WHAT WE WERE
TRYING TO DO
The author explains the soggy
thinking behind his convoluted route
Musing over the ‘river as true path’
metaphor of the R.E.M. song ‘Find
the River’, I wondered if it would be
possible to follow a river from source
to sea in an area of the Lake District
that I didn’t know. The River Cocker
- which rises above Buttermere and
ultimately flows into the Derwent
then into the Irish Sea – seemed to
offer the necessary combination of
‘new’ terrain, two good days of varied
walking and ample opportunities
for wild swimming. Furthermore,
I wanted to climb a vantage point
over the area where the river rises
to see if we could narrow the search
for the source and look down into
Buttermere as a route-feasibility
check.
Logically, given these criteria,
we should have started at Honister
and ascended Great Gable (perhaps
the ideal peak from which to survey
the ground) as directly as possible.
However, because I’d previously
visited Honister I decided to take
another route to Great Gable, and Hay
Stacks offered the chance of a backup
vantage point should the weather
gods be against us on Great Gable.
I sold the Red Pike to Hay Stacks
route to myself on the shaky basis
that it would enable an ‘exploration’ of
some of the watershed, and parking at
Bowness Knott was fairly convenient
as we would only have about four
hours of light on the first day following
a drive up from the south.
Rather than wild camp for an extra
night somewhere near Hay Stacks,
we decided that a stop in Black Sail
could be justified on the basis that
we’d have to carry less food and water - and we really wanted to stay at
this famous YHA, dammit! Given the
walk’s objective, this stop was entirely
gratuitous.
Add in the late inclusion of Martin’s
teenage son to the party and the
decision-making process gained a
risk-averse influence, especially when it
came to dropping down into Warnscale
Bottom – the route’s only real pinch
point. Still, as a metaphor for one’s
journey through life, our messy path is
probably more apt than an idealised,
clear-cut river could ever be.
The Great Outdoors August 2019 63