big weekend Kevin Sene
Kevin Sene, Big Weekend Organiser, describes a Lake District visit
This year saw about forty of us meet up in the northern Lake District for the first visit there in several years. The venue was the Field Studies Council’ s Blencathra site, situated in a fabulous location looking out towards some of Lakeland’ s highest peaks.
On arriving, though, our first impressions weren’ t so much of the view but of the strong winds and driving rain due to Storm Amy, with flooded roads or fallen debris from trees causing people some delays, including myself.
However, a little wind and rain wasn’ t going to stop a group of outdoor enthusiasts and on Saturday morning plans were adjusted to accommodate the still stormy conditions. For the photo walk, Josephine Collingwood led a large group to scenic Ashness Bridge rather than up Blencathra, with arguably some better photographic opportunities along the way. Stan Abbott also chose a lower level option for his stone circle walk, leading a group into Keswick along the Keswick to Threlkeld Railway Path.
Meanwhile I met up with David Bellamy in Keswick to buy supplies for an impromptu watercolour painting workshop he generously offered to run in the afternoon. As at a previous weekend, it was a real pleasure to watch an intricate mountain scene emerging from a blank page in seemingly no time at all.
We then welcomed two trustees from the Mountain Heritage Trust to give a presentation on the Trust’ s work helping to preserve Britain’ s mountaineering history, followed by a tour of their library and archive. You can read more about the talk and tour elsewhere in this issue.
The AGM, drinks reception, meal and awards ceremony then followed, with the reception again generously hosted by Cicerone, this year in the person of Joe Williams and Jonathan and Lesley Williams.
By Sunday morning, conditions had much improved and Gordon Wilson led a walk up the Glenderaterra valley to Skiddaw House, Britain’ s highest hostel( 470m), while Julia Goodfellow-Smith held a session on how artificial intelligence is reshaping our creative landscape.
During the walk we stopped for a while to watch the stars of one of Cumbria’ s oldest sports: a group of hounds out for their daily exercise before the next race. A few of us then stayed on at the hostel, while the rest headed back to join Stan’ s Neolithic tour or return home.
During a chat with Sue, the warden, one of those unexpected
The Big Weekend
moments occurred that help to make Big Weekends so enjoyable, when she was amazed to learn that Gordon and Angharad recognized her from years ago when she ran the YHA’ s Black Sail hostel. The hostel welcomes both groups and individual walkers and cyclists and would also be pleased to welcome OWPG members who’ d like to drop in for a drink and a chat( www. skiddawhouse. co. uk).
That evening, after the meal Chris Scaife rounded off the activities with another challenging quiz covering literary, mountaineering and geography topics, but with teams of five everyone managed to get at least a few of the answers right( and a couple of people nearly all!).
So that was the 2025 Big Weekend and I’ d like to thank Josephine, Stan, David, Julia, Gordon and Chris in particular for running events. The next Big Weekend will be from 2-5 October 2026 at the YHA hostel in Conwy, north Wales, which is an area that we’ ve been wanting to return to and one that I can vouch for from walking, climbing and flying trips over the years. The activities programme almost writes itself with some great mountain walks, coastal scenery and historic sites all within easy reach. We’ ll give more details in the next issue of Outdoor Focus; hope to see you there.
PHOTOGRAPHS Chris Howes
10 OUTDOOR FOCUS Winter 2025