THE BLISS OF SOLITUDE
LIKE AN ARMY of ants, the morning walkers were strung out along Striding Edge, crawling – sometimes tentatively, but always with purpose – along the crest of the popular arête before their final onslaught on the mountain. Soon, they’d be spilling out over the plateau that, for the previous half-hour, I’d shared with only my hiking companion, photographer Dougie Cunningham, and one other walker.
In the dozen or more times I’d climbed Helvellyn, this was one of the quieter summit moments I’d had. We’d made an early start and picked a slightly less conventional route hoping that, by not following the crowd, we’d experience some of the tranquillity that can still be found – even here in the UK’s busiest national park and on one of its most trodden massifs.
DUELLING CUCKOOS AT DAWN
When we’d set off from Stanah, near the northern end of Thirlmere, the pearl-grey valley was bathed in that muted, windless serenity that so often accompanies spring dawns beset by a layer of high, unmoving cloud. The silence was broken only by the calls
