mountain rescue stretcher box comes into view imparting a frisson of foreboding. After a short pause to catch our breath and admire the view – Goats Water already seems a long way below – we tread around the base of the buttress to the start of the South Rake.

South Rake Ascent — Ascending the South Rake

Tim opts to go first, making his way gingerly up the steep incline. I follow at a safe distance, knowing the rocks are loose and easy to dislodge. To his credit, Tim does this only once. Patience and concentration are required at all times as solid holds are never guaranteed and it’s imperative to test the steadfastness of each step before putting your weight on it. It’s unnerving when successive stones give way under your grip but a little careful investigation eventually yields a firm ascent.

We pass the entrance to Easy Gully which reminds us we’re on the “coward’s route” but it certainly doesn’t feel like it when, about half way up, the gradient steepens further and it all seems more than a little exposed. Tim later confesses to have glanced down at this point and experienced a momentary wobble. It was only that I was concentrating so hard on where to tread that I kept my eyes ahead and was spared the same misgiving. Nearing the top, the gully forks and we opt for different routes, arriving on the flatter ground of the summit several yards apart. This is when the elation kicks in and for a few minutes we feel every bit the Kings of the Copper Mountain. The euphoria is only slightly dampened when we spy the climbers ascending the vertical cliff!

We walk on over Dow Crag and drop down to Goats Hawse where we bear right to ascend the Old Man. In contrast to the handful of walkers on the previous peak, ramblers are arriving here by the coach load. We forgo the overcrowded summit platform and break for a picnic overlooking Low Water before pressing on over Brim Fell and climbing to the summit of Swirl How.

Along the ridge the views south west to Seathwaite Tarn are striking; and across the Duddon Valley, Harter Fell honours its geological ancestry by looking every inch the volcano, a plume of cloud erupting from its peak. To its right, Sca Fell and Scafell Pike loom like great brutal rock giants locked in an eternal standoff across the ridge of Mickledore. On top of Swirl How, Crinkle Crags, Bow Fell, the Pike O’ Blisco and the Langdale Pikes hone into view and we take our time drinking in the aspect. To the south lies Morecambe Bay and to the east are Windermere and Coniston. Below is Levers Water, our next destination, which we reach by clambering down the rocky path of the Prison Band and turning right at Levers Hawse to reach the water’s edge.

Panic at Levers Water

Levers Water is a natural tarn that was dammed in 1717 to create a reservoir for the copper mines. It now acts as the water supply for Coniston itself. In order to raise the water level, the entrances to the neighbouring mine shafts had to be sealed to prevent the tarn from flooding the tunnels and turning the becks descending to Coniston into raging torrents. Rumour had it that, in one case, the builders had used a giant wooden plug – a story confirmed in the 1980’s when a group of cavers managed to locate the timber stopper.

Another caving party visited the plug in the early nineties and were shocked to discover an improvised explosive device wedged against it. The Bomb Squad was dispatched and managed to render the device safe, removing it to the nearby fell side where they carried out a controlled detonation. The Sunday Times postulated it was a weapon of terror, placed there by the IRA in an attempt to assassinate John Major, then Prime Minister, who was due to visit the area. The story was dismissed by the police who believed the makeshift bomb to have been the work of cavers, hoping to blast through to the next level, unaware of weight of water behind. The fuse had been lit but good fortune had intervened and it had petered out.

Best Defence

From Levers Water we make our way down through the Coppermines Valley to the Sun Hotel in Coniston for revitalising pints of Loweswater Gold. The bar and terrace are packed – proof that while his mines are consigned to history, the King of the Copper Mountains remains in rude health. Sadly, the years have treated Whitehaven less favourably. Its prominence as a port declined as the greater capacities of Bristol and Liverpool took over and today it is a modest coastal town, its glory years marooned in its nautical past.

These days the American invasion is commercial and cultural, with nearly all British cities sporting identikit chains like the ubiquitous Starbucks and MacDonalds. Ruskin would have hated this homogenization of the high street and the revival of the Laissez Faire Capitalism he railed so ardently against. But as a champion of the artisan, I think he’d approve of the Sun Hotel with its impressive array of locally sourced ales. Round the corner at the Black Bull, they even brew their own Bluebird Bitter. No corporate conformity here then, and if it’s true that history repeats, pubs well stocked with potent local brews might just prove our best defence.

Blencathra via Doddick Fell, Mungrisdale Common, Bannerdale Crags, Bowscale Fell, Souther Fell

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A Dragon’s Back and a Right to Roam

Revolution

Away Trip

The Dragon’s Back

The Quiet Woman

Sources/Further Reading

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Grey Friar, Great Carrs, & Dow Crag from Seathwaite

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Coniston, Tarn Hows, Black Fell & Holme Fell

Courage

Defiance

Purification and Renewal

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The Old Man and the Raven

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Millican Dalton and Castle Crag

The Other

The Professor of Adventure

Into the Jaws of Borrowdale

No Man’s Land

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Haystacks and Wainwright.

From Hendrix to the Hills

An Unlikely Hero

Haystacks and Fleetwith Pike

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The Mosedale Horseshoe and a Night at Black Sail

The Lady in the Lake

The Mosedale Horseshoe

Black Sail Hut

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Wetherlam, Swirl How & Great Carrs via Steel Edge

Sheep Folds

Steel Edge

LL505 S for Sugar

Haunted

Monuments

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Bow Fell via Whorneyside Force and the Climbers’ Traverse

Centre of the World

Old Dungeon Ghyll

Whorneyside Force and Hell Gill

The Climbers’ Traverse and The Great Slab

Summit

Smugglers’ Footsteps

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The Herdwicks of Harter Fell

Epidemic

Herdies

Harter Fell

Hard Knott Roman Fort

Post Script

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Claife Heights and Sawrey

The Crier of Claife