Guest column: Vivienne Crow
Re-walking an epic Joss Naylor run.
I’M NOT THE fastest hillwalker but I am a regular hillwalker and I think I’m reasonably fit; I’d foolishly assumed, being in my early fifties, that I’d be able to keep up with an 84-year-old, but I was struggling as we neared Skeggles Water. In my defence, my companion wasn’t your typical 84-yearold; it was Joss Naylor, the legendary fell-runner.
The Lake District fells have been Joss’ home since he was a young child, growing up on the family farm at Wasdale Head and joining his father shepherding on England’s highest mountains. At the peak of his running career in the 1970s and ’80s, he broke dozens of records and completed some mind-boggling challenges. He broke the 24-Hour Fell Record on three separate occasions, extending it to 72 peaks in 1975 – a record that stood for 13 years. His historic round of all 214 Wainwrights, in just seven days in 1986, seemed almost unassailable until, 28 years later, Steve Birkinshaw shaved almost 13 hours off his time. And in 2006, aged 70, he ran a round of 70 felltops in under 21 hours.
We’d come to Skeggles Water, a little-known tarn on the moorland between Kentmere and Longsleddale, as part of Joss’s rewalking of another one of his super-human achievements – a 105-mile run visiting 27 of the National Park’s ‘lakes, meres and waters’ in just over 19 hours. He had asked me to write a book about the feat so that others could follow in his footsteps. That 1983 day had always stood out in his memory as one of the finest of his life. “It’s summat you couldn’t really explain to anybody,” he told me when we rewalked it in the summer of 2020. “It was like a dream. Looking back afterwards, I thought how privileged I was to have done it because it’s a beautiful thing. It gave us a chance to have a good look at the Lake District and go to places where you don’t usually go.”
After lockdown restrictions had eased, we started our walk where Joss had begun his epic 1983 adventure – from the shores of Loweswater and along the side of Crummock Water to Buttermere, jealously guarded by high, craggy fells. From here, the route climbs Red Pike before plummeting into Ennerdale. Those nine miles (completed by Joss in 1983 in less than 90 minutes) form day one of the itinerary we devised so that walkers and runners can experience the lakes, meres and waters at their own pace, ending at Over Water in the Northern Fells 10 days later.
Over several weeks last summer, we gazed on sublime reflections in Wastwater, enjoyed the tranquillity of Devoke Water, dropped in on the honeypots of Grasmere, Windermere and Derwentwater, and witnessed a mesmerising display created by extraordinary atmospheric conditions over Blea Water, hidden in one of the rugged corries biting into High Street’s east face. The route was neither fell walk nor valley walk; we went up and over high tops, along valley bottoms, through idyllic villages, across bleak moorland…
And, of course, we visited Skeggles Water, one of Lakeland’s least-known bodies of water. As I waded through the heather, trying to keep up with Joss, the purple flowers released pollen dust that seemed to hover just above the ground, filling the air with its sweet, cloying smell. A little earlier, we’d inadvertently flushed out both a buzzard and a hare. The moorland surrounding the tarn might have seemed featureless in comparison with, say, Buttermere’s crag-bound glories, but there was beauty and serenity here. Suddenly, I knew what Joss had meant – the route was giving us a taste of everything England’s most beautiful corner had to offer. We truly were privileged.