Tag: Fells

England. Lake District. On completion of the Wainwrights (English Fells). Essay 1. June 2017.

I am striding purposefully towards Sergeant’s Crag. When I reach the summit, I’ll only have three fells left before I have completed all the Wainwrights, and one of these three lies just fifteen minutes beyond the one I’m about to reach. I’ve left the easiest peaks until last. Right now, however, I’m having trouble seeing the ground properly – not because of thick mist (quite often the case up here) but this time because my wretched eyes have teared up. I realise I’m feeling quite emotional about this completion business. I have been on a beautiful journey getting to know these mountains, and I don’t want it to end. To reach the end is like seeing a magnificent flower you have watched and tended since it was a stunning bud reach its fulness, knowing that from here on, a growth in beauty will be impossible. It is fulfilment, but it is also sad, filled with its own poignancy.

In the previous saddle, reached just before this story begins, I crossed paths with some walkers in quite a big “tourist” group of maybe a dozen or more. They were huffing and puffing as they laboured up towards the saddle I was merrily descending into, reliant on their leaders to guide them on their way. That saddle would be the high point of their day. Now, there is nothing wrong with this, and there is, in fact, a great deal of merit. Their confreres are possibly on a couch watching television at home. Nonetheless, hearing the puffing, and seeing their reaction to the fact that I had dropped to them out of a trackless wasteland (you’d think I’d popped in from the moon) and that I was eying up a route where I might make my way under some very steep cliffs to another saddle beyond – tricky, but I thought it was worth a try – I realised another aspect of this journey I have been on whilst completing these Wainwrights: namely, that my voyage is integrally tied to my love of freedom to go on whatever route I want, determining entirely my own direction and speed, and that that freedom which is my delight is entirely dependent on my ability to navigate confidently, and on my strength (relative to my diminutive size) and general agility in the mountains. Were I less confident, my journey would not have been the solitary one it has been.

As I headed towards Sergeant’s Crag on this “epiphany route”, a few more important observations brushed my consciousness:
(i) the extent to which this whole journey was not about “achieving” something, but rather about a relationship between me and these mountains. Moreover, every single one of them thus far had been done either solo or in the company of my husband with whom I am one (and who, being slower than I am, has followed me up when he’s been with me – maybe half the summits – giving me plenty of time to enjoy each top alone as I wait). This solo space at the heights has given me a special relationship to each mountain: it has been about a triad, viz., the mountain, Louise and infinite space; an experience of the sublime that is different for each mountain. I value each encounter.

(ii) the German phrase das Gehen ist das Ziel could be said to be a motto and description of my attitude to my journey. It is not about arriving, or completing; it is about the process and joy of getting there. I will soon have ticked all the boxes on a list, but I will not have completed my business with these mountains. My completion, such as it will be, will be like passing university entrance exams. I will have achieved the first phase in learning about these mountains, but by no means will that learning be complete. My knowledge of most is based on a single encounter. What sort of knowledge is that?

Every mountain you see in every photo of the Lakes District, I have climbed. You have no idea how satisfying that feels.
(iii) because the whole journey has been about a relationship and not about achieving something, but has been a celebration of my freedom and independence in the mountains, about delicious solitude and doing it myself, unaided, the very last thing I wanted to do, I realised suddenly, was to do my final mountain differently: that is, in the company of others. I wanted whatever emotion I experienced – and observation of my behaviour on this mountain suggested it would be teary rather than celebratory – to be mine alone and not shared with (very nice) strangers. It would be a spiritual time, and I wanted it to be quiet. Now, this was a problem, as, not knowing in advance how I would feel, I had responded positively to the suggestion by the fabulous David Purchase that I do the final climb with a group of special people he was gathering for the occasion. What an honour!! This seemed like such a lovely idea – it was. Only now did I see that my feelings had moved. I didn’t want chatter in my holy moment. I didn’t want other moods or expectations. I didn’t want to have to wait if these other people were slower, or, worse, be led up my own last mountain. I didn’t want my final fell to be any different from all the others.

And so, the most important thing I realised was that I was going to, intentionally, ruin my own party. I was going to do my final mountain today, two days earlier than expected. I would do it tonight, at sunset. I would have preferred dawn on the morrow, but already a forecast of several days’ heavy rain had been made (an excellent excuse for doing it early); today would be better. Then, if David would like, I could do a celebratory reenactment of the final climb with the others, or, if the rain performs as expected, we can skip the idea completely. I will be his servant, and most willingly.

That delicate red dot is Stephen Moore, who represented the UK in the World 100km championships several times, who holds the record for the most completed rounds of Wainwrights, and who came to my completion party. The two of us climbed High Spy together in a fabulous afternoon’s outing after my completion rather than reenacting my final climb. This was a more interesting option for both of us.
Believe it or not, I offer the final statistics:
214 summits. 211 summits experienced solo. 213 summits without rain on top – and I repeated that single erring summit, so can also say 214 without rain on the  summit (we won’t discuss the way up or down). I did have “grey-out” on a significant portion of tops; it’s hard to tell from the photos, but my guess would be at least half, if not more. I experienced very strong winds on several, but only one summit had me crawling to it (Hindscarth) and only one (Knott Rigg) had wind so strong that I had to snake my way on my belly for the final few metres for fear that I would otherwise find myself in the next county.

What do you do when THIS presents itself out the window during your celebration party? Do you leave your guests and be hideously rude and rush out with your camera, or stay demurely smiling, crying inside at the beauty you are not photographing? What I did (the rude option) is rather manifestly clear.

England Lake District. 2017. On completion of the Wainwrights, Essay 2.

I have completed “climbing” all the Wainwrights: namely, fells, or what I mostly call mountains. What is  a Wainwright? The definition is operational: it is a fell or mountain that the late Alfred Wainwright immortalised in his wonderful series of ink drawings of what he considered to be the best Lakeland fells. There are 214 of them, published in seven delightful little books.

The Lake District is also, of course, about water as well as beautiful mounds.
I talk of “climbing” the Wainwrights. When I say this, do not picture me with a helmet, rope and carabiners, being belayed up or down a cliff. There were cliffs, indeed, and I chose that route for fun on several occasions, but never with fancy equipment. I use “climb” in the same sense that I say I climbed the stairs, or climbed a ladder to prune my trees. When Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music sang that we should climb every mountain, I don’t think she had ropes and helmets in mind (although, of course, I agree that we should).

Dawn from the Langdale Pikes (Harrison Stickle here). I was so excited to be in the Lakes (and in Europe) I got up at 4.10 on my first morning and climbed 6 mountains before breakfast.
And why do I refer to fells as mountains? Just because I’m Australian, and that is the name we automatically give to a terrestrial lump of a certain size. These English humps are no more or less mountains than Mt Amos, Mt Dove or many other shapes called mountain in my homeland. They are not as high as Mt Kosciusko, but the height difference between nearby base and top is actually, in many cases, more. The shape is also far more impressive. You would have real trouble trying to die on Kosciusko, but unfortunately, it has been proven to be more than possible to fall to your death on the fells. The cliffs have monster drops if you choose that approach. Things are as difficult or as easy as we choose to make them. I hope my choice of language doesn’t confuse. I am writing about England, but I write as an Australian. My relationship to the fells is necessarily tinctured by my own background. As Kant would tell you if you read his first Kritik, knowledge is gained in relationship to existing knowledge; stimuli received within the context of what our brain already contains.

And how do I feel about completion? Please forgive the circularity and intentional banality, but I feel very complete. Every peak on the list has been climbed. There is something beautifully neat and tidy about that (funny, as I am not, with regard, say, to my house, obsessively neat and tidy, but when it has to do with lists, I am). At university, I always read every book on a reading list; here in the mountains, I find there is something satisfying about having a tick beside the name of every mountain. Yes, I know there are nasty words for this “disease”, but it is actually quite a handy one to have. It wins you scholarships and prizes. More important to me than the ticks is the fact that every mountain is in some way “known”; every one, albeit briefly, befriended.

I have fond memories of almost all 214 mountains. As I see each, I remember happy incidents that occurred whilst climbing. I recall my interaction with its shape and surface. My satisfaction has nothing to do with any putative “achievement’, but with something a little harder to pin down. To help me explain, let me recall for you a moment on this trip as I drove into Paterdale on day three to climb the two remaining fells there (neither of which was visible from the car).

As I drove, my peripheral vision had the mesmerising treat of the louring silhouettes of all the surrounding mountains. They seemed so rich in shape, so alluring in their half-caught forms as I still, partially at least, concentrated on the road; so impressive and mysterious. I was in love with each one of them. I couldn’t actually name any of them whilst driving, not without contextualising them in relation to each other, but they all called to me of a world of wonder. It was with a sense of awe and humility that I realised I had climbed every single one. I became teary as I drove and realised this was going to be quite an emotional journey. If I refer to the feeling of knowing I had climbed each one as “satisfaction”, you will see that the chosen word has nothing to do with “achievement”, but something far deeper.

 En route to Tarn Crag for another dawn sunrise
My physical abilities, sure, enable what I was feeling, but they were no end in themselves. I simply love to go upwards, and have a keen sense of, and attachment to, place. In the Lakes, I love both ridges and summits, I love the sheep that inhabit the high places, the wind in my face and time to think. I love the independence of self-propelled navigation. I love the complexity of the bumpy, glaciated terrain that makes it so interesting and casts so many wonderful shadows, the numerous shades of green on a single mountain, and the fabulous moody clouds that so often accompany my efforts.

Stickle Tarn, pre-dawn.
I also love the way you can be out on a truly foul day, minding your own business in a pea-soup fog, and out of the gloom a shape might appear that turns out to be a human form. I don’t regard this as an intrusion on my solitude (especially as I have been lucky enough to have these encounters in saddles rather than on summits). I love connecting with other people who are obviously as mad as I am. Other times, the shapes are just sheep; I greet them too.

Sourmilk Gill. Grey Knotts behind. Taken while climbing Base Brown.
At lunch or in the evenings, in the pubs over soup or steak pie, conversations begin easily with strangers whose kindred spirit to mine is signalled by their boots, or the pile of maps beside them on the table, or a fine specimen of a camera. I enjoy the camaraderie. We compare routes or destinations, or discuss the merits of ViewRanger.

Pavey Ark from Stickle Tarn.
I have now completed all the Wainwrights, but am all too aware that my relationship to these wonderful mountains is only “party deep”. We have met once, over cocktails. I don’t know them with the kind of intimacy that comes with a longer, less superficial relationship. As a result, I have already started on round 2 of the Wainwrights. Old friends are good friends. I am enjoying deepening my acquaintance. Some fells I climbed first with my husband when we were little university students. I have forgotten many details. It is great to be reminded of my first encounter.

Some of the first of my round two list were Maiden Moor, High Spy and Dale Head. I repeatedly ran up these for training in the early 1990s, fabulous inclines to make me fit for the approaching World Championships, my focus at that time. Now I walked up carrying my full-frame DSLR and tripod. For the first time, I photographed them. For the first time, I took in their detailed structure. In the nineties, of course I noticed the fabulous views over the edge that they offered, but this time I had more time to appreciate it. No World Championships were pressurising my horizons this time.

I can’t wait to repeat old friends like Fairfield, Robinson, Great and Green Gable, Haystacks – all fells that I did a long, long time ago, and many of which I didn’t even photograph, as photos were exorbitantly expensive back then in film days, and on a student budget. I am excited. Completion is a new beginning, not an end.

“OK,” you say, “a holiday, sure. But why bag peaks (Wainwrights) there when there are great Abels and other mountains to collect in Tasmania?”
“Why not do both?”, I retort.
And why did I get started on this idea of wanting to climb all the Wainwrights in addition to as many of the Abels as I can? We were drawn to the Lakes initially because of what the area meant to the poets who claimed part of our imagination, and have continued to return for what it means to us in its own right: for the nuanced beauty it contains. We lived in England for a while before we had children, and have returned since for a term to do some research at Oxford; as an athlete I trained in the Lakes for a month in preparation for the World Championships in 1993, and competed on the fells I now walk over.
Somewhere along the line I began ticking the ones I’d climbed in the index to my Wainwright books, and from there developed the idea of ticking the lot.

And if you think the fells are too tame and unchallenging (which is what some say to me), then perhaps you haven’t done them justice, or are judging them without having been there. You can die just as easily in the fells as you can in Tassie (if that’s the level of excitement you’re seeking); in fact, due to population differences, there are more Fell deaths than Tassie wilderness ones. If you find them unchallenging, I suggest you walk faster, or choose routes that are more direct – straight up the face if you will. One creates one’s own challenges in the fells, just as here. I know I have led us into some pretty precarious situations in thick mist over the years, especially on the day a few years ago on Swirl How when my compass said that every direction was north and the ground said nothing helpful at all. That day, a young guy (25) died within a kilometre of where we were, falling off a precipice.

The Fells and Tasmanian mountains each demand a different type of fitness. In Tassie, as you are fighting bush down lower to get to your peak, the going is often very slow. You need strength and endurance. In England, you can run up the fells with your heart pounding (as long as you are not lugging a full-frame camera). You can do ten or more Wainrights before lunch if you choose the right ones (even with said camera) and are very fit – unthinkable in Tassie. Ten Abels might take you a year if you’re nearing the end of the count and have left all the far-flung ones to last. I have a strong, fit friend whose experienced party took ten days to get a single mountain, and it was only 800 ms high (thus not an Abel. Only mountains over 1100 ms are Abels). This variance does not make one type of mountain superior to the other; it just means that the style of walking (and the gear) required is different.

And it’s pleasantly sociable climbing in the fells without it being crowded (but then, I have long since climbed the icons like Helvellyn). That said, we had Scafell Pike to ourselves last year on a return visit. We climbed it yet again, just because the sun was shining when I suggested we go up, and although I’d climbed it four times, I’d never seen the view. Alas, I still haven’t. As in Tassie, the weather changes very quickly. I have an excellent collection of photos of my husband surrounded by grey, all claiming to be taken at different times on the top of Scafell Pike.

And where else in the world does a sheep beat you to the summit?
Where else does a sheep show you that here is a possible route down when you’re in a fix?
I love a summit cairn that materialises out of the gloom with the shape of a welcoming member of ovis aries beside it. Unfortunately, they seem very camera shy, and the minute I pull my lens cap off, they’re away.

Tassie’s weather is wild, especially along the tops of the southern ranges, and yet it is only in England that I have been reduced to worming my way along the ground in order to touch the summit cairn. Only in England have I been a mere two meters (horizontal) from my destination yet been in serious doubt about making it. Each centimetre was a fight against a blast that threatened to lift me right off the mountain and deposit me somewhere a long way below. If you think there’s no adventure to be had in England, then you just haven’t tried.

A note on planning: Another factor required by both areas if you are actually trying to collect all the peaks, is careful planning. I spend multiple hours at home before we leave with maps spread all over the bedroom floor, plotting the circular routes we’ll do each day. Sometimes I think I spend more time planning than climbing. It’s like a mini rogaining competition. Once you’re into the end game, you can’t just haphazardly do a mountain here and then decide which one to do in the afternoon. Clusters have to be worked out to minimise or avoid unnecessary travel. When you’re just beginning, this is not so essential, although it makes sense to have a base and climb as much as possible from that point. Now I am discovering isolated mountains carelessly left behind when I was in an area. In two more trips of one week each I’ll have finished my Wainwrights, and one of these trips will be a kind of mop up operation, like a wife tidying up, picking up the strewn bits left here and there by a neglectful husband or kids. At least these strewn bits are beautiful mountains, but on this trip I will have more than the usual amount of driving. I already have it planned. It is feasible.