Set in Stone

If you take one of the myriad paths leading to the river Eden at Armathwaite, then squeeze between a few trees splaying their roots in the tiny gap between water and rock, you might find these unexpectedly whimsical carvings.


William Mounsey travelled the length of the Eden from its source in Mallerstang to its end, carving beautiful memories into stone as he went. One of them, I'm told, is a sonorous poem in Bardic Welsh. This one is an extract from the Compleat Angler by Isaac Walton.


The moon-like faces with impassioned stares probably pre-date William's time, and along with a large salmon carved at rest on a sandstone slab, are perhaps the work of an angler. An intriguing place to climb.

Ocean of Time

There are some places on this frenetic isle that have been frozen in time. Changeless landscapes where time’s endless chasm opens out into a breathtaking vista. Curiously, it is often easier to see this dimension when travelling by kayak. Don’t ask me why.


I’m also not sure why I was reminded of Jon Swain’s book, ‘River of Time’, when kayaking through Scottish islands. A hauntingly beautiful book centred on the lodestone of the River Mekong, it poignantly captures the thin line between Cambodia’s haunting beauty and its collapse into war-torn destruction. It seemed about as far from a trip to Mull as you could get.

On the north side of Ulva we sank into the landscape. Just two people in an ocean of time. The flat spot we just happened to camp on was the site of an old, abandoned croft. Very few people would have known about this place unless travelling by sea. Slowly, the croft grew out of the ruins. Here, the stone walls of the compact, black house…there, the shed next to the tumbling burn, everywhere the meticulous rig and furrow lazy beds once full of potatoes. Even beautiful paths carved on the steep slopes to the track above.

While a Force 5 wind blew itself out on the water, we explored inland. Time seemed endless as house after crumbling house rose defiantly out of the windswept bracken. On headlands, in bays, abandoned communities everywhere. The crofters had been here for a thousand years or more, and there was a strong sense of presence in this absence.

I later learned that the notorious F.W. Clark bought the island in the 1850s, and set about systematically ridding Ulva of its tenant crofters. Six hundred of them on this one island. Sixty people had lived and worked on the land that our feet were treading. I could touch a stone that they once grasped as they built these houses into the landscape. It was a world away, yet their presence was immediate.

The hearth inside a croft

Jon Swain’s story was immortalised in the film ‘The Killing Fields’, and in many ways, Ulva’s past played out much the same story. In fact, the parallel was eerily perfect. The same terror, destruction of a way of life, the same futility and the same timeless beauty.

Past lives, frozen into the landscape, and frozen in time.


"As I walk along these shores
I am the history within."
Runrig, Proterra

Above the Cloudbase

It's another world up here, where the cloudbase is down. In these conditions, with high winds and no visibility, we are taught the most. We have to become super-aware of our surroundings or we are lost. It's a lot to do with self-reliance, being comfortable in the hills, being part of them.

This is what it's all about. More than any of the small challenges we set ourselves, any race, any win, any loss. It's about a deep sense of belonging up here.

The Anniversary Waltz Fell Race

'Who's idea was this, then?' Runners piling up Catbells with Robinson and Hindsgarth distant memories behind. Photo courtesy of Bill aka Baggins.

With ten minutes to go before the start of the epic Anniversary Waltz, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It belonged to Wendy Dodds, one of the greatest fell-runners of her generation. She just whispered "Now, this is a real race...." before disappearing into the crowd.

She wasn't wrong. Compared to the piddling winter fell races, this was on an altogether bigger scale. No fewer than 5 summits, 3600 feet of ascent over 12 miles, this was different. Keeping what I amusingly call race pace up over this distance and terrain would take me into very different territory.

A fierce wind shot us up and onto the first, most gruelling peak, and I was two minutes ahead of last year's time. As the route circled back on itself to Hindsgarth, the wind was against us though, and this kept up most of the rest of the way, making it a tough battle of the mental over physical.

Over a welcome blob of mince and tatties after the race (food of champions), it struck me again what a nice bunch of people fell runners generally are. There's also a touching tendency to completely inarticulate understatement amongst those, generally, who are superhuman in what they do..."aye..grand..." might be the long version of what is said at the end of a tough day out on the hills...

But, I have to agree. That was a real race.

Of Men, Stones and the Feeding of Rats

When Al Alvarez eloquently summed the need to climb as 'Feeding the Rat', he probably didn't quite envisage the way it would set the paradigm for describing the compulsion to climb to the outside world. Whilst the insatiable gnawing from the inside that he describes is undoubtedly a good analogy, there's always the personal question as individuals as to why we climb. A Russian doll of enigmas that is never quite resolved.

Sometimes the rat is more bloated than hungry, and it all seems like a bit of an effort. At other times, there it is.. a circular feeding frenzy of risk and reward.

Our latest pilgrimage of the hungry rodents took us to another great swathe of European limestone: Provence. The seductive combination of hot, dry rock, wonderful food and wine was quite enough to feed any number of rats.



Of Stones and Men

Of course, the weather turned wet, and in contrast to the highly planned nature of climbing days, we followed our noses into old, medieval walled cities and let fate decide what we should see. It has not let us down so far. In the back-streets of one city, we found the remnants of a wonderful exhibition, 'De L'homme et des Pierres'. The natural masters of the trompe d'oeil, this purely French exhibition was stunning in its subtle interplay of black and white and warm limestone. Quite something.

The Shipping Forecast

As a lone seagull pipes a single, repeated note in the distance, the rain putters heavily onto a rucked and velvet sea. The cracked bones of trees on Eilean Munde shelter the jet black graves of those massacred at Glencoe.

It's been a wild few days.

There are warnings of gales in Viking North Utsire South Utsire Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger Irish Sea Shannon Rockall Malin Hebrides Bailey Fair Isle Faeroes and Southeast Iceland.

From bright blue seas casting sun-ripples on the sea bed, to sheltering behind gun-metal grey islets from downdraughts. Four seasons in a matter of days.


Rockall Malin:
Southerly veering westerly 6 to gale 8, occasionally severe gale 9. rough becoming very rough or high. Rain or showers. Moderate or good, occasionally poor.


For the first time, we sighted otters. Not one, but two. The first traced a graceful arc around the seaweed shorelines of Loch Moidart, lying on his back in the water to pick at a small fish with his paws, then coming up to land a larger catch. The second was close enough to come up snorting from the water to peer at us.


As Scotland enjoys a renaissance of spacious seafood restaurant developments with panoramic, lochside views, Castle Tioram is at the centre of a very modern form of battle. Sold for a song by a Californian descendent of the clan Macdonald to an Ayrshire businessman (ironically named Lex, for all those fans of the film 'Local Hero'), the Scottish parliament are wrangling over its use as great chunks of it slide down into the loch.

The Snow Waltz

It was the day after Causey Pike, and there'd been a huge dump of snow overnight. I got wind that a friend wanted to recce the Anniversary Waltz fell race today, but had decided that I was too tired from the previous day's race.

Trouble was, the sun was shining, and the hills were covered in snow...a snap decision saw me grabbing two chocolate bars out of an Easter egg, excavating the car from a snowball and driving off for an extraordinary run.


Gill and Mark on the snowy descent off Robinson

The Anniversary Waltz race has a kind of cult following. It's the first real medium-length fell race of the year at nearly 12 miles, and the route it takes is so logical, following a ridge line of breathtaking beauty. Robinson, Hindsgarth, Dalehead, Maiden Moor, Catbells, and cake. Lots of cake. It's not just a fell race either. Somehow, all 400 of the runners also take part in the wedding anniversary celebrations of the organisers, Wynn and Steve Cliff.


The descent from Maiden Moor

Taking more than four hours in heavy snow, the run was breathtaking. From the start, we had entered a monochrome world of the snows. Rarely do the Lakes look more stunning. Moving through this landscape over such a stunning array of peaks was a privilege.

Subtleties of route choice were largely lost on us, knee deep in snow. The route off Dalehead? Still a mystery. The line off Catbells? Uh uh...But the scenery more than made up for the obscuring of race routes.

An incredible day.

Causey Pike Fell Race

Causey Pike the day after the race

With some trepidation, a small band of Eden Runners let themselves in for a brute of a fell race in weather that promised to be somewhat brisk, to say the least. Causey Pike is a steep little rib that points directly into the head of any storm. But there it was, in the calendar, so we did it.

The hail storm didn't hit us until the first saddle, and it was soft, blown in on drifts. It lent a quality to the race that couldn't have been found in any less brutish conditions.

Elterwater Common Fell Race

So that, as they say, is that. The last of the point-scoring races of the Kendal Winter League came and went on Sunday. It's hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia that this small, but perfectly formed series is over for another year.

Over the two years that I have run them, they've somehow provided a reassuring consistency at an otherwise indifferent time of year. Something to aim for when the couch is a far more enticing bet than layering up and lacing on some soggy fell shoes. But it's also way more than this. It's having a nod and a laugh with other fell runners that you know will be back next week for more, just like you.

From where I stand (generally somewhere near the back of the pack), the cameraderie is in a league of its own. There's a bond that just 'is'...and it's robust and layered with a wadge of humour borne out of the weirdness of doing this nutty sport. Some friends I'll meet at other fell races in the coming season. But it won't be quite the same. Some I won't see again until next year. In any case, with luck and a following wind, we'll pick it up just where we left off last time...

Running over Wobbleboards

As spring makes its appearance in fits and starts, the Kendal Winter League will fade and the fell racing season proper will take over. In the meantime, the League went to Austwick in the Dales for a spot of boulder hopping. This might not have been the best debut for a pair of new orthotics that I'm learning to clamber about on at the moment, but even though the terrain was much like running over miles of wobbleboards, things all seemed to run their course...

It's often a salutory lesson to watch the end of the Junior races at these events, and this one was typical. A lad staggered in, in something like third place. He crumpled into a gangly heap next to me and tried to throw up. He then tried to stand up but failed twice before finally succeeding...nobody around him batted an eyelid. This was, after all, Yorkshire..."You'll be right, lad..."

A Haweswater Blast

The Lead Runners at the Haweswater Half Marathon

One of the peculiar querks of my career to date has been the experience of organising a p***-up in a brewery. In fact, I did it twice to prove that it wasn’t just a fluke. However, playing a bit-part in organizing the Haweswater Half Marathon over the last few months has taught me that there's a lot more to such things than finding a lot of beer, and people who might be willing to drink it...

The level of detail, meticulous planning and time that this has taken has been a bit of a surprise. But the really strange thing is, on the day, it just seemed to happen of its own accord… It was as if each volunteer was acting on the call of a dog whistle inaudible to the human ear, because it just seemed to happen without hint of a fuss.

But of course, the effortlessness was an illusory artifact of the long hours spent poring over digestives and green tea, discussing the feng shui of the portaloos, polishing of trophies and the vagaries of parking a lot of cars in a muddy field. I could go on. The landslide on the course, tractors to pull cars out of mud, bags of grit in case the entire 13.2 miles were frozen to sheet ice. You name it, we thought about it.

There have been honourable mentions elsewhere, but the race felt like a real success. Ian Crampton (Durham City Harriers) seen in the photo above won the race in 1:13;17, and first lady was ultra-running megastar Lizzy Hawker in 1:20:52.

Wind Over Water

In the calm before the storm of the race, we took off to the dramatic scooped skyline at the back of Haweswater. Watching the squalls move over the water was a strangely captivating sight.



Another striking aspect of this area is the presence of wild, torrential streams that tumble into glacial lakes and on into the flooded valley now occupied by Haweswater. These relentless watercourses are fascinating, and abstracts like these, looking like frozen sinusoidal waves, were everywhere.

High Cup Nick Fell Race

High Cup Nick in better weather

With a tongue of low cloud dipping into the extraordinary rock scoop of High Cup Nick, Morgan Donnelly's rough diamond of a fell race began yesterday.

In a way, it is unlike any other. It is only after 4 miles of uphill running that you get to the steep boulder choke of High Cup Nick, where hands and feet are needed to scramble up the face of the Whin Sill. In wild and woolly conditions, a full-on tail wind blew straight into the scoop, making a sound like a helicopter landing on your head. As we gained the head of the Nick, the waterfall was blowing vertically upwards, and the wind got increasingly more violent. Popping out onto the flat top, the wind in our faces, it was hard to breathe, and hard to stand up. We must have looked like penguins popping out of the water to the frozen marshall on the summit.

The last 5 miles downhill should have been a breeze. They weren't. Energy just left me standing with a ghost-like emptiness. All that was left was a relict synapse that said 'carry on'.

The pain stopped, eventually, on the village green of the idyllic Dufton. After normal consciousness had slowly drip-fed back in, there was one thing I was sure of: I knew that I was alive...

Meditations in Blue

It's a funny thing, but somehow it occurred to me that it was harder to write about kayaking trips than say, anything else Stu and I bumble about with. And that's because nothing happens.

And that is precisely why it is so wonderful. With three days and 30 miles of stunning Scottish sea loch to play with, we just let the meditation begin.


But inside this deep quietness, things do happen. A seal pops out of the clear water, snorts a nostril, and disappears. Porpoises trace arcs on the distant horizon. Fluttering packs of oystercatchers part in front of us.


Caught in the eye of a particularly stable high pressure system over Europe, it was a peaceful, windless paddle. Something we're generally not accustomed to. It provided some amusement to the couple running a bed and breakfast to receive their guests by kayak, dragging the boats into their handily-placed shed by the water's edge.

"At least you won't get Bingo Wings", the landlady said, somewhat quizzically.


But it's never boring. Things stick out of the stillness. Like finding King Tutankamun on the shore at Kilcreggan...It's amazing what McEwan's will inspire you to...

The Venturi Effect

"Venturi Effect: The speedup of air through a constriction due to the pressure rise on the upwind side of the constriction and the pressure drop on the downwind side as the air diverges to leave the constriction"

Last weekend's race was the usually aptly named Fairmile fell race. A gem of a race in good conditions, it traces a horseshoe on the edge of the Howgills. These giant, prismatic beauties are rockless and treeless, so unfractured sunlight can glide across the green flanks. A compelling set of hills to run on.

It was nothing like that on Sunday. At the foot of the hill, there was a biting 20 mph wind. Waiting for the start, the runners circulated in much the same way as overwintering Antarctic penguins do. Quickly, I found myself on the outside of the group. As we fluttered our way up the steep climb, 20 mph became 50 mph. There was novelty value in feeling frostbite inside my mouth... for a while, at least...then a frostbitten stomach, as layers flapped wildy in the storm. I couldn't help noticing that the experienced runners were trussed up more securely than a pile of cling-filmed baps.

I think all runners were accounted for at the end, which is the main thing.

The Annual Mush Fest

It's always a pleasure to catch up with huskies at this time of year. The unbridled delight that these doggies (and owners) show in doing what they love doing is infectious. Fantastic!




Nice doggies. It was a quieter event than last year, and the mass start of dogs, bikes, scooters and runners wasn't as catastrophic as last year. See the carnage unfold here. But a day to put a smile on your face nonetheless.