Millican Dalton, Castle Crag
‘PROFESSOR OF ADVENTURE’ has to be one of the finest job titles in the world, and that’s how Millican Dalton came to be known. Working in London at the turn of the 20th century, he jacked in his job as a fire insurance clerk and forged a new life in the Lake District. He would go rock climbing (ascending Napes Needle, the pinnacle on Great Gable, numerous times, even lighting a fire to make coffee at the top on his 50th climb); he would sail across lakes on a hand-made raft; and eschewing an ordinary house, he lived in a cave on Castle Crag at the top of Borrowdale. His was a frugal life, but to make ends meet – and fund his Woodbine addiction – he set up a guiding company offering ‘camping holidays, mountain rapid shooting, rafting,’ and the slightly worrying ‘hairbreadth escapes’. For more than 40 years he summered in this cave (in winter he headed south to the Chilterns) and you can reach it on a walk up Castle Crag – the smallest of the 214 Wainwrights, but a cracking little fell.