an eyebrow but says nothing, as another manly moan escapes my aching body. Soft words and sympathy are not part of Paul's job on this trip.
Taking me up to the Scafell range, pushing me on if he has to, and showing me how to survive overnight in what promises to be seriously sub-zero temperatures, despite the fact that the sun this morning is blazing down from a big blue sky ... are.
Having grown up in the Ayrshire countryside, not far from Glen Afton, I'd done lots of running and walking in the hills, over the years, without feeling the need for outdoor activity lessons. Seemed like asking someone to teach me how to breathe. But having reached the ripe old age of none-of-your-business without ever camping in the wild, I got a craving to try it last year while reading Nan Shepherd's 'The Living Mountain'. I wanted to experience a dawn like she describes, in which "I hardly breathe - I am an image in a ball of glass.”
I also wanted to push myself a little, scare myself a bit, without doing anything as stupid as detaching my retinas by diving head-first off a cliff with an elastic band round my ankles. I'd tried Go Ape in the Trossachs, with a friend, which isn't scary but is exhilarating, especially the initial 400 metre zip-wire over a wooded valley. I'd gone coasteering, which allowed us to pose in figure-hugging wetsuits and jump off cliffs into the sea.
But feeling enough fear to push past, I've found, gets more difficult as the years tick away and emotional scar tissue hardens into the imprint of experience. Just one source of terror from earlier times might, I suspect, still be in there, biding its time to turn my palms wet and my legs wobbly. The scent of tobacco smoke can still carry me back to black nights with the wind howling, when my Dad would come upstairs and lie beside me, his strong presence soothing my fears and helping me drift off to sleep.
Yep, as a wee boy I was scared of the dark. Imagination conjured monsters from the night. So spending one inside a small tent up a mountain, when you can't see but can hear what's sneaking up on you, may well trigger some of that atavistic dread. Good. That's what I'm looking for.
The expedition gets off to a shaky start, however, when I don't find Paul until an hour later than we'd agreed, by which time I'm feeling agitated, having misread the map, parked in the wrong place and got to wondering if I'm going to balls up my keenly anticipated but long Covid-delayed expedition before it starts.
When we eventually do meet up, exactly where Paul said he'd be, I am reassured by his soft Yorkshire accent and air of calm competence, as he shows me how to insert the tent, stove and saucepan he's brought for me into a rucksack I thought was already packed as tight as six badgers in a biscuit tin.
That done we head off into upper Eskdale, past a pair of tiny black lambs whose large eyes and plaintive bleats make us both go a little soppy. I think I'm going to like this guy. But I'm already beginning to hate my backpack. Paul is moving light and easy, while I trudge along behind, trying to get the hang of walking with a small, knobbly horse on my back.
It's a gorgeous morning, the Esk below us sparkling white as it rushes over rocks, and translucent green where deep, inviting pools collect the icy waters from the mountains. We pause briefly beside one of these, for a cup of tea and a chat about the other activities Paul offers.
Besides wild camping, these include navigation, abseiling, rock climbing, via ferrata, canoeing, winter skills and a host of others, including ghyll scrambling.
"You've heard of canyoning," Paul explains. "Well ghyll scrambling is similar except you go upstream instead of down. It's a lot of fun."
"Do you have to carry a rucksack?" I ask.
"No," he tells me.
"I'm in."
(To be continued.)
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