Taking on Foinaven

Over the previous night’s dinner, a plan to climb Foinaven had been mooted.  Jesper and I had been circling around it the last three days, admiring its grey bulk and steep flanks, and, despite the efforts of the last three days' hard walking, we couldn’t resist coming along too.  I fuelled myself with granola and waited for Dave C, our transport man, to arrive.  He was there on cue so we drove down to Keoldale to meet Heather and Dave W.  The forecast warned us of rain later but for the time being it was dry, albeit with low cloud shrouding the summits.  If the weather stuck to the forecast, that cloud should lift later in the day.

The first part of the walk was a long, if easy, slog along an estate path.  The sun was threatening to appear and, anxious to avoid making my shiny red nose any redder, I slapped some cream on.  A Land Rover passed us on the track and I noticed a cage in the back, inside which perched a serene-looking raven.  I could only think it was an injured bird they were intending to release somewhere, but it seemed a long way to go just to find somewhere to set it free.  A little while later the car came back the other way.  The raven was still in its cage in the back.  Perhaps it was a pet they were taking out for a scenic tour.

After the level track, we finally turned off uphill.  Dave W led the way, doing his best to find a route despite there not being much of a path to speak of.  We climbed steadily up to one corrie, Coire Duaill, then more steeply up to a second, Glas Coire Granda.  The going got even steeper, and more rocky, as we then made our way onto the ridge at Bealach nan Carn.  Amongst the boulders and not much below the cloud base – stubbornly unlifted – we waited a short while for a struggling Jesper to join us.  He admitted he was finding it hard work and that, with the low cloud, his motivation wasn’t that high.  Nevertheless, we pushed on.

The next section showed us what steep really meant.  It was wet and grassy, with rocks and boulders sticking out here and there.  You didn’t have to lean very far forward to find yourself with your nose to the slope.  It was precarious with dodgy footholds and a long drop behind.  Heather found it very trying, especially with her particular bugbear of misty ascents, and Dave W had to keep up a constant litany of encouragement to keep her going.  Dave C helped with distraction tactics, talking of life in York and how planning for the future is all hot air when you don’t really know what’s coming next.  Jesper, somewhere below us, had to fend for himself.

Just below the first summit, Ceann Garbh, we paused again amongst rocks to let Jesper catch us – in the mist it would have been crazy to split up.  As a full party, we climbed onto the main ridge and felt the full blast of the wind.  It battered me like a like a heavyweight, pushing my feet and legs around as I tried to step through the boulder field.  As we started the ascent to the main summit I could feel my fingers going numb in the wind-chill so I stopped to get some thicker gloves out, frantically fiddling at zips and buckles with frozen fingers.  Material flapped about, straps whipped my face, Velcro attached itself to everything except the surface it should.  It took an age to achieve this simple task, all the while being ripped into by the murderously chilling gale.

Strapped up and better insulated than before, I continued the march uphill, slightly behind the others.  It wasn’t a long climb and we were soon together at the top.  We tried to pose for summit photos while staggering around in the unrelenting tempest then decided it wasn’t a place to stop long, although there was a tiny area behind a big cairn that gave a surprising amount of shelter.

The route we were following was from the Walk Highlands website.  The return journey wasn’t the same as the outward one, so we could avoid the precipitous route we took upwards, but didn’t present a very easy descent.  It dropped off the side of the ridge at a seemingly arbitrary point and turned down through large, unstable boulders, before a jink left to avoid some crags.  Jesper wasn’t very impressed with the route though we all made it off the steep bits safely.  The final section was another long walk, this time over pathless moorland, studded with bogs and lochans.  The advertised rain arrived here, first as drizzle, then imperceptibly heavier.  Around the far side of one lochan we found a hind staring at our approach, not particularly bothered about us but wary.  She moved a little further away before standing her ground and watching us pass.

By the time we regained the road we were dripping wet in the remorseless rain.  I didn’t exactly question my sanity but I wondered how I would answer the question, ‘Did you enjoy your walk?’  It would be hard to say it was enjoyable, exactly – with the steepness, the cloud, the wind and the rain – but I would hesitate to say I didn’t enjoy myself.  You could say it was a challenge overcome or another Corbett ticked off, but those pretexts don’t seem to do.  There’s something about being involved with the mountain, in whatever mood it’s in, perhaps to do with Nan Shepherd’s (via Rob Macfarlane) walking ‘into’ the mountain (as opposed to ‘onto’).  The other day on Arkle, when the stormy weather had cleared and we were given a glorious day, again I didn’t think about having ‘conquered’ the hill, but that we had been allowed our time on it in comfort and safety by some sort of grace.  We didn’t come to claim the hill as ours, we were just granted our time there, to experience it, to get to know it, to bear witness to its gravity, its geology and its beauty.

Macmillan Lake District Mighty Hike 2017

Macmillan organise a number of ‘Mighty Hikes’, long-distance single day walks, around the country but this was the first in the Lake District.  Over 1000 people had registered for the 25 mile trek, including me, my colleague Pete and another group from the Manchester office.  We were set off in waves of 200 or so every half hour.  Under cloudy skies, with a sense of nervous expectancy, at 8am we were off.

 The first part of the route was on level ground alongside Derwent Water.  A long stream of green tee-shirt-clad walkers stretched ahead of and behind us.  The clouds cleared and by the time we reached the first rest stop at Borrowdale, it was very warm.  We found a shady spot to eat the croissants and pastries provided by the organisers before rejoining the route.  ‘How’s it going?’ I asked Naomi from MAN34 as I caught her up in gently sloping valley of Langstrath.  ‘Absolutely flipping awful,’ she replied (approximately).  An honest assessment, though there were still 15 miles to go.

Shortly after this was the big, hard climb of the day up the Stake Pass.  It was tough in the heat but a good path.  At the top I lay back on the grass in the sun and rested my eyes.  Unfortunately this caused the marshal to panic, thinking that I had collapsed from exhaustion.  I reassured her I was only having a kip and complained that she had interrupted my sleep.

Lunch was in a marquee in Langdale and it was an excellent spread of salads and cakes (of which I probably ate too many).  There was also the chance to refill water bottles, as there were at each stop, and to try some High5 energy drink (jury still out on that one).  Pete and I had a quick chat with the other Manchester walkers before moving on again.

The walk out of Langdale was hot and airless.  Higher up at least we had had a bit of a breeze to cool us down.  We passed some kids in the river at Chapel Stile and would have loved to have swapped places.  There was another climb over into Little Landgale and the effort was telling in our legs.  The paths would beautifully through fields and woods but the afternoon stop couldn’t come soon enough.  Again we found some shade and tucked into Freddo and Fudge bars.  People were easing their boots off for some relief, revealing plasters galore.  ‘Is that it for climbs?’ one girl asked.  ‘Just one more,’ I replied, more or less truthfully.

The climb went steeply up to Loughrigg Tarn then kept on agonisingly until finally we saw a glimpse of Windermere.  We started descending, then heard the crowds and then found ourselves being applauded over the finish line to receive our medals and a glass of fizz.

It had been a brilliant day: well organised, excellent route, good company and camaraderie.  Along the way members of the public had encouraged us and said what a good cause we were walking in aid of.  So far Pete and I have raised £1355, which is absolutely amazing.  I would definitely enter a similar event and would recommend others to do the same.

Stanza Stones Trail Day 3

‘The plates are very hot, but the food is cold,’ the landlord told the table next to us at breakfast.  Winking at us he added, ‘If a joke’s good one day, it’s good the next.’

The landlady had joined us earlier as we stood on the patio looking at the chickens and black pigs.  She told us her favourite hen was a black one and that she loved to pick it up and turn it all around to let the light catch the iridescence in the feathers.  ‘I don’t know what she thinks of it, probably thinking, “Let go of me!”’

With a couple more cheesy jokes from the landlord we were on our way, stopping first at the Post Office for another packed lunch.  While the main lady was in the back making the sandwiches (halfway through she called out, ‘What did you want again?’) an old bloke came in picked out his papers and dropped off the right money with a cheery call through to the back to let her know it had been done.

Jill gave me a lift back to Bingley to start the final day’s walking.  For once the day started in beautiful sunshine and warmth.  The first part of the walk took me along the canal, past the impressive Five Rise locks, and I could relax without worries of navigation or bog.  There were a few people around and the town pressed up against the canal on either side, but it still felt very peaceful.  Groups of ducks paddled around, some with ducklings; swans mingled amongst them.  Crowds of tadpoles wriggled about through the vegetation at the waterside.  A dragonfly hunted through twinkling clouds of midges.  On the far side of the canal a heron slowly stalked something in the water, its speared beak ready to be flung forwards.

After some miles I had to turn off the canal and head uphill towards Rombalds Moor.  Before meeting Jill at the next stone, Dew, I was going to try to bag another off-piste trig.  The map showed a plantation of trees stretching over the slopes of Rivock Edge but reality showed that they had all been felled.  This isn’t always a good thing for making your way across country, as the felled logs and branches can form impassable obstacles, but it certainly made seeing your goal a good deal easier.  I followed the right of way for a while, turning aside at the gate telling me the road I had hoped would make a shortcut was not for the general public, then cut up steeply by a stone wall.  The top levelled out into a grassy plateau, gently caressed by the now less manic breeze.  The splendid view was of the Aire valley and the towns spread along it.

Having taken my trig photo, I retraced my steps and was soon with Jill by the Dew stone.  She remarked how it had been designed to be seen after emerging from the trees and wondered what the people thought of the situation now.  The stone is upright, inserted in a gap in a dry-stone wall, with a split in the centre of the stone itself.  Through and over the gap was a lovely bucolic view of fields and hills.

We parted company again and I had an easy and enjoyable walk through the still remaining part of the wood.  Being a conifer plantation it was a bit dark and lacked variety of vegetation, but I quite like the silence of these woods.  When I left them, I turned uphill again, past the Doubler Stones (a pair of anvil-shaped stones) and on to more heathery moorland.  The top of the climb finished at the sudden escarpment of Addingham High Moor with the Wharfe valley down below.  The route turned here and climbed some more up to the high part of the woods on Rombalds Moor (another trig point!).  A bird of prey flew out from the trees and perched on a rock ahead of me.  As I quickly tried to take a picture it flew off a bit further and sat on some heather, eying me suspiciously.  This time I got a better shot and decided it was a sparrowhawk.  Having sat for its picture, it took off over the moors.

The walk had been fairly easy going up to this point and I had marched on at a good pace.  But as another short climb began, I started to feel the week’s walking in my legs.  I started singing to myself a variant of the old Stones tune, ‘This could be the last climb, this could be the last climb, maybe the last climb, I don’t know.’  Thankfully at the top it was a level walk past the radio mast, past the Thimble Stones and to that convenient marker of the presence of a Stanza Stone: Jill.  The path over the boggy moor is paved with flagstones and the poem, Puddle, is carved into a pair of these on the ground.  I imagine the space where they’re located does indeed fill with water in rougher weather.

We now had a race on.  Jill had to walk back to her car, drive round the moor then walk out the last stone in about the time I did.  My task was easier as I just had to cross the moor.  The flagstones took me quickly to a bonus feature (via a trig point), the Twelve Apostles stone circle.  I was sceptical about what this might amount to – some things marked as stone circles don’t look much more than a couple of rocks near each other – but this was a proper little circle, rather like the Nine Ladies on Stanton Moor in the Peak District.  I then had another attack of scepticism as I wondered how ‘reconstructed’ the site might be.

I soon found the start of Backstone Beck, which would lead me down to the final Beck stone (they must have worked hard on these names).  First stop was at the Poetry Seat and the Poetry Postbox.  You’re supposed to put a poem in the top, turn a handle and get another poem out at the bottom.  My muse having sat this one out, I didn’t have a poem to post, and didn’t take a chance on getting one out.  The idea of it is probably better than the reality.

The leaflet guiding the way was accurate in getting me down near to the Cow and Calf rocks but I decided against its suggested diversion to a quarry with ‘excellent examples of cup and ring marks’.  Hmm.  Instead I dropped steeply down by the beck and followed the rather particular instructions to look for a big rock by some gorse bushes.  I spotted a likely candidate and a squeeze through the overgrown vegetation revealed the Beck stone, sat in the middle of the gorge, looking both entirely in and of its place, and also odd and unnatural.  The constant presence of water made some of the text hard to decipher, but it looked very picturesque.  As the sky threatened to rain, I had a 10 minute wait for Jill to arrive.  We admired the stone, congratulated ourselves on getting that far, then turned back up the narrow path back to the car park.

With that, there was just a celebratory pint of Yorkshire Terrier in the Cow and Calf Hotel, a visit to Jill’s niece-in-law (is that a real term?), Barbara, who kindly made us a tasty tea and whose delightful girls entertained me with their nonsense, and then it was on the train home.  It had been a thoroughly enjoyable few days and a tough walk, but one that was interesting and rewarding too.

For more about the Stanza Stones Trail see Ilkley Literature Festival