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MOUNTAIN CHALLENGE 2009 - THE STORY (Part 2)

In September Simon set out to climb the three second highest peaks in mainland Britain in 36 hours to raise over £3,000 for the St Mary’s Restoration Project. Gary Butcher and Carina Harris provided the back-up team.

It rained all the way from Wales to Cumbria, the kind of steady, grey skied, low cloud rain which you know is going to get you very wet. Then, in early afternoon, as we wove our way across the interminable southern edge of the Lake District, it stopped. I refused to allow myself more than a glimmer of optimism because as we finally drove across the fells towards the highest corner of England I could see all the black clouds huddled together where the mountains ought to be.

Wast Water is always compellingly dramatic. Vast cascades of grey scree punctuated with boulders the size of cars plunge straight into ominous waters over two hundred feet deep. Finally we reached the parking place at the end of the lake. Compared to the solitude of Wales it was full of tourists’ cars, their occupants strolling over the road to admire Lingmell Beck but clearly going no further. Beyond the fells rose steeply up deceptively green pasture land to a high stone wall in the distance. Above it the ground levelled onto the broad shoulder of Green How. “Is the top just above there?” Carina and Gary asked. “Sort of,” I replied. “What you’re seeing is about half way up. The top’s about another kilometre and a half beyond - somewhere in all those dark clouds!”

It was 2.26pm. Gary decided he fancied a short stroll so we set off together. Finding the right way out of the parking place is bizarrely sometimes the most difficult part of a walk and this was no exception. A path beside the rushing waters of Lingmell Gill was helpfully signed “Sca Fell” so we began to follow it, but I had my doubts. After a few hundred metres we met a very bedraggled party returning from Scafell Pike, the neighbouring peak, and emphatically not where I was going. The map showed a clear path to my destination and this clearly wasn’t it. We made our way back and followed a bridle path parallel to the lake. I felt faintly ridiculous, the experienced hillwalker apparently unable to find an obvious path, but thankfully Gary was too busy enjoying the scenery to comment on my unease. As he wandered back I kept expecting a path uphill to appear but it refused to emerge. If I went much further I’d go past where it ought to be. Finally I found a sketchy trail up the field. It quickly petered out on the soft wet ground but I could see a gap in the wall above me as I plodded up the steep hillside so it looked hopeful.

As the gap grew nearer I could see it was defended by a wire fence. Throwing my walking poles over I climbed the stone wall and pulled myself up and over the fence - only to find another fence barring my way upward. This was ridiculous. I had to find the right way or I’d have a miserable pull over rough ground all the way to the top. I checked my height on my watch’s altimeter then took a compass bearing back to a house by the lake. Applying the results to my map I reckoned I was about a hundred metres right of where I should be. The hillside undulated between the fences but to my great relief over the next rise I found two tiny stiles and the faintest of paths heading up hill.

Confident I was back on track I set off again. Behind me the skies seemed to be brightening, giving a clear view over Wast Water in one direction and up the valleys towards Great Gable and Pillar in the other. Maybe, just maybe, the clouds would lift. I couldn’t look upwards for long. The path, such as it was, kept disappearing and then returning in a meandering line up the shoulder of the mountain. Instead of heading straight up it kept drawing me to the left and I started to wonder whether it would slide off the hillside down into Mickledore, the high col between Sca Fell and its slightly higher neighbour. Just in time, as grass gave way to stones, it veered back directly towards where the top should be, somewhere in the determinedly unbroken clouds.

Somehow it stayed dry and I was able to plod upwards in just a windproof pullover. It was just as well. Sca Fell was the shortest walk in terms of distance but it compensated for it by being steep from bottom to top. Strangely, only now did a clear path emerge, which was useful given the looseness of the ground. Visibility diminished the higher I got on the boulder strewn slopes, but as the clouds closed in the wind increased, a sure sign I was near the top. The summit took me by surprise as I pulled over a steep incline to find a pile of rocks with a cairn of stones. It was four minutes to five. I took a couple of grey photos then settled in the lee of a stone shelter for a cup of tea. The biggest mountain was still ahead but it was time to savour the moment here. It was late summer in the Lake District but I had the place to myself. Oddly it can often be less windy on a summit than on the slopes of a mountain. I became aware of lulls in the wind and then for a few seconds it dropped altogether leaving me in that rarest of moments in modern life - absolute, unbroken silence.

I could have stayed there a long time but I tore myself way and started to descend. As I came back out of the cloud I wondered whether my non-existent path would be any clearer in descent. Back on the broad slopes of Green How it skirted the rocky drop of Rakehead Crag and began to descend the steep slope beyond. I duly followed only to realise that I had been fooled. What started as a path turned into a very steep and worryingly loose stream gully where every step required care to avoid tumbling to the bottom. “Take it steady,” I muttered to myself. Seconds later I was flat on my back as the ground gave way beneath me, stones cutting into my arm as I slid to a sudden halt.

The gully widened into a fan of only slightly less unpleasant scree and the grass below it was steep enough for another fall to be serious. Zig-zagging to reduce the angle I finally found the stile again. What I never found was the path the Ordnance Survey promised. You can never take the mountains for granted. I had originally planned to descend this one in the dark. Given the nature of the ground I was very glad I didn’t have to. At 6.28pm I got back to the car. Two down, one to go.

The concluding part follows next month.