It turns out Paul and I have a lot in common. He plays the drums. I play the drums. He's a vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian. He's good-looking and knowledgeable. I'm ...
So anyway. Having ascended every peak in this part of the Lake District, and scaled most of the rock faces, Paul has picked out what he considers an ideal spot for my first night wild camping.
It's not exactly a spot, though, more a vast expanse of marsh and meandering river, cradled by craggy mountaintops. "It's called Great Moss," Paul tells me, as he plots a path across, after three hours hiking. I had pictured something more secluded for my first night under the stars. But Paul knows what he's doing.
"You'll see the sun rise in the morning over those hills behind us," he says, as we splash across the shallow water. Rejecting several sites as too hard or squelchy he chooses one for me, beside a mountain stream, and another fifty yards away for himself, and we pull the tents from our rucksacks.
Having learned all I know about tents from Carry on Camping, I expect erecting them to be tricky and time-consuming. But it happens so fast I almost miss it, colour coding and structural ribs made of sectioned tent-poles making it look so easy that I think even an idiot could do it. Fortunately.
"And there you are," Paul says. "A two-person tent ready for the night."
"How many persons?" I check.
"Two," He confirms. "This one's quite roomy."
Not to my eyes it isn't. But that's fine. Solo camping is the long-term plan, not snuggling up with a friend – partly because I want to experience the Cairngorm wilderness without distraction, as Nan Shepherd did, and partly because I don't have any friends willing to snuggle up with me on a mountaintop. (Yeah, I asked.)
During dinner, heated on the stoves and saucepans we carried in with us, Paul chats about wild camping around the country. The short version is that, barring a few exceptions, it's legal anywhere in Scotland and nowhere in England*.
After dinner, we wash our dishes in the mountain stream and Paul gets to his feet, eyeing the track behind us that leads to the peaks. "Do you feel up to it?" he asks. "It'll be easier now you've stowed your rucksack." True enough, I do have a pleasant floaty feeling, but I'm also wearier than I'd normally be after a six mile uphill hike, the after-effects of my second Covid vaccination yesterday.
It seems a shame not to try for the top, although it's not my main aim in being here, so we set off upwards. But short of the highest point in England, I have to call it a day and we turn back down, to prepare for the night.
The sun is sinking fast now, the warm afternoon yielding to a cool and peaceful gloaming. The air is still, as it has been all day, the only sound the soft splash of the stream we're camped beside, a soothing murmur that should help me sleep. Paul and I chat about the outdoor life as the light leeches away, before he wishes me goodnight and heads for his tent.
So here we are. The moment that's almost haunted my thoughts for over a year. For the next ten hours it's just me, the sky above, the earth beneath and the darkness.
Oh and the thick socks, long pants, thermal vest, woolly bunnet and four-seasons sleeping bag. The forecast is hard frost and I've come prepared. But after an hour I realise I'm not cold. I'm hot. The woolly bunnet stays on, partly because the air is already chilly as the day's heat radiates up through a cloudless sky, but mainly because it's a present from my son.
Not my son the artist, who often appears in these pages. This is another son you've never heard of. My firstborn. We were close when he was a boy. We made each other laugh. But he had a hard time as a young adult and found it easier to cut himself off from us.
Around three years ago he gradually began to come back into my life. We meet regularly now and go long walks together. He's a lovely man. The whole experience, lasting twenty years, has taught me something I didn't know about human biology. You can function at some level with a hole in your heart. But you get to live again when it heals.
The hat stays on, as does the watch he gave me that also shows temperature and compass direction. The socks come off, and the pants and vest. So now I'm stretched out nice and cosy, naked from the forehead down.
Cosy but by no means comfortable. I favoured quality for the rucksack and sleeping-bag, but economy for the mat, a mistake that's borne painfully in on me as the Lake District presses hard on my ribs and hip. I'm convinced sleep is impossible but I'm wrong.
At around 5 am, when it's - 6 ° C outside, I'm awoken by urgent messages from my nether regions that my arse is freezing off, as are my feet. I pull on socks and pants again and next thing I know it's 7am and I've almost missed the daybreak.
Quickly unzipping the sleeping-bag and tent, I pull on trousers and top and step into a cool morning under a rosy sky, as dawn turns to sunrise and the first rays illuminate the mountaintops, then travel down towards us. It's too good an opportunity to miss, so before packing up, I sit down to meditate, with my back to a rock, facing the sunrise.
I ask if he considers Ringo a good drummer and nod agreement when he tells me he didn't, but having listened to the thoughts of other great drummers, he does now. He asks if I believe in reincarnation and nods agreement when I say I don't know and it doesn't matter: the principle's the same however you get there – don't harm any living thing.
On the last leg, we again pass the little black lambs who, I 'm guessing, look much better for their night of wild camping than I do. At the cars, Paul and I unload our backpacks and prepare to part.
I have warm memories of our day and a half together. If I want advice or instruction on any other outdoor activity, he's the man I'll call. We bump elbows, say goodbye and drive off in opposite directions.
Next stop Ben Macdui in the snow.
Find Paul at Rock n Ridge
* Longer version of wild camping law.
No comments:
Post a Comment