Love's A Rocky Road

I have a confession to make. I've been having a passionate love affair for many years and it looks like continuing for a long time yet. What is more, I rather fear it's been going on with the full knowledge of my wife. Sometimes I hardly get to see the object of my desire from one year to the next; yet she's always tucked away somewhere in my heart. Though shapely and rounded, curvaceously bosomy even, she can also, at times, be rough, spiky and a wee bit dangerous. But mostly she welcomes you with open arms, and is as soft and playful as a spring lamb gambolling on new spring turf. I'm talking, of course, about the English Lake District and her fells.

These peaks have not the awe-inspiring height and grandeur and hazardousness of the Alps, or even the Pyrenees. They are friendlier and generally more accessible than the mountains of Scotland and Wales. In fact, never were hills more 'doable' and forgiving. Yet they must not be underestimated: each icy winter there's a toll of hillwalking injuries, even deaths; and there are certain loose gullies and steeply-inclined rakes which are interesting to say the least.

I was visiting Lakeland in my imagination long before I ever went there in person, and  did this mainly through A Pictorial Guide To The Lakeland Fells: that immortal seven-volume work by the retiring English accountant, felllwalker, guidebook writer and curmudgeon, Alfred Wainwright, known affectionately by the fellwalking fraternity as simply 'AW'. AW worked on his painstakingly detailed manuscripts from the early 1950s until the mid 1960s, completing one page a night. These manuscripts were reproduced in book form just as he'd created them: pen and ink drawings of the fells and their paths, executed with outstanding draughtsmanship and accompanied by a quirkily beguiling text written in a tiny hand.

There are two hundred and fourteen fells lovingly listed, described and illustrated in AW's masterwork - all except one (Castle Crag in Borrowdale) over a thousand feet in height. These fells are now known eponymously as the 'Wainwrights', and it's the ambition of many high level ramblers to climb each and every one, myself included. Although I wouldn't call myself an assiduous peak bagger, I calculated the other day how many peaks I'd already bagged, and decided I would make it a lifetime goal to do the lot. My total so far is thirty-eight. By my reckoning that makes one hundred and seventy six to go. So, if I suddenly start writing starry-eyed and giddily romantic posts from Kendal or Keswick or Crummock Water in the near future, you'll know what I'm up to ...

(The first photo was taken a few years ago on Scafell  - at 3163 ft the second highest fell in the Lake District. The second  is of Pillar Rock, which lies just below the 2927 ft summit of Pillar. Pillar Rock is really a climbers-only ascent. It was far too scary for me to attempt.)

Epiphany At Orrest Head

Saturday 11 August. In brief. Grasmere: Breakfast at Miller Howe café - where there's an Internet connection. Cotswold Rock Bottom Outdoors shop - bought bargain Teva sandals for £19. Wordsworth family graves in churchyard. Wordsworth's Dove Cottage, where he lived before Rydal Mount. Didn't go in. Ambleside: 3 bookshops - Wearings, Henry Roberts, Good Book Place. Went in. Also Public Library with Internet. No really outstanding pubs but The Golden Rule on Kirkstone Pass road is good "local" drinking pub - no bar meals, no pool, no music. Brotherswater (just south of Patterdale): walked from here to High Hartsop Dodd and back in rain. At spot by lake party had left beer cans, soft drinks bottles, plastic bags and, inexplicably, 2 perfectly good towels. Why do people have to leave rubbish in one of the most beautiful places in England? Beats me. Kirkstone Pass Inn: great pub dating from 1496. Windermere: circular walk taking in Orrest Head, where it all happened for Wainwright. Having visited his resting place on Haystacks earlier this year, thought it only proper I should pay tribute here too (see photos). Rain stopped. Great Langdale Camp Site: Uncle Ben's Express flavoured rice with diced-up vine tomatoes and boiled eggs. Yum. Watery sunset. Early night. Funny how it's much more exhausting on days when you're not climbing the big stuff!

Loughrigg

Just back from a wonderful week in the Lake District. The plan was: to camp in Langdale and to follow a pattern of 1 challenging high-level fell day followed by 1 or 2 days on easier lowland paths. Because of my left knee problem. I'm pleased to say this generally worked. Saturday 4 August at 11 pm found me in a rainy Ambleside. Slept in the car. I was on a budget, so that saved a night's campsite fee! And, surprisingly, I actually did sleep, curled crookedly on the back seat with a rug over and a window ever-so-slightly open. Early next morning I pitched at the National Trust Campsite in Great Langdale. I was eager for the fells, but wanted something to ease me in gently. Loughrigg seemed ideal - that fine and friendly, knobbly lump of a hill overlooking Ambleside, full of nooks and crannies, ferns, tarns, rocks, caves, marshy bits and magnificent viewpoints. One of Wainwright's favourites. And justifiably popular with everyone else that warm Sunday. I approached Loughrigg Terrace from the western end of Rydal Water. Great views of Grasmere, Helm Crag and Fairfield from the Terrace, raking at a very easy angle across the northern flank before meeting an obvious path on the left which climbed directly to the 335m summit (see 1st photo). Then a lovely, undemanding descent via Brow Head Farm and over the river Rothay to the northern fringe of Ambleside, picking up the track to Rydal Park and Rydal Hall (see 2nd photo) which began at a stone gateway just beyond Scandale Bridge. Rydal Hall and its adjacent buildings now house a Christian Community and Retreat. Formerly this area was of prime importance to the Lakeland poets and their notion of what constituted the picturesque. Close by I located Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's home from 1813 to 1859 (see 3rd photo). From Rydal a path contoured the lower slopes of Loughrigg above Rydal Water, passing 2 caves. These were man-made, part of the Loughrigg slate quarrying enterprise. The higher cave was very impressive. Dripping water and the cries of sand martins echoed spookily; and the spoil heap outside was covered in English stonecrop with its star-shaped white flowers and pink-tinged succulent leaves. Soon I was back at my starting point and contemplating a much bigger and grander walk the next day...

Be Gentle With Me

Anyone catch the Wainwright prgramme on BBC2 last night? Now I know that the Pictorial Guides are a dedicated labour of love, the product of a 12 year obsession. I own many of them myself and they are well-thumbed. They're a perfect shape and a perfect size and easy to carry onto the hill (though they are difficult to decipher at twilight in a tent without a strong torch and magnifying glass). I'm aware they were all hand drawn and hand written with exquisite draughtsmanship and that they're full of very skilled pen-and-ink illustrations of netsuke proportions and brimming with coy humour about women's legs. I'm full of admiration for the fact that there's nothing like them in publishing, that nothing will ever match them, that they've stood the test of time for over 50 years and sold over a million copies - or is it two million? But (and you knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you?) I'm afraid I just can't warm to them or to Wainwright, the old curmudgeon. This is sacrilege, I know - it's heaving these days at Innominate Tarn as walkers practically queue to scrunch over his ashes. I may have to duck now, and de-blog a while, to avoid the flak from the huge and zealous AW fan club. But blogs are all about honestly expressed ( self-opinionated?!) views, right..? Look, I respect him (though I do think there's more than a hint of vanity under that beguiling patina of shy modesty) - nay, admire him, and his unique series of books. But, to be honest, if I want to sit down of an evening and read about Lakeland, I'd much rather pick up A. Harry Griffin...

Listmania

I love the satisfying glow on reaching the top of a hill or mountain: that feeling of healthy, physical exertion, not to mention the stunning views from the summit (the photo shows the top of Cairn Gorm at 4085 ft). But most hill walkers would put me to shame as I've climbed only a small proportion of British hills. And those I have climbed I've done in a random way. Not that there's anything wrong with that. However, recently I've been studying the various hill lists and tables, and I've formulated a lifetime master plan to tick off a lot more. Certainly the Wainwrights, hopefully the Marilyns... Although I love Scotland, it's quite far to get to from where I live so I've bagged only a handful of Munros to date. It would be good to spend whole weeks up there at some point in the future - camping by remote lochs (wonderful!) - when the demands of job and family recede... Anyway, here's a summary of the hill lists available, which may be useful, as the subject can be quite complicated (bear in mind these lists are not cast in stone but are constantly changing as hills are added or deleted depending on the latest techniques in altitude measurement etc). Munros: Scottish mountains over 3000 ft (284 Munros plus 227 subsidiary "tops" - all in the Highlands); Corbetts: 219 Scottish peaks between 2500 ft and 3000 ft with a relative height of at least 500 ft (ie they must have a "drop" of at least 500 ft on all sides); Grahams: 224 Scottish hills between 2000 ft and 2500 ft with a relative height of at least 500 ft; Donalds: 89 hills in the Scottish Lowlands over 2000 ft (many of these are Corbetts or Grahams) with a relative height of at least 100 ft (however some of these have a relative height of at least 50 ft if considered to be of sufficient topographical interest!); Murdos: 444 Scottish summits over 3000 ft with a relative height of at least 100 ft (an attempt to apply strict objective criteria to the Munros); Nuttalls: 252 English hills and 188 Welsh hills over 2000 ft with a relative height of at least 50 ft (as documented in the beautifully written and illustrated two volume The Mountains of England & Wales by John and Anne Nuttall http://www.nuttalls.com/); Hewitts: 178 English, 137 Welsh and 211 Irish hills over 2000 ft with a relative height of at least 100 ft; Wainwrights: 214 hills (fells) in the English Lake District National Park (as lovingly described and illustrated in Alfred Wainwright's classic seven volume A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells) - there are a further 102 hills included in his supplementary guide The Outlying Fells of Lakeland http://www.wainwright.org.uk/; Birketts: 541 fell tops over 1000 ft in the English Lake District National Park (as listed in Bill Birkett's Complete Lakeland Fells, later condensed into the more compact A Lakeland Fells Almanac); Marilyns: 1554 hills in the British Isles that have a relative height of at least 500 ft regardless of distance, absolute height or other merit; Deweys: 441 hills in England, Wales and the Isle of Man between 500 metres and 2000 ft with a relative height of at least 100 ft. Now, if that's not confusing..!