ESSENTIAL INFORMATION
Carey’s route: Helvellyn via Striding Edge and Swirral Edge
START / FINISH: Glenridding (NY385169)
DISTANCE: 12km / 7.5 miles
ASCENT: 915m / 3002ft
DURATION: Carey hiked this route over two short days split by a wild camp; but as a continuous walk this classic route typically takes around 5 hours.
Public transport: 508 buses from Penrith (and Ambleside in summer), 208 bus from Keswick – see stagecoachbus.com
Wild camping: In this feature Carey camped on Helvellyn. Please note that wild camping – in the form of discreet one-night stays in the hills and mountains at some distance away from civilisation – is traditionally tolerated in the Lake District, provided it is done responsibly. The National Trust acknowledges that “there’s a long tradition of wild camping in the Lake District”, but in response to the surge in people wanting to camp there and some of the problems that has brought, emphasises that your campsite should always be above the highest wall boundary on the mountain (usually about 400 metres), should not involve more than two tents in the same spot, should not involve fires or barbecues, and should always “leave no trace” of litter or waste. surrounded by sky, rock and the open space of a mountain summit.
In any given year you can usually count the days you find the tops of the hills like this on the fingers of one hand, if you’re lucky. It made the effort to get up here seem very trivial indeed.
DUSK AND DAWN
We pitched our tents to the west of the summit, brewed some hot water to pour into a carton of Bolognese dust for dinner, and settled down to watch the sun set. James stayed with us until the sun dropped behind Scotland then headed off down Swirral Edge to a proper bed and work commitments. Chris and I sat outside our tents for a couple of hours, savouring the relative coolness of the dusk (but still striking in its warmth, given the location) and the unique texture of silence, watching the embers of the sunset smoulder into a dusky red afterglow while stars emerged in the inky darkness above.
I had a little wander back up to the summit as the light faded and was surprised to see what looked like pipistrelle or soprano bats flitting around above the great Red Tarn crag. There were plenty of midges for them to feed on, but it still seemed odd to find them all the way up here.
We saw no one else camping around us during the night; but in the hour or so before dawn the odd walker, runner and photographer began appearing, until there were a handful of other people perched across the rim of the plateau to watch the sunrise. Except for the soft clink of someone’s coffee flask, everyone was silent as the star emerged; a small, claret-coloured coin at first,
glowing through the heatwave haze on the horizon, like a red moon, or a strange planet, rising over the broad back of the North Pennines. There is still a kind of ritual in the way we watch sunrises and sunsets, a shared understanding that there is something to be revered in these thresholds between night and day. We kept our voices down to a whisper.
It is a well-rehearsed argument, but I am often disappointed by the poverty of flora and fauna on the close-cropped, Herdwickmunched fells of the Lake District, and am sceptical of the idealisation of what Wordsworth termed this “Perfect republic of shepherds”. Even so, it was hard not to be moved by what followed. As the sun strengthened, it poured orange light across the fells and flared brilliantly across the surface of Ullswater, aligning with its shape in a way that could almost be ceremonial. And as thousands of Herdwicks woke to the day across the mountains, the silence gave way to a huge dawn chorus of baas and bleats, whilst the sounds of a farmer’s cries – somewhere around Hart Side, about three miles away – reached us through the perfectly still air.
Half an hour later, the sun reached full strength, the light flattened, and the spell cast by the dawn was broken, giving way to the normality of day. We packed up, picked our way down Swirral Edge, and I rounded off a glorious early morning with a blissful swim in Red Tarn.
Approaching Glenridding at about breakfast time, we started to pass others heading up the mountain for the day, and that overwhelming heat returned. “It’s too hot,” I said; but I wasn’t really complaining.