One hears tales of the balmy days of the British presence in
India, when walks in the Himalayas were done hands in pockets unencumbered by
camping equipment, since the bulk of one's retinue had gone ahead to set the
camp up, unfold the armchairs and brew the tea. Alpine literature too gives
evidence of ample entertainment in the high mountains. The English milord had
not only a guide but porters as well, laden with hams, roast fowl and bottles of
wine. W. T. Kirkpatrick, writing about the Alps at the turn of the century,
commented that 'the number of bottles that mark the route up many well-known
mountains would almost suggest that some persons climb for the sake of
drinking.
Even in Scotland a ghillie would arrange for hampers to be taken to
the hill on the backs of ponies, so there was no need to pack sandwiches and
waterproofs and spare clothing; and the revolting convenience foods which
afflict the outdoor life today were unknown. But those expansive days are not
wholly passed away. They have their modern counterpart in the supported walk.
The first example of the modern supported walk that I came across was as long
ago as 1954, when Crosby Fox, George Spenceley and I were doing the Cuillin
Ridge. Our pleasure in the excursion was tempered by having to carry a rope,
quantities of water and a good deal of food, including a jar containing eleven
eggs sloshing about in half a pound of sugar. At two or three points such as
the Bhasteir Tooth we met Alpine Club members whose mission was to provide food
and drink and a rope for some of the recently successful Everest climbers who
were taking a celebratory romp over the Cuillin Ridge. The supported walk par
excellence!
The simplest form of supported walk is where you prevail
upon someone to drive you to the start and pick you up again at the end. But
for the true hedonist in the hills that is hardly enough. A friend of mine once
described seeing a well-known Greek shipping millionaire step out of a
helicopter at the top of a ski-run in St Moritz. A valet placed his skis on the
snow. He stepped into them. The valet adjusted the bindings, handed him the
sticks and scurried back into the helicopter, his next duty being to take them
off at the bottom. Something akin to that is what we are after. The snag with supported
walks is that one can hardly justify support unless one is undertaking
something pretty demanding. The support party will play only if sufficiently impressed
by the exploit in question. I have the good fortune to know the non-pareil of
walk-supporters, Mike Harvey. He will not only support your walk: he will put
the idea into your head and then carefully fan the feeble flame of interest
into a fire of enthusiasm.
Ever since I drew attention to it in the book 'Big
Walks', Mike Harvey had been offering to support the Shap to Ravenglass walk,
and he now proposed an actual date, May 2nd. My character is such that I will
agree to almost anything if the date is sufficiently far away, so I did not
demur. In fact, so long as the whole thing remained comfortably in the future
it formed an attractive and absorbing topic of conversation. It is a curious
thing that long walks appear to be more attractive than short ones. People who
would normally get out the car rather than walk one mile nevertheless flock in
hundreds to do the Lyke Wake walk of forty. As Ronnie Faux pointed out in the
Times a month or two ago, walking is really rather a pedestrian business, and
it needs the spur of inordinate length to goad the imagination a bit.
The final party
turns out to be quite small and also quite disparate. The average age is
forty-seven years. There is my son, Mike Harvey's son, and Etsu Peascod,* a
young Japanese lady who combines a fragile flower-like beauty with the heart of
a Samurai. A dream of pastoral bliss with bells in the distance turns into the
shrilling of an alarm clock. It is the hour. I wake Etsu and my son Trevor and
we head for Shap. The only other car on the old A6 turns out to be Mike Harvey
and his son Matty. Well met. We park the cars at Keld, and set off walking at ten past three. To give myself every
possible advantage I wear my ancient suede desert boots (known to veterans of
the Western desert as brothel-creepers). Down at heel though they now are, and
paper-thin in the soles, they weigh only eleven ounces each. I am relieved to
note that the young and energetic Matty is wearing stout boots which will hold
him in check a little I hope.
I am quite familiar with the footpath that takes
one past Tailbert into Swindale, but in the dark it eludes me. Within twenty
minutes of starting, my feet are soaked and we are lost among waterlogged
tussocks. With forty miles still to go this is discouraging. We give up looking
for the path, go through the Tailbert farm buildings and make for Swindale on a
compass course. We can see a dark gulf ahead with a pale gleam of water in it
that might be a nearby puddle or a more distant river. Before long we come to
the Swindale Beck and crossing it at a shallows get at last on to the road.
Our progress on up the dale is marked by the furious barking
of dogs at each farm, and we work it out that should a sash window be thrown up
and a shotgun appear we will lie down on the ground until both barrels have
been discharged before attempting to explain what we are doing. We take the old
corpse road and by the time we reach the grassy upland between Swindale and
Mardale it is broad daylight. A cuckoo starts calling; it is the first I have
heard this year. It is a good experience to walk from darkness into daylight
and we know what the man meant who wrote: ' A solemn glee possessed my mind at
this gradual and lovely coming in of day' . Furthermore we appear to have
picked a winner. The sun is a little obscured by clouds, but they are dispersing.
Skylarks ascend, carried upwards by the sheer volume of their song. It is cool
and crisp, High Street and Kidsty Pike standing hard-edged against a clear sky.
The zenith is already becoming blue. We descend the zig-zags into Mardale and
hit the road. Half a mile along it is our support car. ' You're twenty minutes
late', says Mike Harvey, serving tea and biscuits. Handing in our torches we go
round the head of the reservoir and up towards Blea Water. About level with the
tarn there is a right fork in the path and this slants up to the ridge of
Caspel Gate.
We go slowly up to the little col and then up the ridge
looking down into the deep trough of Riggindale. Soon we are treading the long
high back of High Street. There is no simpler and more innocent way of feeling
superior than to be out walking on the hill-tops while the rest of the world is
rubbing its eyes, groping for a cigarette, or dragging the bed-clothes rebelliously
over its head for another ten minutes. We ramble on down the five-mile descent
to Patterdale, one of the most enjoyable ways down a hill that I know. The
going is easy, some of it level or even mildly up-hill, yet one is traversing
steep slopes and enjoying views into the grand side of the Helvellyn range.
Angle Tarn is beautiful. As we finally descend into Patterdale the valley lies
below, calm and dreamy in the clear morning air, except for a man running
urgently across a field. This is Mike Harvey, caught napping by our early
arrival, dashing to put breakfast on.
He and his other son, Benny, have the car
parked in a tastefully appointed lay-by, with seats, at the point where the footpath
debouches on to the road. There is fruit juice, a choice of cereals, porridge,
king-size bacon butties, rolls and marmalade, and coffee. The sun beams down
upon us, his chosen. We drink to Al Fresco. Our way now leads up Grisdale, the
young fellows so charged with calories that they keep disappearing ahead
despite their big boots. It is a very pleasant valley, Grisedale, its pastoral
charm eventually giving way to more craggy terrain, until it ends suddenly and
dramatically at Grisedale Tarn. We trip daintily across the wet ground north of
the tarn and drop down through a slot towards Dunmail Raise. The path is muddy
and ruinous, and the two lads pull a fast one by going out on the flank of Seat
Sandal and finding a long tongue of snow to glissade down.
Our supporting party is drawn up on the grass verge, kettle boiling, luncheon
all ready. It is midday and we have come half the distance. From Dunmail we go
straight up the side of Steel Fell, and so, at the expense of one stiff pull,
gain access to that long upland that carries you right across the centre of the
Lake District.
It is a little wet underfoot, with odd patches of old snow, but
fortunately skin is a kind of super Gore-tex and our feet remain dry on the
inside. For the rest, it is a bright and invigorating day with a few white
cumulus clouds. We drift up over High White Stones, that second broad, airy
upland on this walk, and slant down on to the top of the Stake, assisted by one
or two snow patches. The next section, round the side of Rosset Pike, begins to
feel a little long. It is tea-time, and in the natural order of things we
should be taking a cup of choice Assam to see us through until we can decently
think in terms of gin and tonic. We flag a little, there is no denying it. But
we have two things to look forward to in the immediate future; one is reaching
our second Angle Tarn of the day and the other is making our final col, Ore
Gap.
At Angle Tarn we sit
down for five minutes, the two lads having already been there about ten,
gathering a little head of steam for the last ascent. It is very pleasant here
in this familiar spot and we are in good shape, all moving parts functioning satisfactorily.
There is no real urgency about getting on the move again . . . But then we
think of our support waiting on the road, and we get somewhat listlessly to our
feet. From Ore Gap we can see the sea, and the Isle of Man, and, as like as
not, Craig yr Isfa. The sea is still a long way off but it is manifest that
there are no hills in our way, and we take heart and even get ahead of the lads
for a few minutes in our plunge down into Eskdale. I have spent many a day and
night in Green Hole and never found it a dry place, but we stride heedlessly
through the luxuriant heavy-contract deep-pile carpet of moss, straight down
the valley. We turn aside to look down the waterfalls and into the pot-holes of
Lingcove Beck. This is my old home valley and I seem already to have reached our destination.
We pass the pack
horse bridge, the bathing dub at Throstlegarth, Heron Crag, and Brotherilkeld
Farm, and come out on to the road at the foot of Hardknott. At the gate are
Etsu's own special support party. We hear a sharp report like the popping of a
champagne cork. It is the popping of a champagne cork. 'But we've another ten
miles to go' , I expostulate, the words impeded somewhat by the passage of bubbly
down my throat. Champagne is not to my knowledge much used in the hills, but it
certainly has a future. Along the road, in another tastefully-selected lay-by,
Mike is ready with delicious viands spread out upon the herbage. It is a
splendid calm evening with plenty of day-light still left, just the occasion
for a post-prandial riverside stroll. Leaving the road at Doctor's Bridge we
walk the delectable footpath along the side of the Esk. It turns out to be one
of the most enjoyable parts of the whole walk. Just above Boot Church two iron
girders span the river, all that remains of a railway bridge, and we cross here
in preference to the stepping stones further down, in case they are under
water.
The way now leads through tall woods, and we notice for the first time
the decline of the daylight. The woods are delightful after so much time on the
open fells. There is no question of going over Muncaster Fell, I am happy to
report. We take the entirely satisfactory private road down the side of it,
appreciating the evening light on the meadows between us and the Esk. For a
mile or more someone has been inconsiderate enough to mend the road, with the
result that not only is the ' way strewn with cutting flints' but Trevor, with
the infra-red vision of the historian, finds two large examples of Roman brick
in a drainage ditch, and we have to carry them in our hands for the rest of the
way. It is now quite dark and we lose slightly the sense of time and distance,
but we walk buoyantly on, the bit between our teeth and the smell of the sea in
our nostrils. The last mile or so is on the road but at last we come to the
Ravenglass turning and break into a stately canter. The village street ends in
the waters of the estuary. The tide is right up. We let it wash over our toes.
Tom Price and Etsu Peascod's champagne celebration
Tom Price: First published in Climber Oct 81
* Wife of Climber/Artist Bill Peascod
