Outdoor opinion
From our columnist Mary-Ann
Just as Mother Nature sends out the tendrils of spring and the birds herald the start of everything, Homo sapiens go into lockdown. I’d always advocate that when bad things happen, to head outside to landscapes that offer space and freedom is the most effective balm. But for now, we mustn’t even do that. The longer this goes on, the more we’ll be tempted, I’m sure. But if it’s non-essential travel (as all hillwalking is), then it’s not ok. As I write this (24 March), the Mountain Rescue teams have advised that they’ll be withdrawing their work. Why? Because so many MRT volunteers are also key workers. Because if they aren’t sick themselves, they’ll be supporting local emergency services and voluntary organisations to keep people alive. However much you hear the siren call of the hills, it’s likely you’ll need to resist.
When I was about 12, my mum took me and my brother camping for the first time. We went with a group of conservation volunteers she was involved with. The group would help the local rangers do pond maintenance, build footpaths and install new fences in the local parks and nature reserves. These folk were great fun, and as a kid it was exciting to be treated more like a peer than a child.
Ten of us headed to a campsite in Snowdonia. We arrived in the dark, but I could feel the towering mass of the hills either side of us, and hear the burbling stream that ran alongside the tents. The air was cold, damp, a different fabric to the air at home. Short hours later, the morning sun glowed orange through the canvas. Sitting here at my laptop, the memory of unzipping the tent door is visceral. Cool air on cheeks, eyes bright with reflected light from the lake in front. And my oh my, the hulking rock and earth either side of us. We walked, we paddled canoes, we sat round the campfire and I absorbed the wit and wisdom of people who’d seen much more life than me.
It’s one of the things I continue to treasure about hillwalking – it has the power to cross divides of age, race and class. We are peers to one another, and wide-eyed children to Mother Nature. Hillwalkers are practical, organised and ethical. We have a lot to offer our local communities at a time like this (not least those half-used bottles of hand sanitiser we’ve all found in old rucksacks). And when we can get back to the lakesides and summits I suspect many of us will have fresh humility for our place amongst the hulking rock and earth.