Bowfell

The Lake District is wilting, like an ant under a magnifying glass. Its buccaneering streams and waterfalls are dry and soundless, the peaty bogs are hard sponges, boulder fields are too bright to look at. Everything is foreshortened, fells that usually stand tall amongst the swirling clouds are shrunk against the massive blue sky. Below, in the valleys, air squats heavy, farmers cut grass to dust, dogs pant, tourists are dotted like Lowry-men along rivers, car parks, sun dappled lanes and afternoons that last all week get hotter and hotter by the hour.

Walking along the last bit of road to the top of Langdale my trainers are sticky with melted tarmac, the guy whizzing past on the quad is topless and the collie on the back has his mouth gaped wide open looking for air where there is none.

We’ve popped up to look for good places for a wildcamp with Dan & Juli in a couple of weeks, Bowfell seems a good choice with views down Langdale and west into Eskdale and the Irish sea. It was just a matter of finding a little grassy area amongst the mess of shattered rock that characterises this central Lakeland terrain. At the col, amongst the small tarns, I sit to eat my tea, looking out over the silhouette of Scafell and Scafell Pike I remember walking with Ali and Boz up there from Eskdale, enjoying a whisky on the summit whilst the sun went down and walking back through the dark to a cottage full of very worried family. I remembered walking up to this col with Helen and Becky too, the four of us taking our time nosying about the tarns before descending slowly towards a rising hunters moon. Looking down into the deserted plain of Great Moss I can almost see Ali & I ascending, on our way up to Crinkle Crags a couple of years ago, wandering past these tarns, me reminding her its where we came with Helen & Becky and her smiling through laboured breath. I couldn’t see me sat by this tarn alone, eating a sandwich, and I couldn’t see that this was her last mountain. It was hard for her on crinkle crags, the big steps and jagged ground making the pain in her back difficult to tolerate, at one stage not really being able to move for it. There was a silent agreement that we wouldn’t be back up here, some things can’t be spoken, or thought of, I mean, who’d stand and say goodbye the mountains. Like Joss Naylor once said, talking on the psychology of keeping on in the hills “It doesn’t do to think about it, if you thought about it you’d lie down”. Sometimes you’ve got to apply this to life, put the brakes on your mind, take shelter behind a rock a while, let the storm rage on without you.

Two topless lads appeared from the Langdale side with nothing in their hands or on their backs. One pointed up at Crinkle Crags and shouted over to me “Is that the highest bit?” I pointed over to Bowfell the other way and told them that’s higher but its 200m more ascent and maybe not to take too much on without water. I said it might take an hour, which they scoffed at and then one of them said “what, is it up and up again?” When isn’t it in the lakes. I explained they’d climbed 700 metres and it’s another 200 now. “Sound mate” They wandered off and I got back to my memories, taking care with the warm hummus that was spilling out my roll everywhere and trying to persuade Rab to have a drink rather than stare at sheep, how do you tell a dog there’s not water after this for miles? On my way up Bowfell I caught up with the topless wanderers, they were really struggling in the heat so I shared my water with them. They were grateful and I didn’t inhabit the miserable, grumbling Wainwright that was hanging in the air between us. There’s a balance, two fit people up on the hills with no chance of cloud, plenty of light and every route off the fell leading to civilisation. They weren’t being that irresponsible and they were having a lot of fun. They joined me on the summit and took pictures, we chatted a while and then I departed towards Ore gap in search of more pitches.

The sun was dropping nicely now, picking out crags in orange here and there and we had got into the shade of Esk Pike, enjoying a relatively cool descent form Ore Gap towards Angle Tarn. As we got closer to the tarn, a huge lake really, sat in a bowl under the immense north face of Bowfell, I noticed a buzzard fly below us across the water, it made one call and then perched on a rock. So we sat on the path as still as we could and waited to see if it would fly and not notice us. After a while a guy came descending towards us very slowly. He had that hobble of a long day under the sun on rough ground, I could feel his knees throbbing and the weight of his pack. He stopped near me on the path to chat. He was Australian, “I split with my girlfriend earlier in the year so came to Europe, got a van. What else?” What to say? Bloody girlfriends, mine died would you believe, and I don’t even have a fucking van, I’ve got a Honda Jazz with folding seats and a steady job though, that’s something isn’t it mate? I say I’m sorry to hear about his girlfriend and say nothing of my situation, why I’m out here alone. I don’t even show him the buzzard. But when he says he’s come at the best time to see the lakes, looking up at the blue skies, I do correct him. I paint him a picture of the rushing gulleys, the waterfalls, the power that the water brings this place. I tell him about winter, that’s when to come, those fleeting afternoons amongst the snow, low sun flinging shadows across frozen tarns. Or the grey days, no views, no vistas, no warm rocks or shimmering haze. Just water everywhere, in the sky, in the ghylls, cold so you can’t feel your fingers, the tussocky ground saturated beneath your feet, ravens croaking through the mist, telling you you’re lost, a compass in your hand, not long till four, not long till it’s too dark, when your head-torch just lights up the mist anyway. That’s when you feel alive here, not that you need adrenaline to enjoy the fells, but you need drama in the scene and under this permanent sun there is no drama, just one big fuck-off postcard.

I didn’t quite say all that, but I did want him to know how this place can be, how it can steal you away and hold you for life, how it’s not just another beautiful place he’s been. It’s my entire self, and it’s not on show properly. Anyway, in no time I make everything awkward. I’m finding that increasingly easy out on my own, without Ali to seamlessly keep the world well oiled. He asks me if I’m going the same way, and I jump to my feet and say yes I’ll walk with you. He didn’t mean that, he meant just to ask me if its far…back to Langdale? He needs to rush you see, get back to the van. So I watch him rush off, a much faster hobble that I’m bound to catch, and which I do even though I take in Rosset Pike. He’s really struggling, and fair enough, he climbed Scafell Pike from Langdale and took in Crinkle crags first, an insanely long and technical route. We meet where I join back up with his path and have another chat. To spare him being forced into a walk back with me, that he’s already declined once, I say I’m needing to rush off so speed ahead. Only, about half a mile downstream I see a perfect rock pool for Rab to have a drink, and for me to have dip.

So to our third meeting, I think of maybe shouting tortoise and the hare as he passes, but he speaks first “see ya” he’s not looking, probably thinks I’m naked, but I can’t shout up that I’m in boxers, and I can’t really pretend I’m in a rush anymore, basking in a pool. I watch him hobble off and wonder if I’ll catch him again. I’d almost like to, there’s something I want to tell him, a reason why I’m so incredibly strange at the moment. Maybe that wouldn’t help, no, definitely it wouldn’t help – Ali’s shaking her head and smiling at the ground. She always used to say, about social anxieties, that, in the nicest possible way, nobody gives a fuck about what you say or wear, or anything. They’re all busy with their stories and thoughts.  

We almost get back to the car, but as I pass the Old Dudgeon Ghyll pub I realise its only 10.30, and can hear a folk band playing dancing in the Moonlight. It’s warm and sweaty inside, the walls are covered in paintings of climbers. Rab lies on the stone floor whilst I buy a pint and then we’re out the open door into the bustling beer garden. One star is out across the valley above Pike O Blisco and the sky is moving through the blues into black, bats are swinging around the corner of the building and moths keep smacking into my face and legs. Conversations are raucous inside, they come tumbling out the door with the music and the light, it’s still warm out here, Rab is flat out again on the floor and I feel in touch with the hills again. It’s been a while and I doubted if they were still there, or if something of them went with Ali. Bowfell says different and I know who’d be pleased to hear that.