Posted by John Nichols on February 21, 2005 at 18:19:22 from 165.91.196.86 user Mcneacail.
In Reply to: Re: Guardian posted by Charles on February 21, 2005 at 09:50:20:
The Lake District
Tony Greenbank
Monday February 21, 2005
The Guardian
Something happened this week that shook me to the core. It was a brilliantly moonlit night as I drove over Hardknott Pass between Eskdale and Langdale, the notorious road thankfully free from ice. Above the summit of pass, however, the fells were snow-clad, the whiteness reflecting the light as brightly as if floodlit. I parked above the hairpins. Within minutes I was clambering up the fellside, between crags and boulders, to the top of Border End, one of Lakeland's finest viewpoints. And there, seemingly close enough to touch across the void of Upper Eskdale, were the silhouette of Scafell, muscle-bound with crags; the notch of Mickledore; the lampshade shape of Scafell Pike; the peaks around the cirque to Bowfell and Crinkle Crags ... all arrayed beneath a sky shot with stars and a melon-slice moon.
Lured on by the intoxication of air like icy-cold wine, I stepped further along the ridge, a gleaming white highway. And then it happened. I was picking a way between outcrops and frozen tarns when my sixth sense kicked in. There was a figure ahead, and about to walk into me! Struck speechless, I stepped aside. So we passed, the other figure padding by on the crispy crystals. Onwards they loped as I turned, their reflective trainers' heel patches glittering, until lost to view. I realised he (or she) was a fell runner - a breed not given to stopping and exchanging pleasantries - but also travelling the skyline for the joy of being on moonlit fells so bright that a head torch was unnecessary. Perhaps they were also as startled as me? Had they even seen me among the rocky, knolly landscape? The vista of England's highest mountain certainly gave no answer