Still smiling

LittleBear and I had an Awfully Big Adventure a couple of weeks ago. We went on a "yomp" with one of the bear cousins. A "yomp" being a multi-day, multi-peak, wild-camping* walk** in the Lake District. This is something my CousinBear has been doing for years, and is the means by which he has completed all 214 Wainwrights. Which means not only does he know what he's doing, but he has All The Right Gear. And LittleBear idolizes him, which is really rather lovely.

Our original plan was, shall we say, ambitious. But planned with escape routes and alternatives ready and willing to be deployed. Which was fortunate, as we ascended into cloud not long after our 10am start in Skelgill, and did not see the sky, or very much else, until we reappeared near Moss Force about seven hours later. By which stage we were largely soaked through, and had distinctly squelchy boots. I say "largely", because to the chagrin of LittleBear and CousinBear, it turns out that my comparatively-new and eye-wateringly expensive Goretex waterproofs were considerably more waterproof than anything they were wearing. I retain a sneaking suspicion that my admission that my feet were still dry somewhere round about Robinson was a contributory factor in the acres of ankle-deep bog that CousinBear proceeded to find for us in the next mile.

Original possible route

Suffice to say that, after Robinson's best efforts, and the constant wall of rain and cloud encountered, not to mention the unaccustomed exertion of walking with a fully-laden pack, we were all more than willing participants in the decision to reduce the second day's route.

Actual route

Which gave a still-quite impressive ~22km (13.5 miles) over two days, with over 1600m (5250') of ascent.

Elevation profile

There were, of course, Incidents and Misfortunes en route. There was the point at which LittleBear slipped and stood in a stream, and declared himself unable to continue. A Mars Bar and some cheerful (but lost) Germans got him back on track. And CousinBear incredibly nobly then piggy-bagged LittleBear and his pack across the next stream to avoid a complete collapse in morale. But the story of the first day is best told in the pictures taken of LittleBear conquering each of the six summits.

10:40am Catbells - barely wet at all, and definitely happy

11:40am Maiden Moor - an underwhelming cairn, but still triumphant

12:30pm High Spy - a proper cairn at last

2:15pm Dale Head - the fell that nearly defeated us

3:00pm Hindscarth - I'm not even standing up to celebrate

4:00pm Robinson - is these even a different place?

6:10pm Warm(er) and dry(er) and smiling again

Though the pictures are largely doing the talking here, I feel the utter relief in LittleBear's face on actually getting to the top of Dale Head deserves a minor explanation. We had, as mentioned, found some lost Germans. They had an inadequate map and no compass, and had been unable to find their way to Honister Pass in the cloud. So CousinBear offered to guide them, as we were heading mostly that way. 

It rapidly became clear quite why they'd been unable to find the path. Even with the help of OS maps, compass, and GPS, there was no path to be found anywhere near where the OS claimed it would be. We zigged and we zagged our way up the fellside where the path should have been, hoping to intersect it. But no. Instead we ended up fighting our way up 200m in a mere 400m of horizontal distance. And somehow, despite that incline, a large portion of the ground beneath our feet was bog. How? Why was that water not at the bottom of the hill?***

Perhaps most impressive was the fact that our lost Germans solemnly, doggedly and trustingly followed the crazy English people up the non-path, in the cloud and rain, in the hope of ending up in the right place. Cresting the slope and finding the top of Dale Head exactly where it was meant to be was a definite triumph. And we pointed the Germans onto the path to Honister Pass.

And despite the rain, the cloud, the boots that took three days to dry, the exhaustion, the slips, the trips and the midges, LittleBear absolutely loved it. And the moments in which he lost morale were overcome with a resilience that genuinely surprised me. He kept smiling, and wants to do more next year. Especially if it means skipping tooth-brushing and being allowed chocolate in bed.

Bed chocolate is definitely A Thing

 

* For those of my friends who have expressed concern about the legality of wild camping in the Lake District... it is not something to which one has an automatic, legal right, it requires permission from the landowner. And in this case, the landowner being the National Trust, permission is given for sympathetic, responsible wild camping above the intake: Wild Camping in the Lake District

** I have a peculiar allergy to word "hike", though it would be what many of my readers would describe this adventure as. However, I go fell walking, not hiking. So this was a walk.

*** This is a rhetorical question. I am fully au fait with the ability of both peat and moss to hold staggering quantities of water, no matter the angle at which they are suspended.

The history of my life in one graph

Hello again! It's been a while hasn't it? Six months or thereabouts, in which I've either had nothing to say or lacked the energy to say it. Mostly the latter, as my life has been utterly dominated by football for months. I've eaten, slept, dreamed and wept football, to the exclusion of everything else that I enjoy doing. (Of which more, possibly, another time).

But I've just spent two weeks on holiday in the Lake District, in which not only has there been No Football, but there has been plenty of time to do things I love with LittleBear. And among the things that LittleBear and I both love are climbing fells, obsessively collecting things and messing around with data analysis. To our great joy, we are able to combine these particular passions... (bear with me, all will become clear!)

For those not familiar with his oeuvre, a gentleman by the name of Alfred Wainwright lovingly and laboriously climbed, and wrote about, the fells of Lakeland, creating seven gorgeous pictorial guides to the fells. In these, he provides a multitude of ascents, descents, ridge routes, maps, line drawings and opinions. Across the seven books he describes 214 such fells, now collectively known as Wainwrights. A collection that some people attempt to "bag" by climbing all of them. A perfect opening for LittleBear to climb things and collect them.

And having climbed a fell, LittleBear and his mother require a means of tracking which ones we've climbed, how high they are, which books they appear in, when we climbed them, and indeed how old we were when we climbed them. (First ascents being what counts here, there are many old and dear favourites that we've climbed multiple times, and fully intend to keep climbing). We spent many happy hours, while the rain sheeted down outside, playing with spreadsheets and finding ingenious ways of representing all the data we were accumulating*.

And this graph was particularly illuminating. It shows the accumulation of new Wainwrights as I age.

There are five distinct stages to my life:

The Early Years

From just before I turned five, until my late teens, I gradually climbed new fells, under the care and guidance of my parents. I didn't choose them, I just went where we went, mostly enjoying it, but with a tendency to grumble about only having little legs. I was very much a camp-follower.

First Marriage

Then I became an independent adult, going on holiday without my parents or brother, but instead with TheEx. From twenty to my early thirties is the period of my life when I lacked/lost all confidence. I didn't trust my map-reading to navigate my way on new fells; I didn't trust my driving to manage the mountain passes over to new valleys; I remained stuck in the familiar and the routine. Not helped by TheEx's view of me that I wasn't capable of being intrepid or confident or brave. I lived down to his expectations. The lack of new fells was only one expression of that stagnation.

The Arrival of BigBear

With the arrival of BigBear as a partner, and not just a friend, I began to discover the pleasure of doing new things, of exploring and of challenging myself, while sharing it with someone who believed in me. I drove over Wrynose and Hardknott passes for the first time. I climbed Scafell Pike for the first time. I stretched by wings and began to discover I was capable of so much more than I had believed.

LittleBear's Earliest Years

My wings were clipped a little with the arrival of BabyBear at age 37. While carry-able in the early years, it was a heavy carry and not conducive to tackling much in the way of a significant fell. I got the occasional day pass, during which time BigBear or a noble grandparent would look after BabyBear for a day, but those were the days to re-acquaint myself with my favourite, nearest-and-dearest fells, and not to branch out into the unknown, alone. And the weight of motherhood, while carry-able in the early years, was a heavy carry and not conducive to tackling much in the way of a significant new challenge.

LittleBear Starts Climbing

And finally a couple of years ago, after conquering almost all the nearest-and-dearest fells with us, LittleBear's obsessive streak had him begging for new Wainwrights, which demand I happily conceded to. And by exploring LittleBear's interests, and enthusiasms; by needing to reach outside my comfort zone so that I can be the mother than I think he deserves, I have become even braver.

* For those who might wonder how it is that I know the exact date on which I have climbed fells stretching back to my own earliest years - at the cottage my family own we have always kept a "Log Book", in which every visitor writes a diary entry for the day's activities. This provides a lovely record of our family stretching back over half a century. Perhaps my favourite entry, by GrannyBear, was the terse three-worder: "Rain. Children horrible." I have no doubt she was right.