“The hardest thing to see is what is actually there”
my attention every time I turned. The view was almost sickening. The clarity of winter light, reflected off so much snow, was almost too much, too perfect.
A favourite writer of mine said that ‘the hardest thing to see, is what is actually there’. Perfect winter days in the mountains are a classic example. To survive, you must look past the beauty and look for the ugly. I was on a south-facing slope, in full sunshine, trudging through deep powder. Thoughts of avalanche were never far from my mind, that’s the ugliness I was looking for. Anyone who leads others through the mountains, has much more to carry than the rucksack on their back and this means they have a very different experience of a situation from their followers; ignorance is bliss. The two others I was with that day couldn’t believe their luck. They grinned easily, most of the day.
Once the summit of Seat Sandal was reached, cloud flirted with Fairfield, the highest peak to be climbed that day. But first there was a descent down to Grisedale Tarn, then a slog up to Deepdale Hause and an epic on Cofa Pike. It was a homespun plan.
I just looked at the map and put together a few hills in an interesting way, which I thought would be doable given the conditions.
So, it was into a soft world of even tones that the day took me, down to the tarn via the northern spur of Seat Sandal (a normally inconspicuous hill, transformed on a day like this). Water in winter never looks blacker. Somewhere inside us, we know to keep away. Those icy depths would bring you down from that high in an instant.
The path up to Deepdale Hause, between St Sunday Crag and Cofa Pike, was nowhere to be seen. That wasn’t a bad thing – reading the flank of the mountainside and taking the easiest and safest line as regards the snow, was the order of the day anyway. This time the climb was without the blinding sun, the temperature difference every time I stopped was chilling. Sweat cooled uncomfortably quickly.
The col was gained. Dollywaggon Pike looked fab on the way up, a fact I filed away into the list in my head of great viewpoints. Cofa was the interesting, most technical part of the day and as a consequence, the bit I was excited for. The ridge narrowed just enough and one or two steeper sections of its upward course gave good sport; a little taster for those interested in taking their winter mountains that bit further. In the few glimpses into the Patterdale valley, the sun was out and there was no sign of an inversion. They must have been having a glorious day down there, but that was another world. We all know life is about the journey. Winter is a fine exponent of this. It’s often too inclement to pause at a summit, like you would in the summer. It’s all one journey. I love that. The goal is the day, rather than this or that peak.
The ridge leading from Cofa Pike up Fairfield was wind scoured. The crest of the route was bare rock. To my left a young cornice was growing in confidence. But the clear rock gave safe passage. Up for the last big climb of the day. The summit plateau had that ‘breaking into heaven’ kind of feel to it; clear one minute, then lost on the edges of a cloud the next, before clearing again. I looked back over to the southwest, the inversion was still definitely there. Could the day get any better? Would it end like any great album; a cataclysmic, towering finale, that would leave you drained, yet elated?
I’d made a navigational error on Fairfield before. So in those mixed, ethereal conditions I paid particular attention to the compass and map. The Great Rigg descent route found, it was time to keep the head up high, to absorb as much of what I saw as possible, knowing, at the very least, that things would never be the same as at that moment. Could they ever get better? The sun was low and raking, the Great Rigg ridge seemed to bounce along the surface of the inversion, like a stone skimmed on water. There was a higher layer of cloud that occasionally plunged the foreground into shadow. This only intensified the luminosity of the wider view. The sky was alive, pleased with itself.
Between Great Rigg and Stone Arthur, the sun started to set. Every moment seemed to magnify the last. Once down onto the knobbly top of Stone Arthur, the vision required full attention. The sun inched away, sinking below the inversion, flared behind a mushroom of cloud, which seemed to rise from the death of the day. A resurrection indeed.
Once back down in the cloud of the inversion, the last half an hour of walking seemed almost like a relief; there wasn’t anything staggeringly beautiful to look at. It was as if my eyes had seen too much. I knew I’d be re-seeing those sights for a very long time, digesting and making sense of just how special the world could be. Recognising the moment, then saving it to your memory, is, I find, the key to a contented mountain life.
● For information on avalanche safety, visit beaware.sais.gov.uk
Halfway through the last track, the vocals come to a definitive end, as bass, guitar and drums switch to a higher intensity, soaring upwards into an instrumental to end all instrumentals… The final strains of the last track, fade into the future.
Power off, the record is slipped back into its sleeve and placed back on the shelf among other favourites.