our final trip together
It’s been about 5 months since Bo passed away, and aside from printing my pictures of her, I have mostly been ignoring my computer and the backlog of exposed film I have waiting. Over the winter period I busied myself as much as possible with work, decorating, and planning a holiday, while I tried to come to terms with a life without her in it anymore.
Quite truthfully, the thought of going through all the films I have shot over the last year was just too upsetting. Other than New York, and the odd city photo walk - all of those were with Bo by my side.
However, such things cannot be put off forever, so we will start with my most recent rolls, the ones from what turn out to be our final trip away together, a couple of weeks before she passed away.
We went to the Lake District in Cumbria for a weekend of Wainwright ticking.
I believe I have mentioned this a few times, but we had been completing the ‘Wainwrights’ a series of 214 peaks across the Lake District, and this trip brought us up to 76, 13 of them over this weekend. Our first day was at Ambleside, where we completed the ‘Fairfield Horseshoe’ - a fairly simple, gradual climb with Fairfield at its furthest, and highest point from the start. Although not very demanding, it is quite a long walk, at nearly 11.5miles.
The most challenging section was trying to reach the first peak - Low Pike. As you start to rise there is a section of path which is very narrow, flanked by bracken on either side (which i always imagine is festooned with ticks), and of course this is where a herd of Highland cattle are seemingly, just out for a walk.
Bo, who has never really known what to make of cows, takes neither an aggressive, nor scared demeanour with them, but seems to just try to tell them off with nervous yaps. Eventually after unintentionally herding them about 100m up the hill, the path widened, and we could continue at our leisure.
The rest of the walk was free from peril, and our route back was across gently rolling peaks guiding us to Ambleside. Bo even managed to find a piece of log, on a walk completely void of trees for the last 6 miles. How that solitary piece of timber found its way to the top of Great Rigg is anyones guess..
After Ambleside we headed West, to the slightly more dramatic area around Wast Water, to camp overnight along the lake. The next day we would be heading straight up, and along another 10 mile loop in the hills.
Unlike the day before, the climb up the first peak - Yewbarrow is not gradual, it is relentlessly up, but the views you are rewarded with are fantastic.
Because your path up is on the western side, its not until you really get on top that you get to see the view in all its grandeur. The wonderful sights in the east - Kirk Fell, Great Gable, and Scafell Pike lined up in a row, with Lingmell Beck running back into the valley below.
Having been on all of those peaks in the past, I can say without a doubt, that the shamefully overlooked peak of Yewbarrow has the best view of all of them. On this particular morning Scafell’s summit was enveloped in foreboding clouds, and I felt a slight sense of pity for those who passed by my mountain to head up there. That is, until I occurred to me we had this one all to ourselves.
One thing that this pictures do not convey, is just how windy it was when we got to the furthest regions of this hike. On Steeple, in particular, it was blowing an absolute hooley. Steeple is a peak which extends off of another peak into a valley (in a similar way to Tryfan, from Glider Fach, for those familiar) so its more exposed, and the wind passing across the top of its parent peak cascades down onto it (or at least it did on this day!), making it a challenge to even stand still and take photographs.
In spite of the winds attempt to blow us off the mountains, we made it back to the van, and returned home safe and sound with a few more hills under our feet.