Open Writing

The first bewitching mile, every step a joy, is an idyllic journey Wainwright wrote and, in such beautiful weather, it certainly was. As we gained height, we were able to turn and look down and along the wonderfully green Borrowdale valley with its scattering of farmhouses. As the sun beat down, it was hard to believe that Seathwaite, only a few minutes away from -where we stood, has the unwanted title as the wettest place in England. I remembered one of the handful of residents of Seathwaite trying to convince me that it doesn't rain any more frequently there than in many other places in England; it's just that, when it does rain, it really means it. As well as being a Mountain Rescue volunteer, he was a teacher at a school in Keswick and he reckoned that he could leave Keswick in torrential rain and arrive home fifteen minutes later in weather that made the downpour in Keswick seem like a few spits and spots.

It took us two hours of hard slog to reach Greenup Edge and, as we arrived at this pass, we caught up with Don who had stopped for a break. Paul had passed him ages ago, but Don now joined up with us as we began the descent towards Grasmere.

From Greenup Edge, the direct route to Grasmere is along Far Easedale but Wainwright described an alternative which keeps to higher ground and adds another mile to the journey and eventually leads to Helm Crag before descending to Grasmere. We decided (that is, Tom decided for us) that we would take the higher route. What he did not tell us at that stage was that there is another route (now known as neither the high route nor the low route, but as the Tomfool route) which avoids going into Grasmere and, he claimed when he sprang it on us, this would be easier as it involves less height loss.The Tomfool route follows the Wainwright higher route to begin with but, instead of continuing to Helm Crag and then to Grasmere, we turned and headed for Dead Pike and then more to the north along the ridge of Steel Fell. The objective was to descend to Dunmail Raise and cross the main A591 road at a much higher altitude than Grasmere. Tom told us that the map showed a path leading down from Steel Fell to Dunmail Raise, but he didn't bother to tell us that the contours are so close that, on the map, they look like a solid black mass.The descent was so steep that we had to shuffle down on our backsides for a considerable distance, which may have been one of Wainwright s favourite means of making downhill progress, but is not only very slow but also extremely uncomfortable, not to mention unseemly for respectable elderly gents. Fortunately, before we wore holes in the backsides of our shorts, we spotted an old wire fence away to our right and shuffled across to it in ungainly fashion and were able to hold on to the fence for the rest of the way down to the road.

Having crossed the road, we decided to stop on the other side to gather our breath and have a limited banquet. It was all very well avoiding the loss of height by steering clear of Grasmere, but the consequence was that we would not pass any shops or watering holes throughout the long journey that day. Fortunately, Don was still carrying enough to feed a sizeable army. As we recovered from the tortuous descent, Don, who had found the descent even more difficult as the weight of his pack threatened to cause him to topple over, gazed across at the almost perpendicular fellside opposite.

'It's impossible to come down there without ropes. There can't possibly be a footpath.'

'It's on the map,'Tom said irritably, and tossed it to him.

'Bloody hell, Tom,' he shouted after a moment's review of the map,'it's a parish boundary. You've just brought us down a fuckin' parish boundary!'