It's remarkable how one great day can sustain you through a bad spell - and it's a good job, too, given the current meteorological mess masquerading as summer.
I'm writing this in the Lakes, near the end of a six-day break at the Coniston home of the parents of Tessa, the woman who puts up with me. Because of this domestic connection, Coniston trips are regular occurrences: we're down three or four times each year.
I've rarely seen it as wet as this, though, even deep in the soggiest of autumns. Days 2, 3, 4 and 5 were consistently atrocious, the only brief cheering spell coming late on Monday afternoon when a three-day downpour semi-abated during a traverse of Fellbarrow, Low Fell and Darling Fell from Thackthwaite to Loweswater (see Ann Bowker's site http://www.keswick.u-net.com/ldp2.htm
Skies sort of brightened, some of the tops came clear-ish, and splodges of sunshine lit up the fields and fells over Buttermere way. It was nice while it lasted, but by next morning it was so wet again that I had to shelter for ten minutes on the way back from an arduous expedition to the Coniston paper shop.
At least the first day, last Friday, was near-perfect, and I made very much the right choice in immediately heading off for a big outing. This tested an idea touted by my occasional stand-in, Ronald Turnbull, who has written elsewhere that Coniston is the place from which to climb Scafell Pike.
A glance at the map suggests this as being somewhat bonkers, or at least a tad ambitious (often the two are the same), but I can vouch for Ronald's sanity.
Without rushing, and including almost an hour spent sitting on various intermediate summits, it took only six hours 50 minutes to progress from Coniston village, over the Old Man, along to Swirl How, down the Carrs ridge to the Three Shires Stone, diagonally up on to Cold Pike, then rollercoasting along the Crinkles and Bowfell to Esk Pike before turning to enter the stony complex around England's highest hill.
Six hours is still a fair stride, of course, but it's not the most massive of days - even if there is then the problem of getting back, or at least getting down. I returned east, taking in Broad Crag and Ill Crag to vary things, then jinked over the two versions of Esk Hause and dropped to Mickleden via the ever-messy Rossett Gill in some idyllic early-evening light. The foyer of the Old Dungeon Ghyll provided a phone from which a lift was summoned, and I was met and whisked back to Coniston from a kilometre or so east of the New Dungeon Ghyll.
I'd have happily plodded the passes back to the village had I needed to, but being driven home in time for mid-evening food and drink felt much the more civilised choice.
This was, as I said at the start, a great day. In fact it qualified for the next accolade up the scale: it was a grand day. The kind of ground-covering, freedom-of-the-hills day to stay in the mind and warm the heart no matter how many wet'n'dismal episodes might follow. It was also the kind of day to stoke further plans (moral: every hill outing should spark ideas for a future one).
Now that I know how long it takes to do that, some kind of extension northwards is the next logical step.
So come the late-August visit, the first fine day is likely to see much the same but with the Corridor Route then used to connect Scafell Fell and Sty Head, followed by a one-big-effort slog over Gable, followed by Brandreth, the top of Honister and the easy plod up Dale Head before one of the various downhill ridges into Newlands and so to the A66. Coniston-to-Keswick high level has a nice ring to it, and looks to be feasible in around 12 hours given good health and fair winds.
There is nothing startling or new about such things, it must be said: the runners have been enjoying just this kind of massive fell-linking day for decades, while the tradition of hefty Lakeland walks dates back to such early-20th century stalwarts as AW Wakefield, Eustace Thomas and John Rooke Corbett.
Of course big days - much bigger than my medium-length Friday - have been undertaken in many hill areas across western and northern Britain, but the Lakeland fells seem particularly suited to this kind of escapade.
Quite why this is, and quite what constitute the good, bad and unique aspects of fellwandering as compared with those parts of Scotland with which many of us will be more familiar, was something that occupied my mind a fair bit as I walked across the southern and south-central fells.
And so here, and next week as well, are a few comparative thoughts and theories about the Lakes for you all to agree with or dispute as you see fit. The opening lines in italics are spoken by a sceptic.
The Lake District is too busy.
Yes and no.
There's no denying that Lakeland hosts a level of tourist-bustle well beyond that seen anywhere in Scotland outwith the Royal Mile and the Pitlochry woollen mills. But avoid Windermere/Bowness (which isn't really in the hills anyway), Keswick and Ambleside and the throng starts to thin out substantially.
As ever, geography and topography are the governing factors (as is the inherent laziness and guided-by-the-nose-ness of your average tourist).
Coniston is a good example in this respect. In theory it should be every bit as busy as Grasmere, probably more so, but the need for motorists to approach over a slightly awkward hill pass from the north or a winding lake-shore road from the south means that a lot of cars - and almost all the blight of coaches/caravans - steers clear.
As a consequence, Coniston feels like a Proper Place where people live and work but with the bonus of some impressively steep and complex hills on one side of the village and a rather nice sheet of water on the other. (For more on Proper Place-ness, see the Decent pubs section next week.)
Also, the west side of the district tends to be quieter than the eastern hubs. Again this is due to topography: the hills get in the way, as do the most entertaining roads in England (and possibly in Britain), the Wrynose and Hardknott passes.
The hairpins of these - with Hardknott undoubtedly the hairier - keep all manner of tourists at bay such that various pleasant corners, eg the upper Duddon between Birks Bridge and Cockley Beck, can feel as quiet as many a Scottish glen.
There is a downside, however: Wrynose/Hardknott is a risky route through the Lakes due to the danger of becoming stuck behind a crawler unwilling to pull in and let more competent and less lily-livered drivers past.
Usually this is someone in a powerful saloon car that they have no idea how to use, but an interesting variation occurred a few years ago when an artic driver hopped out of his cab in Ambleside and asked for directions to Whitehaven. Unaware of what vehicle he was driving, a well-meaning (or wicked) local suggested he try the passes - which consequently ended up closed for several days. Cranes and helicopters were required.
Never mind the honeypots: the actual hills are too busy. Again, there is no doubting the basic truth in this - but hey, have you been to the Coe, the Gorms, Glen Shiel or any of the other Munro centres recently?
They're not exactly empty. If there is any such thing as "wilderness" in Britain, it isn't to be found on the big hills.
As with walker-numbers in any area, all "busy" really means it that, like the curate's hill, it's busy in parts. Damn near everyone in the Lakes adheres to the great guidebook gospel, be it Wainwright, or the current (and, in my opinion, rather poor) Fell and Rock-sponsored tome, or the myriad versions and variations between.
Very few hillgoers start by looking at a map and making their own route-plan from scratch (which is increasingly true in Scotland too, of course). This, and the extraordinary number of high-hill paths, means that to stray even slightly from any of the "accepted" routes is to very quickly find a reasonable approximation of solitude.
A good example of this came during my long day out from Coniston. Most of the route was willingly done on major paths, there being a need for speed and smooth progress, and other people were in view for much of this (although not in the latter stages: see the Time for tea section next week).
But the route required one short linking section over slightly rougher and less popular ground: the haul northwestwards from the top of Wrynose to Cold Pike. This took 40 minutes and crossed what in Scotland would be regarded as a routine stretch of sloping moorland. Suddenly there was only a thin path and zero people, all of whom were evidently doing the standard motorway-following thing elsewhere.
It's the same on the actual Coniston fells, the Lakeland hills I know best. Here the main routes up the Old Man are routinely busy, but wander up the slope at the back of Levers Water, or the nice dogleg ridge to the north of Low Water, or any number of please-yourself routes, and chances are you'll meet no one until you pop out on the ridgelines.
The straitjacketed approach is most worrying when it becomes inflexibility in the face of bad weather.
On my previous Coniston visit, in a fantastic early-March whiteout with deep snow, skidding walls of spindrift and a battering gale, I clambered up the Boo Tarn ridge to the Old Man before taking the safe-if-you-know-it option off Brim Fell to the "wrong" side of Low Water.
This was great fun, and dropping out of the cloud just below the ridgeline showed the steep corrie, cwm or whatever they call it in England to be in great nick.
The odd thing was that not only had I met or seen no one during the entire traverse, but there hadn't been any bootprints either, not even in the sheltered, less wind-affected hollows.
It was only when joining the main tourist drag at Low Water that I suddenly came across a compacted blitz of bootprints: everyone had done the guidebook thing of up-and-down the main path.
This, as those who have been there will testify, goes through terrain that is steep, slaty and often slithery even in dry summer weather. It must have felt like a tilted skidpan that day, with the snow hammered down and compressed by 100 or more boots.
There was no way I'd have gone up or (especially) down that way even with the inducement of a slap-up meal in the Sun Hotel afterwards, so to see the crowds ignore all the safer, gentler, soft-snow options simply because the books didn't mention them was a bit worrying. Mind you, I wouldn't pretend to be any kind of expert; maybe they all were.
Continued next week (including Peoplewatching, The Biggest Boobytrap in Britain?, and You can shove your Naismith's up your...)
Dave Hewitt
5/7/2002
Dave can be contacted at Dave.Hewitt@dial.pipex.com
