Best outdoor book Ronald Turnbull
Getting lost : it ’ s going to happen . Maybe not right away – maybe not for your first ten or twenty times on the hill . For those first ten or twenty times , you ’ ve waited for a clear , sunny weather forecast , and you ’ ve kept track of where you are , and you ’ ve ticked off the stream crossings and the summits and the tricky saddle points . But after the tenth time , or maybe the twentieth , you know a thing or two about this maps malarkey . And maybe the weather forecast ’ s got some little grey clouds in it , but you want to go up Great Gable .
Great Gable is great , just like the guidebook said it would be . But up at the top of it there ’ s a waft of fluffy white cloud , just like they get up there on Everest . Inside the cloud it ’ s all clammy and romantic , rocks and boulders looming like sleepy trolls , rainwater dripping off all the little overhangs . And it ’ s easy ! You just follow your nose past some little cairns , and here ’ s the top of Great Gable with its little rocky outcrop and its plaque commemorating the fellwalkers of the First World War .
You ’ re heading for the route down towards Beck Head . So now you turn right , ‘ cos that ’ s what the map tells you to do . The stony plateau doesn ’ t show any paths ; but look , you ’ re passing a cairn . But then you notice another cairn a few metres away on the left . And another one on the right … Great Gable has cairns everywhere , which is just as helpful as having no cairns at all .
So you go back to the summit and start again , and this time you use the compass to get the correct direction . A few minutes later you ’ re at the corner of the plateau . The stones and rocks are a bit trodden on , so this does look like the right way . And the mapping on your phone thinks so too . You work your way downhill , on the rather slippery rocks .
And somehow – it ’ s actually a rule of Nature – the cloud on this side of the hill goes down a lot lower than it did when you were coming up ...
Eventually , with greater experience , finding the way on hills gets to be almost instinctive . A couple of decades back , I headed onto the Glyder range in Snowdonia on a damp summer day . Even on a dull day , Llyn Idwal is a lovely place . Llyn means lake , and this one , half a mile long , is backed on three sides by high , craggy mountains . The rain brings out the patterning of the various volcanic rocks that make the path . At the lake ’ s head , the way zigzags up beside the black , basalt chasm of the Devil ’ s Kitchen .
At the plateau above , another pool of grey water whipped into little waves by the wind . Here it ’ s just turn left , and follow the rough path up into the cloud , and soon the weird rock towers mark the summit of Glyder Fawr , the big Glyder . The next bit is a little tricky . The stony plateau doesn ’ t show the path , and the continuing ridgeline is wide and flat . Expecting this , I ’ d already set
the arrow on my compass into the necessary direction , just north of east .
As the ridge dips , it has grass as well as stones , and the path gets clearer . And as it rises again , it ’ s just a matter of heading directly uphill to reach the familiar pile of huge , rounded boulders that ’ s the summit of Glyder Fach , the smaller Glyder .
The next stage , I knew , was going to need a little attention . Getting up a hill is basically a matter of going uphill . Getting down off it isn ’ t quite so simple . Fortunately , the top of Glyder Fach is a place I ’ ve been many times before . I clamber off the rockpile and continue northeast , the compass bearing already set in advance . In less than a minute the rockpile is lost in the grey murk behind me . A couple of minutes more , and the Cantilever rockpile emerges from the grey mist ahead . The Cantilever is a narrow rock suspended at one end like a diving board . And like a diving board , it usually
has three or four people bouncing up and down on the unsuspended end . I pass to its left , following the tops of the steep drops leading down into grey cloud . Cloud which I know is obscuring a fabulous view down onto the A5 . And in another couple of minutes , the next familiar landmark : the cluster of splintery rocks that ’ s the top of the Bristly Ridge .
above left Great Gable from Green Gable above Glyder Fach from Glyder Fawr below Esk Hause , looking towards Scafell Pike . The wide saddle feeds down into three separate valleys . Ending in the wrong one is not uncommon .
16 OUTDOOR FOCUS Winter 2024 – 25