FELL GAMES AND FRILUFTSLIV:
THE LAKELAND BOTHIES CHALLENGE

The air was cool and damp. It was early morning, and I was in good spirits, despite having a long way to go ahead of me. Or perhaps because of it. I had my head down, and was striding purposefully up the fellside. Each step took me higher, out of the settled stillness of the valley, and up, up, up until… the air began to clear. Not because it was moving, but because I was moving out of it. Above it. And within a few short steps, as I reached the summit of Dale Head, the cloud inversion was revealed, sweeping out before me in the morning sun. I stood on a tiny island in an endless sea. All around, a stone archipelago, formed by only the very highest tops in Lakeland: kings of stone, above a flawless white blanket, beneath a flawless blue sky.

__________ 

A couple of years ago I noticed that the four official bothies in the Lakes – maintained for public use by the Mountain Bothies Association – made quite an evenly spaced triangle, with three great stretches of fell country in-between them, that would each be doable in a day’s running. Lingy Hut to the north, Mosedale Cottage to the east, and Warnscale Bothy/ Dubs Hut to the west (which, given that they are almost right next to each other, would only reasonably need one night). Plotting a route that sandwiched each bothy with a day of running made for a roughly 140km, 10000m, 3-night, 4-day, 32-tops winter adventure, with the two middle days being dawn-to-dusk running.

And so I had found myself at 9:50 on January 11th, strolling along the pavement in Ambleside to the ‘bridge house’, that tiny old cottage which arches over the beck in the centre of the village. As a south Lakes lad, I reckon that there’s a set of steps in the centre of a north Lakes town that gets far too much glory as it is, so I had chosen these steps instead as a good alternative start and finish point.

With a few minutes to go until my scheduled departure, I faffed around a little with my backpack, and did a few experimental jumps on the new shoes. And then, realising that timing was not going to be an important part of this game, I thought sod it, and set off at… well, probably 9:56, or 9:57, or something like that. It didn’t matter. No matter how fast or slow I ran, I knew from the first step how long this thing was going to take me: four days.

I was up Loughrigg quickly, and then Silver Howe, and then on to the no-man’s-land of lumps and bumps between there and Stickle Tarn. The sun dressed me in cool winter light, and my thoughts pulled around the landscape, to memories of past adventures. Down there was where me and Rose camped the night, after a series of busses and a sweltering summer walking, reading books in the evening haze, lying by the waters’ edge. And when that other tarn there had been frozen almost solid, me and Alex found a soft edge and skinny dipped in, hollering and hooting with the ice of it. Over there was where my dad took a group of us from primary school climbing for the day, with lemon tea and cheese sandwiches. And yet, after many years growing up and exploring it all, I could still see, in every direction, unknown ghylls and spurs, that seemed to reach out and whisper ‘Don’t you wonder what’s over here? Come and see’.

But not today. Today I was doing a thing.

I scrambled up the rocks behind Pavey Ark, trotted down to the Pikes, and up onto the summit of Stickle, before stretching out the legs on the languorous descent to Sticks Pass. Then came the traverse around Esk Hause, and the steep climb up Gable. This was the day’s high summit, and also its only taste of ‘proper’ winter, scoured by white winds and clad in a thick icy crust. I hurried off, and before long was back down among the dull greens and browns, scampering along the path known as Moses’ Trod, to Warnscale.

There were already two men in the tiny bothy. Thanks to the advent of Instagram, Warnscale has been an increasingly popular destination for many years by those who seek out a fantastic view and a memorable overnight stay for minimal walk-in from Gatesgarth or Honister. According to my own rule, a night in either Warnscale or Dubs would ‘count’ as long as I visited both, so I tapped the wall of the bothy by way of a checkpoint dib, and climbed the short way back up the beck to stay at Dubs instead.

An old quarryman’s quarters, Dubs Hut is nothing more than a square stone room, with a couple of sleeping platforms around the edges, and a stove at one end. But thanks to a new roof put on in recent years, it is dry, and mostly draught-free. I prepared my sleeping kit, and then went for a wonder around, as dark was beginning to fall. It had been a good day’s running, but I had been alone, and I was beginning to wonder if I would see anyone at all on my trip, despite spreading my intentions fairly far and wide among my running friends.

And then a voice called to me from the fellside above. It was James, Ambleside AC man, and stalwart of long Lakeland races. I first met him after spotting him running past my window when we lived in the same tiny village in Furness, and had come to know his effervescent positivity through repeated encounters at long Lakeland races. Now he’d run over from Wasdale to lend me a few hours company in the bothy, and I was delighted to see him. I was even more delighted when he pulled open his bag to reveal a shoebox full of logs and kindling for the fire, a slab of flapjack hefty enough to act as a Cluedo murder weapon, and a couple of bottles of beer from a local brewery. Things were shaping up!

We whiled away the hours discussing race lines, fell clubs and shoe choices, and the meanderings of a pair of lives spent working outside, toes propped up to bask in the warmth from the stove. And no sooner than he stood up to leave for his night-time trot back to Wasdale, then another pair of friends: my sister-in-law Caitlin, and clubmate Jamie, turned up at the door, with more logs, chocolates, and good craic. So the whole evening passed in merry company, playing card games and trying to work out exactly what smell Jamie’s ‘incense kindling’ made (a Christmas present who’s moment he had decided had come). Eventually we turned in for a night’s kip, which was warm enough, but punctuated – not to say decimated – by the persistent snoring of my dear clubmate…

The second day dawned, and off we went. My friends to work, and me up Dale Head, and there, eventually, above the cloud.

I dropped my bag, and whooped, shouting things like ‘yeeaaah!’ and ‘waaaaoow’, running up and down the summit ridge for sheer delight like an excited puppy, unable to get over the beauty of it. It was certainly the best inversion I’d ever seen, and I refused to tear myself away for half an hour or more – schedule be damned. Behind me, my rainbow shadow emerged in a Brocken Spectre, cast across the cloud. No matter what happened from then on, this moment was worth everything.

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There are many reasons why people choose to go for a run on the fells. For exercise, obviously. For camaraderie with friends: bonding together by banding together. And for sport, through races: all that precious meeting, greeting and competing that we do. 

And then there is that special reason, the one that makes us feel wide awake, and fully alive, regardless of how far or how fast we went. The one that gives us those moments when our mind clears of everything other than what is in front of us at that second, and we become fully present. Disconnected from the hustle and bustle of the modern world, the internal cacophony drains away, leaving you with nothing but the sound of your breathing, your feet falling on the ground, the birds, the beck, the wind, the rain; a simple, clear experience of the world: a flow state. A meditation. You find yourself appreciating – without having to really put your mind to it – a renewed perspective on the transience of your everyday worries. Free from the stress of a constructed life, you’re back to being a body on the land. I have heard Helene Whitaker describe this kind of running as ‘airing the brain’.

Running for a sense of peace, freedom, or release.

Running for friluftsliv.

Fri-lufts-liv (pronounced just the way it looks) is literally free-air-life in Norwegian. I don’t adopt this term as part of that tiresome trend that marketing people want you to buy into, that there is a mystical Scandinavian essence that us culturally impoverished British must aspire to. Nor because of that even more infuriating habit of people referring to terms as being ‘untranslatable’, and then going on to describe exactly what they mean (e.g. translating them). I use it simply because it is a one-word term that doesn’t refer to anything else – unlike all the English terms I could use instead – and one which well captures the essence of what I am talking about: something like ‘outdoor activities that people engage in primarily to disconnect from social demands, and experience the natural physical world in a tangible way’. That’s just a bit of a mouthful is all. So: friluftsliv.

Of course, the sense of friluftsliv can be brought about through a whole range of other movements and activities than running, but running is one great way to access it because running is so basic and fundamental to humans, and because it doesn’t require much complex planning or bulky equipment to do. If a core aspect of having a break from social demands is getting away from the mass of other people, then in Britain it is undoubtedly the uplands that offer one of the best prospects for that. It is certainly not guaranteed (as anybody who has stood atop Scafell Pike on a fine summer’s day will attest…), and it is certainly not the only place that we are capable of accessing such meditative thoughts (woodlands, ocean views or subterranean caves are other obvious options), but of all the places to go running for friluftsliv, the fells offer some of the best opportunities to experience it in a deep and prolonged way.

This kind of running does not always mean bliss. Sometimes it can mean fear. The desire for adventure – that impulse to unveil new landscapes, and an acceptance of the risks sometimes required to seize the moment and explore those landscapes – is simply another aspect of the same concept of responding to the physical world around us, in a way that our increasingly sedentary and online lives don’t usually require us to do. When we stand and stare at an expansive view, we feel small. When the weather smiles on us, and we are within our comfort zone, that smallness feels like a calm, blessed release. But when the weather growls, and a sense of danger tugs at our self-preservation instincts, that smallness feels frightening. We are easily lost, and easily broken, by the raw world ‘out there’. But in both cases, the response feels appropriate, and intensely connected to the real conditions we find ourselves in. It is not the nagging feeling of a work deadline, it is the immediate feeling of your attention being brought into the moment. Feeling alive.

Of course, when we decide to go for a run, we might be doing so for more than one reason at once. In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that most of us, most of the time, are out running in exactly that combined way, and this interplay of reasons may shift and evolve over the course of the week, the year, or our whole lives. But although our various reasons may sometimes complement other, they will often instead pull in quite different directions, and it then becomes worthwhile to know which is more important to you. Or at least, which is most important to you in that moment.

If you are adhering very strictly to a training plan, you may not be willing to stop and watch the clouds for ten minutes to soak in the tranquillity of the hills during your fast workout session. But if stopping to watch the clouds is exactly what you need to help clear away the detritus of a fraught mind, you might reasonably decide to take a shorter route or slow your pace, and forgo the fitness gains of the longer, harder way. If you need time alone, companions are not a help to you, but if you need to feel like you belong, they might be just what you need. Not reflecting on why you are going out for this run leaves open the possibility of being sucked into a kind of running that doesn’t suit your temperament or intentions: today, tomorrow, or ever.

__________

Eventually I began to move again, trotting merrily along the ridge, beard collecting frost as I dipped back down amongst the cloud, and then half-melting on the slog up Robinson. They say you’re not supposed to have a favourite child, but I think what they really mean you’re not supposed to have a least favourite. And so too, with fells. Those of us who love the fells, are supposed to love them all. But among the big ones, Sloginson is my least favourite. No matter which side I climb at it from, it always makes me think about all the other fells I could be going up instead. 

For the rest of the morning – down the waterfall to Newlands Hause, up the concavity of Whiteless Pike and over to Grisedale Pike – I played Peekaboo with the sun, rising and falling above the inversion, my awe renewed with each return.

Eventually reaching Braithwaite, I nipped into the shop and treated myself to a Cornish pasty and ginger beer. Just the ticket to mollify the uninspiring jog through muddy fields across the Derwent marshes, to reach the foot of the northern fells, where the climbing re-commenced with slightly weary steps.

But half way up Carl Side things were enlivened by the appearance above me of Rich, another clubmate, who’d run out on an extended (not to say piss-takingly long) lunch break, to tell me that he thought I’d be further along by now, and that he would let people know I was behind schedule. Good lad Rich. Looking at his watch, he made his apologies and headed off with a wave. I was sad to see his deadpan humour disappear down the hill alongside his nimble frame, but before long I had plenty of company, as folk thronged the snow-clad summit of Skiddaw, out to appreciate the spectacular views.

Then it was off down Bakestall, and the last stretch of the day, away from the views, and into the squelchy, heathery hinterland behind the northern fells’ prominent high flanks. The icy clag was beginning to sap my energy, and my feet and hands were getting cold. I took out map and compass and focused on getting to where I was going. The prospect of the bothy pulled me on, its welcome refuge at the forefront of my mind.

Lingy Hut is little more than a garden shed plonked on the side of a hill. But it is stable, and dry, and therefore a delight for tired runners at the end of a long day.

I slipped inside and quickly changed into my spare clothes. And then, with nothing better to do, I got into my sleeping bag and lay down. I had brought a single candle, and now I placed it on the ledge next to me for company. As darkness fell, and a steady drizzle began, I lay and stared into the tiny flame. Its bold flickering was some sort of friendship: a warm comfort to the mind, even if not to the body, while the cold wind sneered outside.

__________

This run, was a game. 

‘Fell games’ is a catch-all term for challenges that fall outside a singular organised event, but which still retain the conscious creativity that lies at the core of fell racing as a sport. Depending on the ethos and rules of each particular game, they each sit somewhere along the spectrum of purpose, between the extremes of calendar races at one end (explicitly bounded, goal-driven events), and ‘pure’ friluftsliv running at the other (stepping out and seeing what happens, just running for the love of being out). There are no clear boundaries, only generalisations and gradations of mattering, but fundamentally, as soon as you set out to complete a pre-determined route, a game is afoot in some way. Humans are just naturally goal-orientated beings. We can’t help ourselves. We don’t just want to go, we want to go somewhere. We don’t just want to go up, we want to go to the top. But in the same way that it’s worth knowing why you’re out for a run in the first place, for even the simplest games, it is worth giving some thought to the way you want to do go about it.

We have all become accustomed to notions such as supported/ self-supported/ unsupported, but there are many other delineations and variants possible, to the point where each person’s individual decisions about form and style inevitably create their own categories. And that is fitting, because games are a perfect avenue for us to pursue our own purposes. It’s not just where and when, but how.

For this challenge, I settled on it being explicitly a winter round, to accentuate the feeling of refuge that the bothies provide (and also avoid their busier seasons), with twelve ‘compulsory’ summits scattered between them. My route was not the fastest possible, but rather, what seemed like an aesthetic line of proper fell tops, flowing over the ridgelines and watersheds, and never treading the same ground twice. I chose to navigate only by map and compass, and I left it open to my whim on the day as to which lines to take between the tops, because I knew that extending the route wouldn’t matter, as there was no time pressure, other than my intention to arrive at each bothy before full dark, and not to leave until first light. This was important, because the point was not only to run in the fells, but also to enjoy (or endure) long nights in bothies themselves, preferably in the company of friends.

When I asked them to come and share a few miles or evening hours with me, I offered only the roughest of schedules. Serendipity would have to take care of how many folk I saw, because my phone was going on ‘do not disturb’ for four days, and what would be, would be.

‘Surprise me’ I had told them, before setting off. And with that in mind, I carried a full bag of all the kit I needed, and just enough food to get me through, on the principle that if I had seen nobody else for four days, I would still be able to complete the route. It was a middle ground between support and self-sufficiency, which chimed with the style that I was after.

__________

The hut door opened with a clatter. The candle sputtered.

‘Hello?’ a voice floated in from outside, followed by a fury snout, then a dog, and then – bundled in more layers than a polar explorer – by Jon.

It was wonderful to see him; one of the most consistent characters in Lakeland fell running (66 races in 2023…), and a fellow proponent of the old school approach to race organising. He busied himself with hanging up steaming layers of jackets and making a bed for the boisterous barker Jess, and we chatted as he did so.

And then came another knock on the door, and a second snout appeared.

‘Ah, Jon!’ Ben’s voice came through the door ‘is Jess with you?’.

There followed a good amount of dog-to-dog peace negotiation undertaken by their two human envoys, before uneasy truce commenced, with each taking a far corner of the hut and eyeing each other up warily. The three of us shared a great evening of candle-lit discussion, a true meeting of fell running minds and experiences. We found agreement on the notions that entry-on-the-day was precious, and that Ben’s failure to bring a winter sleeping bag in his rucksack was not compensated sufficiently by his inclusion of a woollen scarf. We failed to find agreement on which Cumbrian blue-and-green race vest was best. Controversially, given that there were two Edens and one Ambleside in the hut at the time, the voting was 2-1 in favour of Ambleside…

A second night of non-sleep followed, courtesy of a gracious and apologetic (but nevertheless extremely reverberatory) Jon.

Forgiveness was swift though, thanks to the warm breakfast he proffered to me first thing. We packed up, bimbled down through the heather beside the beck to where they had parked their cars, and said our goodbyes. I made my way up the banks of the Caldew, looking for a good place to cross, and after a moment’s knee-deep cold water, I was contouring up the side of Bowscale fell, on a bearing designed to bring me out just below Foule Crag. The clag was in, again, and after a few minutes I was completely locked in to my map and compass, sticking to the bearing religiously, aware that this was a moment not to mind-wander, or for that matter, foot-wander. Rewarded for my attentiveness after what felt like an impossible amount of time by the vindication of the path, I made it up to Blencathra summit without trouble, and was briefly plunged back into full winter. No inversion today, just a harsh wind blowing ice crystals against my bare legs, encouraging me off the top and down Hall’s Fell Ridge.

Before long, I heard my name being called from behind me, and looked back up the ridge to see the Barton brothers (and another pair of dogs) scrambling down to meet me. A sibling rivalry across the green-an-blue divide, the pair somehow seemed able to get along well enough to come and lend me their company together! They caught up, and we scampered on down. At Threlkeld it felt like a proper ‘supported’ change-over, as the boys gave me some strawberries and said their goodbyes, and I gained the company of Scott from Eden, and my brother Cal. Scott is the kind of person who would join you on your quest, for a whole day, without any particular fanfare or faff. And he did just that. Cal is my older brother: world-class climber, but merely a pretty decent runner, much to my relief. If he reads this, he may put in a good training block, just to try and piss me off. But it’s ok, I think he’s aged out of his ability to get past me.

Buoyed by all this running companionship, in contrast to the first two days, I kept up a good pace with the lads, and we made quick progress over the Dodds and up to a Helvellyn where full winter mode re-engaged. Sideways wind gusted sheets of rain at us as we hurried off down Striding Edge. But by Patterdale we had left the weather behind, and enjoyed a lovely golden afternoon on the Coast to Coast path past Angle Tarn Pikes, and up to Kidsty, where – joined by the unassuming smile of another clubmate, Matt – we descended quickly towards Mardale Head.

As we rounded The Rigg, I heard a call from the car park drifting across over the end of the lake. It was a three-note call that our mum used to holler into the woods behind the house growing up, when we were out roping up branch swings or making dens, and she needed to fetch us back for tea. It was my sister and her children, out to greet me. My sister only began running in recent years, but with a youthful stint in orienteering, and a determined (not to say stubborn) streak common to all of us siblings, I reckon there are good fell race results out there for her, waiting to be claimed. And if her parenting style means anything, it means two young kids primed for hair-raising scrambles and break-neck descents. They’ll probably be quicker than me before they’re beyond juniors. Damn.

And at the car park, even more friends: Megan, Ian, Amy… it was getting out of hand! All these folk, out on my account? By the time we reached Mosedale Cottage, it was a veritable runners party, and any stiffness in the knees or soreness in the legs was more than drowned out by the good-natured back and forth.

The cottage is the largest of the four bothies, a mouldery old shepherd’s house with dark rooms leading off from the main space, and strange pink-painted walls that have never seemed to dry, leaving a colourful smear on your sleeping bag if you rub up against them in your sleep. Scott disappeared and re-emerged with a bunch of logs he’d stashed the night before, and the merry group of us basked in the glow of a roaring fire, ate hot stew, played Wainwrights top trumps (Gable was pretty much unbeatable), took nips from the whiskey bottle and even shared a brief few poetic rendition, just to keep things classy.

And finally (third time’s the charm), there was a night without snoring.

__________

At home, I have a favourite map. One among many, of course, for love of maps and love of the places they represent go hand in hand. Maps, when sat inside, are a subtle wink: a suggestion to you of all the worlds they might reveal. Then, taken outside, they become an indispensable tool for translating between your desire to go out and explore that world, and your ability to get there. But my favourite map is useless for navigation. It’s just a thing of beauty.

The 1960 ‘Tourist Map of the Lake District’ was made to a scale unrealistic for walking, and uses the appealing but unhelpful shadowing technique to demonstrate fells, rather than strict contour lines. In all the homes I have lived in, I hang it in the hallway, and often pause on my way past, to examine some dip or rise, and consider a new way to move through, and see, this most familiar landscape.

Many fell games occur to me, looking at that map.

So it was with the bothies.

There is arbitrariness built in, as there is in almost all games. The best we can hope for when we construct games for others to play, is that our decisions seem reasonable enough to make others want to follow in our footsteps.

And we do construct games for others to play.

There seem to me to be three kinds. Old games are the classic, established challenges that retain relevance to us because of their histories and status, such as the Paddy Buckley Round or the Joss Naylor Challenge. Personal games are those routes inspired by uniquely individual characteristics, that probably don’t have any relevance to others, but hold a special place in your heart regardless, such as a link up of your favourite two pubs, or a dozen climbs in a row of the hill behind your house. And New games are the more recently inspired routes that may one day be treated the same way as the old ones, but have not yet proven their staying power in the pantheon. They often first arise from a personal interest, but are usually designed in such a way that they might be salient and interesting to others, too. And once other runners do begin to have a go at it, your precious little idea becomes fair game for the whole community. It is no longer your baby, but the village’s child. 

And so, I proffer up the Lakeland Bothies Challenge to the village.

Has it been ‘done’ before? It seems too obvious not to have been. Done as a run, in winter, over the higher tops? Perhaps not. It barely matters. The satisfaction of completing this particular kind of challenge comes not from being the first, or the fastest, the best, or the boldest. It comes from the concept, the style, the planning, and then… the living: the frost on eyebrows, the mud on legs, the laughter of friends, the effort, the trying. A momentary sliver of adventure carved out of the routine busyness of normal life.

All fell games have their merits, but we can be guilty of exalting the few most famous of them – with a risk to the sport of tedium, and stagnation – and ignoring the vast range of possible route out there, waiting to be explored, in innumerable ways.

Many other bothies in Scotland could - and doubtless have – been used for similar running-bothying adventures (Runnying? Bothning? Both-trotting? Never mind). My eye has already been caught by the three nicely spaced on Skye... And every time I pass that map on the wall, another seems to pop unbidden into my mind, at a frankly unachievable rate. Within days of moving into my new house, I had jotted down half a dozen that occurred to me. A fellside called ‘The Hundreds’? Surely A ‘Hundred Hundreds’ challenge is called for. Fell called Yoke? ‘Poke the Yoke’ – circle around to frame the egg, and then sprint to the top to pierce the centre. A skyline route of every top visible from the house, obviously. A Coffee Crawl, visiting all four relatives’ houses nearby. I could do a game a week all year, and never leave the damn valley.

And I’m far from alone in this habit. The concept (or, more harshly, the ‘gimmick’) of games, can arise from almost anything. Landmarks of all kinds, be they natural (summits, skylines, lakes, rivers and the rest), manmade (ancient monuments, pubs, houses etc.) or etymological (Jon’s ‘Great Day Out’ linking every Wainwright with Great in the name). Conditions can dictate the design (Winter BGs, ‘Dark’ BGs… who has the ‘pissing down with rain all the way’ BG record?), and even food and drink offer fruitful avenues for gimmickry (Doris’ Lakeland Ales, visiting every Lakeland fell that has been used as a beer name for Hesket Newmarket Brewery).

So forget the bothies – do your own!

But why?

Why not just go out for a nice little run?

No reason at all, of course. For as many times that you want to, just run. Or, if you just want to train hard for calendar races, just train. Both have merit. But maybe, sometimes, you might feel the pull of a specific, bounded challenge. Something between the two extremes. And one of the great things about fell games, is their tendency to take you to new places, enhance your relationship with an area, or push you to explore them in new ways. Games can open your eyes to what was always there. Perhaps you know a route well, but have never done it in the dark, and a night-time completion will change that. Likewise with a winter round. Perhaps you are intimately acquainted with the big Lakeland fells, but completing the Wainwrights will also make you go tick off Lank Rigg (and god knows you need a reason to go up Lank Rigg). In that sense, games are not always a deviation from a friluftsliv mindset, but can instead actually put you in situations that elicit that awe-struck catharsis of being ‘out there’ in the big, powerful, sublime kind of way.

__________

A bacon butty breakfast was proffered at me by Dan, and a greeting handshake by Ben J, both having arrived at the bothy early, to start me out on the final day. Up over Harter Fell and on to Mardale Ill Bell, the drifting snow flakes and good dusting of white stuff underfoot nicely rounded out the quota of winter conditions I had enjoyed throughout the trip, having had just enough spiciness in there to make it feel ‘proper’, and not winter-in-name-only.

Dan peeled off, and we dropped down to Kirkstone, for a brief few minutes rest in the conveniently open barrel store of the Kirkstone Inn. I will forever be indebted to Ben J for his tip-off to me about the fresh milkshake vending machine at Kirkbarrow Hall farm, which was nectar of the gods after a sweltering hot Howtown race last May. Now, in the gloom of the storeroom, he continued his streak of beverage-based tipoffs by recommending to me a ‘gandy’: a ginger beer shandy. I have since tried this, and can report that it is indeed, very refreshing.

Tim and Sam arrived, my final running partners of the trip. Tim and I recommenced our battle over his insistence on a one-run-per-week schedule, despite me pointing out to him that when he was playing football, he was essentially running three days a week, and now that he’d retired from it, he should have space in the diary for two more fell days. No, Bobby. Monday nights only. Sam is a bromance of mine, founded upon that peculiarly instant ease you feel with some people, from the moment you meet. Maybe it’s because we both have beards. The fellowship of the follicle.

By the time we reached Fairfield, I felt great. Legs were moving, spirits were high. It was a long but thoroughly enjoyable descent down the west flank of the horseshoe, and I even managed a decent sprint finish along the pavement into Ambleside, leaping up the little steps at the bridge house to declare myself done! Not just finished, but really, truly completed in the fullest and richest way it could have been.

And then to fish and chip shop.

Which makes me think… ‘Lakeland Chippy Round’?

__________

Some games stretch you to your very limit. Others just hint at it. This one, for me, found some sort of sweet spot between daunting and doable. It was quite a long way to go on the fells, so it was not exactly easy, but nor was it a world of pain and discomfort. Just the right amount of push, and pull, and risk, and reward, to be fully engaging and very fun, both in the moment, and after. I can say, hand on heart, that I enjoyed every step of the running, and every second of the evenings.

I don’t know how long it took, exactly. I don’t know how far, or how high, precisely. How much moving, how much stopped. What I know is that it was just four days of a life, and few were ever better spent.

Except for the snoring.

When I returned home, I found an email chain from a company badgering me about some unresolved customer service issue. After a message per day for three days, they evidently concluded that I was either dead or comatose, and therefore incapable of ever replying again, and closed the account. Apparently in the modern world, four days out of contact is too long to be considered reasonable. We should all reject that idea, and insist that what comes before the petty demands of modern life, are the fundamental human needs for movement, playfulness, friendship, and friluftsliv.

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This article was originally written for The Fellrunner - the journal of the FRA - for Issue 138 (Spring 2024).

Bobby Gard-Storry,
Cumbria, 2024