Long way up

There are days, walking in the hills of the Lake District, when you wonder what on Earth you are doing. Perhaps you have slept badly; for example, a 2 am heavy downpour of rain may have drummed with thunderous intensity on your tent, waking you and keeping you awake for some time. Other times, perhaps you are not as fit as you were, or had thought that you were, and the relentless trudging almost directly uphill, begins to feel like a Sisyphean task. Then there's the weather. As I have pointed out to people on a lot of occasions, there is a reason why there are a lot of lakes in the Lake District; in my experience, I think that I have had more good weather days than bad when walking in the Lakes, but that does not detract from the fact that it can rain a lot.

Recently, having returned to the Lakes to try and tick off some more of the Wainwrights, I had a full hand of the above irritations. I had slept badly, and as I trudged to the start of my walk, the valley was overcast, with the cloud sitting discouragingly low on the hills I was proposing to climb. Nevertheless, it had stopped raining, and I started my walk, determined to at least give it a go, before the weather and my own dozy sluggishness defeated me. Very soon, it turned from wet to warm, and I had to remove my rainproof jacket. Even then, it felt like walking in the tropics, and my glasses refused to stay on the bridge of my nose, but repeatedly slid down on a slick of sweat that poured off my reddening face.

Slowly but surely, I reached the top of Seathwaite Fell (a hill of around 600 metres in height). There, sitting by Sprinkling Tarn, I ate some lunch, and drank a small bottle of orange juice with indecent haste to try and quench my parch. Across the little body of water, I could make out the lower slopes of Great End; at 910 metres, the highest hill I was aiming for. I say "lower slopes", but I suppose I really mean "cliffs", and it was far from clear where the route I had picked out on a map actually led. Having fed, I headed towards the cliff wall, and scanned it again for a way up. Eventually, I made out The Band, a kind of breach in the hill's ramparts, which was supposed to lead to another path that would eventually climb up the hill.

I am not a walker who disdains the SatNav, and today I found mine particularly useful in confirming where on the bleak side of this hill I actually was. SatNav can only lead you so far, however, and I was fortunate, eventually, to pick out the subtlest hints of a pathway leading up the apparently otherwise unassailable rock. To the experienced walker, the polish on well-worn rocks and the occasional line of grit amongst the native rocks are all indicators that you have not lost you way, and I was relieved to follow them. Then they abruptly stopped at a twenty foot high wall. I looked up at it. There might, it occurred to me, if one was feeling adventurous, be just the barest hint of steps, but I was walking alone, and was wary about getting myself rock-bound; that terrifying sensation of being unable to go forward or back, without the risk of a fall and a breakage.

I retraced my route a little and scanned the rocks around me. No, I had followed the right route; this was it. I returned to face the mini-cliff and reevaluated the scariness. On reflection, it seemed slightly less terrifying, and before I knew it, I had scrambled up it, and onto the next stage of the climb. I am not normally a walker who enjoys scrambling, but as the climb progressed, I found myself enjoying the mental as well as the physical exertion. One of the greatest things about walking is its capacity for clearing the mind of everything but the essential. One cannot worry about deadlines and other work problems, when you are also at least partly focused on not dying, for the moment.

Eventually, the gradient lessened, and I finally took a moment to turn around and see where I was. For the last half hour or so, I had been climbing in the mist, so I was not expecting to see very much. It was with a tangible surge of emotion, then, that almost as I turned, the cloud lifted, and I found that I had an exceptionally glorious view all the way down to Derwent Water, about six miles away. I breathed deep of the clean mountain air, and grinned. This, I muttered to myself; this is why I do this.

Vikos Gorgeous

In the Pindus Mountains in northern Greece lies the Vikos Gorge, a geological record-breaker, which is claimed to be the deepest gorge in the world (being 900 m, or 2,950 ft deep and only 1.1 m or 3.6 feet between its rims). Visiting in June, we were driven along the twisty mountain roads from our hotel in Aristi, to the north, to Monodendri in the south by our charming host, whose English was limited, but whose generosity and kindliness was not.

We had been advised to start early, at 6 am, but were delayed by breakfast and a wrong turn on our way down into the gorge, and did not begin until nearer 7.30 am. We had started by walking most of the way to the monastery of Agia Paraskevi, built on the edge of the Vikos Gorge, before being called back by our host, who had tottered after us in wooden wedges, which were distinctly unsuitable for the ridged pathway. We had just reached the gateway to the monastery, and decided that there was no safe way down into the gorge from there, when we saw her following us along the path, calling us to return, and made our way back to the village, and from there down a different street.

Finally on the right course, walking down the winding path to the bottom of the gorge, we relished the cool breeze that occasionally wafted through the tree-dappled sunlight. It had been a hot couple of days; the heat so intense that, stopping for lunch in the town of Ioannia the day before, I had heard the pine cones crack in the sun, the reports sounding like gunshots.

Reaching the bottom of the gorge, we walked along the dry riverbed, occasionally exploring its water-scoured rocks, as the sun rose beyond the towering  mountainous sides beside us. At one point, I stopped, arrested by a strange animal noise off to the left - a repeated half bark, half howl - which even now I cannot confidently identify. The gorge is home to bears, wolves and boar, among other animals, and as we walked quickly away from the sound, as much as I tried to be reassuring about it being behind us and no threat, I could not help keeping an eye on the path for decent-sized throwable stones, in case of an emergency.

Further on, and comfortably removed from whatever has made the noise, I was delighted to find a pool in the rocks beside the dry river, in which I saw first tadpoles, and then several frogs of increasing sizes. Flow in the river is seasonal, and underground watercourses mean that one may hear water running, but only occasionally see it on the surface. This little pool was a perfect pond for this group of amphibians, the water level of which was presumably refreshed from time to time by rainfall.

The walk from Monodendri to Vikos, to the north of the gorge, is supposed to take between four and a half and six hours, but by the time we neared the final stretch, and the climb back out of the gorge, it was past midday and the the blazing sun had well and truly risen, which slowed our progress considerably. The shaded wooded pathway gradually petered out, and the way ahead of us became dry and exposed to the heat, with only the occasional patches of shade, between which we dashed as quickly as tired legs and the extreme temperature would allow.

Despite having hiked and climbed in equatorial Africa, this felt like the hottest walking I had ever done. Although I was happy that I was protected against the sun, I began for the first time to worry about heat stroke. As the sweat ran off me, I could not avoid the thought that this had become a dangerous situation, with which my body was not coping very well. Noël Coward's line "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" repeated in my thumping head, and I could feel my heart pounding fiercely and too fast.

By pouring half the contents of our drinking water over ourselves, we managed to keep on just the right side of exhaustion and we forced ourselves on, desperate to get out of the heat. As we eventually climbed out, over the lip of the gorge at Vikos, I gave thanks to whoever had built a stone shade with a water tap, which stood across the road. I put my head under the cooling water, and felt both relieved and revived as my pulse and breathing returned to a more normal rate. 'Next time,' I said, gratefully letting the water run down my sweat-drenched shirt, 'We start at six.'

Wainwright away

Between 1955 and 1966, Alfred Wainwright published seven volumes of a pocket-sized walkers' guidebook called "A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells". In the course of doing so, he identified 214 hills and mountains (known as "fells") in the Lake District in Northern England which have come to be known, collectively, as "the Wainwrights". For those of us who are so inclined, myself included, it has become a common past time to walk or "bag" those fells and to "do the Wainwrights".

Not all of us, however, have ready access to the Lake District, and so the process of walking all 214 fells can take several years. Fitter and, for the slower among us, more annoying people have achieved the same thing in six or seven days, but I like to think that they could hardly have savoured the experience. Another advantage about the process being more drawn out is that each time I return to the Lakes, I experience anew the sensation of joy and happiness that comes from the effort of propelling myself over beautiful landscape, with often even more stunning views around me.

And so it was this weekend, when I returned to the hills, almost ten months after my last visit. Having started my car journey pleasingly early, I arrived in the North Lakes in good time to climb Binsey, a low Wainwright, somewhat detached from the main bulk of fells that he catalogued. As it can take me at least five hours' driving to get to the Lakes (sometimes as much as seven or eight, if the traffic is against me), I have occasionally considered some Wainwrights as "expensive", meaning that the effort required to get to and then walk them is relatively great.

If I were to have travelled here to climb Binsey on its own, and nothing more, it would have been an extremely "expensive" hill, being only 447 m (1,467 ft) high, and so removed from its neighbours that it would not have been particularly practical to combine it with any other hills. As it was, I had a longer walk planned for the next day, so this was a bonus. Being only a pleasing 50 minute climb there and back from the car, this gently walk was also exactly what I needed after my drive.

Looking back south over the Skiddaw massif and Bassenthwaite Lake (the only "lake" in the Lake District, trivia fans; the others have "mere" or "water" in their names) having reached the modest summit, I felt refreshed and renewed, almost instantly. The fresh air, the bright sunlight, the endorphins, all combined to blow away the cobwebs that can accumulate, living predominantly indoors over winter, and I found myself grinning broadly, despite myself.

The next day, I walked and walked and walked. I had been planning to climb two other Wainwrights, but as I wandered over the fells, and saw the proximity of several others, I ended up climbing five. I turned back from a possible sixth, as the wintery wind filled with razor-sharp droplets of freezing rain, which pinged harshly against my face, but I was still satisfied. Looking back, on my way off the hill, the wind and rain having abated and the sun breaking through the clouds again, I wished, for a moment, that I had pressed on, but you never know what the weather will do in the Lakes, and it could easily have got worse.

The hills will still be there another day, I considered, and it's always good to have something to come back to.

Aroumd and about

The sound of four grown men being assailed with buckets of water in a vaulted hammam reminded me of the noises made by crowds attending fireworks displays, in my childhood. As we lined up against the wall, we were pelted with water of varying temperatures, each of which drew from us different noises, ranging from comfort to pain: warm water ("oooh"), hot ("aaah") and occasionally very cold ("eeeee"). After a while, these sounds, which echoed around the tiled rooms, began to make us all laugh in a slightly delirious way, to the undoubted bewilderment of the hammam's attendant and his assistant.

The day before, we had descended from the refuge just below Toubkal in the Atlas Mountains, the highest peak in North Africa, and we were sorely in need of hygiene. It was in the depths of February, the mountain was encrusted in snow and ice, and the temperature inside the refuge where we had spent a few nights was, but for one room with a stove, extremely cold. One morning, I had braved the dribbling pipe in the basement room that was pleased to call itself a "shower", but as I squatted in the shower tray, desperately hoping for the barest hint of warmth, I had started to doubt whether I would ever get properly warm again.

The summit of Toubkal had been reached a few days before that, and not without with a great deal of effort. Altitude, combined with occasionally knee-deep snow, meant that our ascent had been far from speedy. At the top, we looked out across the Atlas Mountains, under a crips blue sky; the covering of snow making it extremely hard to judge scale.

"Are we the slowest group you've lead up here?" somebody asked, jokingly, but our guide's polite smile and silence in reply spoke volumes.

Back down the valley, we had walked across to Amound, a small village clustered on top of an ancient mountain land-slip, on the promise of a traditional massage and steam room. The village resembled a scattered collection of cardboard boxes, and appeared extremely basic. Inside the hammam, however, all was warm and clean. Afterwards, we marched back across the valley to our auberge, skin tingling with freshness.

Winter walking

The Lake District in winter is a very different beast from the Lakes in the summer. It's not just a question of the weather, although in the winter the Lakes are, naturally, colder and, honesty compels me to admit, frequently wetter. One of the most significant differences between the two seasons, however, is in the nature of the transitory population.

In the winter, for example, the towns of the Lake District are more sparsely populated, but the people who are there are, by and large, walkers, climbers and cyclists. This contrasts with the peak tourist season over the summer, when the towns can feel overrun with what Bertie Wooster might describe as, "trippers"; people who are there for the views, certainly, but possibly more so for the cafés and gift shops that also proliferate.

For the walkers, however, that hardy band for whom winter brings with it the promise of snow-covered fell tops on which to wander, the season can make the Lakes feel like your own private playground. After the sometimes overly well-trodden paths of the warmer parts of the year, with the shortening of days comes the knowledge that we are likely to meet fewer people, when out on the hills. As misanthropic as that might sound, it can also be immensely liberating.

These are the people for whom the prospect of a day spent wading through snow and ice is worth the occasionally considerable effort of getting there, however short the day might actually be. We relish the fresh air, the sometimes breathtakingly crisp light, and the opportunity to see familiar vistas redecorated with a canopy of white.

There is something endlessly rewarding about feeling the crunch of snow beneath boots, the catch of cold air in the throat, and the knowledge that at the end of the day there is likely to be a roaring file, hearty food and good beer. This is the season when the smell of fresh air on one’s clothes, as you stumble into a warm pub after a full day on the hills, is as pungent and rich as perfume.

Don't look down

All being well, you reach the edge of the crater at the top of Kilimanjaro just as dawn starts to break. Far far to the east, a speck of light appears, grows and turns into a sliver of sun, which gradually divides the sky and the Earth. For six hours or so, starting from around midnight, you have been walking steadily, unceasingly, in the cold and dark. Around you, all you have been able to see is the pools of light cast by your and your companions’ head torches, as you trudge up the scree slopes of the mountainside.

The last night of ascending Kilimanjaro is an intensely surreal experience, like being trapped inside a dream. Without visible landmarks, it is like walking endlessly in the dark, along the same stretch of dusty path. The cold is colder than you can remember ever experiencing before; a dry chill that nips at your exposed skin, and tries to seep through your clothes. Water bottles freeze and toes feel as if they are doing likewise. The final climb – the last ascent after days of walking – is long, slow, relentless.

Most of us had been here before, four years previously, but had not made it to the top. A combination of a quicker route than this one (and thus less acclimatisation to the altitude), an oversleeping guide (which led to a panicked late departure from camp), and a stop-start-stop-start ascent did for the group, and only one of us had reached even the crater rim. The sense of unfinished business had burned in us all ever since, and now we had the chance to finish what had been left incomplete.

Kilimanjaro is not the most dangerous mountain in the world, nor are most of its routes especially adventurous or arduous ascents, but it is still a tough climb for most normal people. As we reached the lip of the crater, three of our group had already had to pull out, owing to illness, and another one of our team only just made it, a chest infection becoming increasingly evident in the final stages of the climb.

The rest of us were there, though. We had made it. As I looked out across the cloud-covered landscape, with the delightfully warming sun rising and spreading its light, I was overwhelmed. What had, for several years, felt like a tantalising impossibility, had now become a reality. With teary eyes, which I was too tired to wipe, I watched the world spread out beneath us, with the curve of the Earth marking the horizon.

“Go for the top?” somebody said.

“Yes. Definitely.”