This walk gave me the ability to conjure out of other people their great adventures. It was like a Masonic handshake, a way of sharing the secret of what was extraordinary.
This chap, for example, told me he had been in the Far East. A young scared English man flapping around in the remnants of the British Army that tried to stop the Japanese advance through Burma. It was the matter-of-fact-ness of his story that sticks in my mind.
"We often ran out of supplies" he said.
Well equipped, walking around England, a well mapped country I often felt that sharpening of senses that comes from not being sure of myself. God knows how scared I would have been if I had been battling my way through Burma. He left me, my new friend, excited, looking forward to walking through the Lakes.
When you talk about Cumbria and the far North West of England an image of the Lake District is conjured up, all high peaks and lake filled valleys. However this is not the whole story. The northern edge of this district is a fertile and flat land of rivers that run down to the mighty Solway Firth. The plain is dominated by Carlisle.
Carlisle has more than its fair share of rivers, it is sited where the Rivers Eden, Petteril and Caldew meet. It is a city of bridges, a place with a traffic problem. After the calm of the quick walk down the side of the Eden it struck me that it was Monday morning. Monday morning and my heart went out to the sad looking faces of the drivers of the slow moving cars. No commuting for this walker, I was heading for the hills. But first I took in the centre of Carlisle.
Historic Carlisle was a border town. A prized possession which the Scots and English fought for, over many centuries and reflects in its streets the history of the two countries joined by the Act of Union . I made my way into the centre of town walking up Scots Street and left walking along English Street. Modern Carlisle is still a prize. A big urban centre with red brick factories that reminded me more of the mills of Manchester than the stone built emptiness of Cumbria. Judging by the size of its traffic jams it is still a place of work for many people.
The route I took that morning followed the line of the River Caldew going south out of Carlisle. At first the route took me out through the industrial end of the city, along a railway line past the factories that had grown up along side the water, then into the charms of lowland England. Through the parklands of an old country estate, through farms, past the slow meanderings of the river, I followed a weaving way of water moving through pasture.
I was aware that I was climbing during the ten mile walk to Caldbeck that morning but it felt flat in contrast to the Fells that now dominated the skyline ahead of me. I was not aiming for any valley now, I was aiming straight at the hills. It felt like I was trying to sneak into the Lake District over a back fence. A cat burglar coming in over the high barrier of the Skiddaw range rather than going round like the cars to use the traditional east-west road route taken by the A 66. From Caldbeck going south - the only way is up.
As I started to climb I felt the weight of my rucksack swing outwards, pulling against the straps. I felt gravity get hold of my boots. I started to lumber, breathing hard. I started to smile. I was turning into a masochist.
I won’t pretend that the climb out of Calder is either the highest or hardest in
England. However it is a good slope on which to be initiated into the mysteries of hill
walking. You grind on up for awhile and then suddenly you are alone with your own
heavy breathing in your ears. You find yourself craning your neck upwards. Your
eyes seek out the point of connection, the line where the land meets the sky. I can
only describe this feeling as being an initiation, like a rite of manhood.
Solo walking in the hills is addictive. It is thrilling to find yourself coming over the brow of a long climb and to be aware that you are up, and that you are walking in the sky. When I looked back I could make out the river and a dark smudge on the horizon that I assumed was Carlisle.
There is an awesome sense of power that comes with being able to see so far. The route took me over High Pike and then along an exposed saddle to a hut that stood high above the hidden valley of the Gramsgill Beck. I sat up on the hillside by this lonely shack and had the overwhelming urge to laugh. I jumped, skidded and scrunched my way down the first bit of the drop to the beck before good sense overtook me and stopped me breaking my neck.
Despite the solid looking mass of the hills of the northern Lake District there are ways through. I was back with the River Calder now. It had cut a path between the heights of Blencathra on my left and Skiddaw on my right which made an excellent route. The river was barely recognisable as the sluggish stream I had followed this morning. Here it was a reckless charge of upland water. A boy racer, yet to get old and become the middle-aged Maestro driver that I had seen that morning near Carlisle.
After the valley of the upper Calder the path swung left to enter the tight pass that runs at the side of Blencathra. Suddenly there was a drop off the path on my left and I found my legs going faster. This was a spot where I did not want to be when the sun went down. I was in the shadow of the hill walking a gloomy corridor that was as cold as night despite the fact that the sun was still high in the sky. Then I came back into the evening sunlight rounding the shoulder of Lonscale Fell and I saw one of the finest views of all of my walk.
Derwent Water, a dark blue mirror reflecting the clouds and the high hills. The epitome of the Lakeland’s beauty. A view made perfect by the fact that a hill below me blotted out from the view most of Keswick and the A66 in the foreground.
Coming down is the hardest part about hill walking. It is hard on tired legs. Your feet vibrate like shock absorbers and your femurs attempt to break out through your knees. I descended with the grace of a sack of ballast falling off a lorry, keeping my eyes glued on lake below me.
By the time I had skirted around Derwent Water the next morning the warmth of my welcome in Keswick had become an affectionate memory. Clouds had crash-landed on the lake overnight and I was now walking through a wall of water. All thoughts of the excellent curry and conversation I had enjoyed the night before were soon washed away by the deluge.
I was getting wet. An all pervading kind of wet that somehow had got into my watch and my map case. I was warm enough despite the wet inside my waterproofs and decided that there was nothing else for it but to keep on plodding. I had not bargained with the wind getting up.
At Borrowdale Gates the sides of the dale closed up. Ahead of me the wind ripped up the cloud on the rugged valley floor sending spinning shreds of vapour tearing towards me. The view reminded me of the scene in ‘Indiana Jones’ where the Ark of the Covenant is opened and the terrifying forces of divine vengeance strip off the flesh of the Nazis. The wind had decided it was time to howl.
In my plan I had decided to climb Scafell Pike today - a walk round England topped off by England’s highest point. But I knew that this was not the day for a solo effort on the hills. As I slipped my way along the side of the stream I imagined what it would be like to be out on the most exposed point in the hills. By now the rain was penetrating everything. Even the John Major’s were sopping wet.
Maps are important in the hills and mine was beginning to look rather sad in its sodden case. Rather than carrying at my side a clear view of the terrain as provided by the Ordnance Survey, what I was hiking with was now a pink and white lump of papier mache. To make matters worse I was heading towards a fold and would soon be needing to turn it over.
This was without doubt the worst weather I had ever walked in. It was like strolling in a car wash. I was a sock stuck in a washing machine on a perpetual spin cycle.
I continued along the Langstrath Beck through the narrow slit of this valley along a bridle track made up of stones. For the first three miles there was only ever one place to go and that was forwards into the teeth of the wind. However I knew that at some point I needed to go up, climbing along a waterfall to reach the Stake Pass. I only managed a glimpse of the map as I turned it over in its case before it gave up the ghost and dissolved like a sugar cube in a hot cup of tea.
I was saved from disaster by a large party of hill walkers coming over the pass. From this point upwards navigating became easy. I moved from bobble hat to bobble hat clambering up past red socks as the crocodile descended.
I felt like a ship on top of Stake Pass. I was a clipper running fast around Cape Horn. Clouds broke around me, parting like a bow wave. The spray from the wind leapt up and licked my face. I forgot about Sca Fell and decided to get down.
As I descended by Black Crags I dropped out of the clouds and in front of me
was clarity, the grey V of Mickleden with
Langdale beyond. The difference in the
conditions between Borrowdale and Langdale was amazing.
The cloud made a roof at two thousand feet but underneath it was dry and not even that windy. I felt like I’d been through an initiation ceremony, and that I had survived. I came off the mountain. I had killed my lion.
I am King Arthur in that picture looking out across Windermere, all eyes and bristling beard scanning the lake with an air of expectation. It’s a magical moment. My features are full of the flashes of sunlight zipping off the lake. At any time now my illuminated face suggests, some wondrous woman will rise up from the depths of Windermere and offer around the magic swords like she’s flashing the fags. It is a picture of an unassailable romantic.
What I was actually watching with such delight was a chain ferry.
I love ferries. I even love the wait for a ferry. Everything about this particular ferry was unreal and theatrical and I could have sat for hours watching the wet chain appearing like a monster from out of the Lake. I loved the white line on the road that ran right into the lake and the turtle-like ponderousness of the boat coming towards me. The ferry itself seemed to have been designed with the express purpose of looking as little like a boat as possible.
My feet were changing my sense of geography. East Anglia had grown, The Fens had become endless. But the mighty North with its cast list of stars, the Dales, the Lakes and the North York Moors had shrunk, had become more intimate in my mind. Was it really possible that it was all so close together? I was leaving the Lakes after only two days. In my memories of family holidays it had been a vast place, a world of constant change. It did not seem right that I could leave this morning to walk over to the Yorkshire Dales.
I followed the little used paths of the Dales Way heading east crossing fields until I came to the River Kent. I walked alongside the river and exchanged pleasantries with the sleepy anglers sitting by the bank. The fish in the river were enjoying themselves. As I walked I heard regular splashes but all I ever saw when I turned was a ghostly impression of silver scales and an expanding circle of the ripples. Somehow I doubted whether the dozing men on the bank were up to catching such wily fish. Still, who cared? This was the kind of day where all that mattered was being out of doors.
I had become infected by the drowsiness that was in the air. I made endless small map reading errors and pottered on in a daze. Somewhere in the middle of some field I parted company with the Dales Way and just didn’t care. I wanted to sleep with the daisies.
I shuffled on following a route of my own, parting company with my angst about sticking to someone else’s planned path.
I was liberated, of the strictures of the clock, of the need to stick to a route. I was walking and that was all that mattered. I’d get to Sedbergh sometime ( and if I didn’t I’d get to somewhere else). Perhaps this was the moment when at last I got the commuter out of my system. I finally acknowledged that the timetable was dead.
One of the advantages of following your own route is that you start to notice features on the map. Up ahead of me there was ‘Fox’s Pulpit’. Obviously I had a duty to go and investigate. Just as soon as I had taken another nap.
I am not sure what I expected to see high up on the open fell. But what I found was a small garden and a freshness on the wind. An open air place which despite the grandeur of the view across to the Howgill Fells was intimate.
The word ‘pulpit’ has always suggested to me speaking down to a crowd, from a privileged position above. I was pleased to see that there was no point of elevation here - just simple fields, sheep and lambs and a deceptive sense of peace.
The history of the spot is tied up with the area’s religious history. Here the first big Quaker meetings were held. Ordinary folk came up here from miles around to here the words of speakers like Fox. I am not a Christian and find many aspects of all religions frightening but I found this spot inspiring. It was its simplicity and unassuming beauty that suited my needs.
The advantage of following your own route is that you get to go to interesting places. The disadvantage is that you make mistakes that others, with careful planning, had ensured you avoided. The planners of the Dales Way had carefully kept the walker away from main roads and had plotted a route that ran through the valley of the River Lune. Mine, however, ran down the hill blindly, straight into the arms of the A684.
I had misread the map again next morning walking out of Sedbergh with sleep in my eyes. I found myself face to face with a ford across a river. A brown muddy river whose colour spoke of cowsheds and killer algal blooms. I had been warned about it of course. On the sign where the bridlepath met the road it had said ‘Deep Ford’. On the map, now that I noticed, there was a break in the line of red dashes that marked the path, and of course by common sense, the River Dee had to be around here somewhere. I was in a bellicose mood, my evolution had moved on from the Human Golf-Ball. Now I had become Homo Know-all iensis. The self-opinionated missing link between the caves and civilisation.
If I could not find the line of the Dales Way, then it was not worth finding, I reasoned. I would improvise. I would know better. There will be stepping stones, or if not I would turn back. I hadn’t yet found turning back easy, so why exactly I thought I would this morning was a mystery. I walked on looking down. I had become fascinated by watching my boot laces bouncing with my steps. They had become muddy in the rain while crossing the mountains and now fully dry they released small clouds of dust like the seeds blowing out of a dandelion clock. The ground kept coming and I was right up against the River Dee before I noticed it being there.
This was not one of those whimsical fords that have been half manufactured, half maintained by the National Park authority. The farmer had dumped a few tons of loose road ballast in the stream so that he could drive his tractor across. The stones looked sharp. There was no turning back though. Rule 7c suddenly came into force.
My feet had not really seen daylight for awhile. After the obsessive daily inspections that I had put them through at the beginning I was starting to become more relaxed about their pains. On taking my socks off I was reminded of the meat in a cheap porkpie. The sort of pork pie that for some reason I used to enjoy as a student, eating all the pastry first so that I could contemplate the jelly and whitened meat in all its horror.
I was heading up Dentdale, a westerly facing valley which was softer and more lush than the Lakeland valleys of the last few days. I was in good form as I struck up the whalebacked hill of Whernside and climbed over easily from Dent coming down to the car park beside the Ribblehead Viaduct. I was back to the line of the PennineWay and turned due South following the Way towards Horton-in-Ribblesdale.
I woke up early the next morning with the sun streaming through the open
curtains. The map I had been reading was caught under my body and my
Pennine Way guide book had bored a small hole in my temple as I had used it as a pillow last
night.
I knew that I would be physically tired while crossing the uplands of England but what surprised me at Horton was how confused I was becoming. Can staring at your feet for ten hours a day really be that taxing? I was becoming vacant, dazed by the sun. I could feel my irises contracting as I walked out into the morning.
Ahead of me was one of the most exciting day’s walking of all of the Pennine Way and I did not mind rising early as it gave me a chance to climb before the sun got too hot. I was telling myself to be disciplined. I would take regular breathers. I would pace myself, over what would be a long day. Sensible advice that I took no account of.
The path out of Horton was a well defined farm track between two stone walls. On a bank holiday or in the height of Summer it could be something of a walkers motorway and I was glad to have it all to myself. It felt odd to be walking North again, but it was good to have the sun on my back and I wanted to climb Pen y Ghent before heading off on the Pennine Way continuing my way south. The glare off the path was already fierce. Down in their air conditioned offices near Bracknell the weather men would be reaching for the thesaurus, for another mot juste to describe the weather conditions. I trudged on feeling my feet gradually getting heavier. It was only nine o’clock and I already wanted to stop and take a nap.
I paused and looked across from the track at the mountain’s profile. It reminded me in silhouette of Pauline’s nose. I knew then I had been away from home too long.
I got heavier as I climbed. I became a pack animal. I became the blues. Slowly but surely I sang myself upwards. I climbed towards the top, getting hotter and hotter.
Any thought of pacing myself over the day went as I came to the top of Pen-y-Ghent. I was high on Kodachrome, two thousand feet up into the air.
I remember the next twenty miles to Thornton as a series of photographs. Scene after scene ran towards me lifting my feet as though they had wings. My fatigue fell off me at the edge and I was an eagle. The time had come to fly. The miles melted in the hot summer sun.
The dark blue water of Malham Tarn. The crazy paving world of limestone pavements. The climbers at Malham Cove. Places became portraits became pictures became people. I snapped away though my camera had run out of film.
By some miracle of timing my brother Douglas managed to arrive in Thornton-in-Craven exactly at the moment that I reached the road. He said that he did not recognise me but with the beard he had recognised our elder brother instead. I fell asleep in the car before we had driven a mile. Perhaps I was not looking so strange after all.
© Gavin Stewart 1996-2004
