38 The Great Outdoors June 2019
038-045_Night walking lake district_TGOJUNE2019.indd 38 13/05/2019 15:23 INTO THE INTO Vivienne Crow celebrates the summer solstice with NIGHTa moonlit walk between Skiddaw and Blencathra PHOTOS: DAVE WILLIS
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I’VE BEEN SITTING ON SKIDDAW’S therefore quite natural – part of our DNA. I’ve planned my second attempt to fat, slate-covered summit plateau watching As hillwalkers, we sometimes experience coincide with the nearest full moon, weather the slowly setting sun for more than an darkness from a wild camp or bivvy, but permitting, to the summer solstice. I’ll hour. Tere’s no wind and the quiet is so walking during the night is normally watch the sun go down from one summit, profound I can hear the swoosh of the associated with things having gone awry: walk through the short night and then swifs as they dive for fies. Te landscape navigational errors, bad weather, a wrong enjoy dawn from a diferent summit. With around me is steadily changing: the turning, an injury... any one of these things no major hill groups blocking my outlook colours and defnition of the high ridges may have caused us to become benighted. to the north, the Lake District’s Northern are becoming more intense while, in the To actively seek out the darkness, on the Fells seem ideal: Skiddaw for uninterrupted valleys, shadows consume all. I glance other hand, involves a shif in perspective. views north-west and Blencathra for its over my shoulder, to the east, and a shiver I’ve long been attracted by the sky. It distant horizon to the north-east. As before, runs down my spine; my onward route doesn’t matter where I am – on top of a I will keep to routes I knew well, but this has already been overwhelmed by the hill or in the middle of a city – staring time I won’t rely on artifcial light. creeping twilight. I eagerly turn back to into the daytime sky always has the power face the sun. It dips behind a veil of murk to transport me, to lif me beyond the Night fears sitting just above the horizon and suddenly mundane. Come the night, that same As I set of alone up Skiddaw’s well- changes from orange to fery red. Te hills sky ofers up even more; the lid is lifed worn ‘tourist’ path on a warm, cloudless of Dumfries and Galloway shine crimson, on our beautiful, azure-bound world to summer’s evening, my many doubts and and every bay and inlet on the other side reveal something beyond our imaginings, fears feel absurd in such benign conditions. of the Solway Firth is clearly outlined. It’s a a glimpse into infnity that manages to be Would I have enough to eat? Would I be magical moment, but I can feel the fngers both exhilarating and gut-wrenching. cold? Would tiredness overwhelm me of darkness at my back, unnerving me. I A previous attempt at night-walking and lead to an accident? What would it don’t want to hang around any longer; it’s was a big disappointment. I followed all the be like when night fell? What might be time to set of into the night... advice – I used a route I knew well, I kept to lurking ‘out there’? My biggest fear is not paths and I switched my headtorch on. Te of stumbling over a rock or something Into the unknown latter was probably where I went wrong. I in the dark, but of encountering other Psychologists are constantly telling us that ended up walking through a tunnel of light, human beings. Normally keen to chat with our fear of the night is ancient, a hang-over surrounded by inky blackness, unable to see fellow hill-goers, I do my best to shake of from prehistoric times when darkness anything around me except the ground in a man who falls into step beside me – also brought an increased risk of attack, front of my feet. I felt totally cut of from my on his way to watch the sun set. I venture either by fellow humans or by predatory surroundings and was constantly fearful of of-piste on countless occasions, using my animals. To be scared of the darkness is what might be ‘out there’ in the dark. desire for photographs as an excuse, all
[previous page] Vivienne watches the sun rise from the summit of Blencathra [below] As the sun begins to rise, the full moon can be seen above the fells beyond Derwentwater [right] Star trails from Blencathra
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in an attempt to lose him. I even lie to him assume it’s lef a temporary imprint on my Blencathra, or at the red glow to the north. I about my plans. It feels like paranoia. It is retina. But no, this is the full moon rising hadn’t been expecting such clarity. Okay, so paranoia. And it’s not even dark yet. from behind a long ridge on the horizon. the detail may have been lost, but I’m seeing Strangely, afer watching the sun go I smile at this strange case of mistaken further into Scotland than I ever imagined down, my fears and forebodings vanish. I identity and realise that the night ahead is possible. turn my back on the north-west and begin likely to be full of many such moments. I’m A fotilla of tiny white moths descending. My eyes are focused on the suddenly excited at the prospect. accompanies me on my descent; ghost-like, ground at frst but then I look up... Te red As I drop towards Sale How, I’m either they fit about just above the heather. And orb in the sky momentarily confuses me. gazing spellbound at that moon, rising then, one of the highlights of the entire I’ve been staring at the sun so long that I through the gap between Lonscale Fell and experience... as I near Skiddaw House,
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a badger suddenly appears and comes remote hostel’s walls. Tis reminder of the if lighting up might be the sensible thing scampering up the path towards me. It’s everyday world feels incongruous in the to do, but I tell myself that, once I’ve clearly unaware of my presence. I’ve only deepening darkness. It briefy shocks me succumbed to it, I’ll be more dependent on seen one badger in the wild before – and out of the reverie created by the combined it. Tis is so diferent to my frst night walk; that was running full pelt down a road, efects of the moon, the light and the dusk I’ve never experienced the hills like this not a million miles from here, in broad wildlife. It isn’t long though before that before – and I don’t want anything to spoil daylight. Tat was hardly the animal’s dream-like state consumes me again. it. Tonight, I’m able to see everything: the natural habitat or its normal behaviour, so Te little temperature changes hills, the stars, walls, abandoned buildings, I’m thrilled to see this one. I stand rigid, sometimes experienced in the daytime – occasional lights from distant farmhouses, holding my breath, and still it approaches. pockets of warmth and cold that you briefy the boulders masquerading as mysterious As I’m forced to exhale, it looks up and sees wander through – seem more pronounced. night-time beasts lurking in the bracken, me. Hardly perturbed by the sight of this I don’t know if this is a physical reality or the sheep masquerading as boulders... fgure just a few feet in front of it, it casually simply a result of my other senses taking Lonscale Fell, always an imposing changes course and disappears back into over from the limitations of sight. presence in this valley, has never looked the heather. My eyes are coping well with the better; its sharp, pyramidal outline darkness though and I resist any urge to silhouetted against the night sky lends The dark switch my headtorch on. Tere are one it greater stature than its 715 metres As I pass Skiddaw House, the sound of or two occasions around the head of might otherwise suggest. Darkness has teenage laughter and the smell of afershave the Glenderaterra Beck when the path brought greater power and mystery to drifs from the tents on the other side of the becomes rougher underfoot and I wonder all around me; I can only guess at the
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[above] The early sun hits the rocks on Hall's Fell Ridge [right] Vivienne on Blencathra's main ridge, with Clough Head, the Dodds and Helvellyn behind
detail of these landforms, like I can only and LED; I’m under the glow of the moon, I’m due to meet photographer Dave guess at what lies among the stars and gazing up at the stars, looking down on Willis near the summit. I spot an unusual planets above. Tere is potential here; the the lights of Keswick, on the black hole pole sticking out of the ground near the possibilities seem endless. I love Everest of Derwentwater. Te single screech of a top of Knowe Crags; it’s not until I’m a few mountaineer E F Norton’s take on this barn owl reaches me from the trees below, strides away from it that I realise it’s a tripod. potent otherworldliness... “By daylight another sign that I’m in a diferent realm Dave is tucked up in his sleeping bag nearby. we view matters in an eminently earthly, here, now – these are slopes I’ve climbed I gently wake him and we continue together worldly aspect; moonlight seems to bring us or descended many times before, and yet to Hallsfell Top. face to face with greater and more lasting they’re alien to me. A grey light brings increased clarity to ideas; it lends a touch of the supernatural to In his 1954 memoir Starlight and the landscape almost two hours before our vision,” he wrote in his 1925 book, Te Storm, French alpinist and mountain dawn. I confess I’m disappointed: the night Fight for Everest 1924. guide Gaston Rébufat wrote: “In this and its magic have both vanished, the hills As I set of up Blease Fell, Blencathra’s modern age, very little remains that is are insipid in the half-light, and tiredness is western slopes, I use my torch to fnd the real. Night has been banished, so have the gaining the upper hand. Eventually though, path, but quickly switch it of again. Te cold, the wind and the stars. Tey have all the red glow in the north-east becomes the moon comes into its own now, lighting been neutralized: the rhythm of life itself sun, and the world is fooded with a the way for me and my rather impressive is obscured.” To allow the night back into beautiful, fresh, clean light. Directly below shadow. I’m starting to tire, so I take my life, just for a few hours, feels almost us, I see the arête of Hall’s Fell in a new light frequent rests and consume surprisingly liberating; it feels, as Rébufat wrote, “real”. – both literally and fguratively. I want to large amounts of food. My breaks are stand on its sunlit apex, pick my way down longer and more numerous than they need The light its rocky crest, but I know my sleep- to be because I want to sit and soak up my But it is just for a few hours. As I regain the deprived brain can’t be trusted on this surroundings, to fully appreciate the whole high ground, I can see a line of red along narrow ridge. Te moon is there too – it sits experience – full immersion in the night; a the northern horizon. It’s probably been high in the sky above the High Stile range to rare thing. there all night. Hundreds of miles away, the south-west. While the intervening Most people are in bed by now, fast communities are enjoying the midnight valleys remain in shadow, the fell-tops in asleep. Tose who aren’t are in cars, in their sun. Te glow becomes more intense as that direction are pink. Tis glorious light homes, in bars, in towns and cities, the it edges round to the north-east with the show seems a ftting fnale to my all-too- darkness driven out by sodium, halogen approaching dawn. short excursion over to the dark side.
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