Stone Arthur

Stone Arthur Summit

Grasmere from the Stone Arthur Path

Michael Nook Beck

High Close Youth Hostel

Sunday, 30 June 2024

Ascent:     432 metres

Distance.  4 kilometres 

Time:       1 hour 3 minutes

Stone Arthur      504m    39mins

A grey day with rain probable meant we had a lazy start as we had breakfast and watched Laura Kuensberg unleash her overinflated journalistic ego whilst interviewing Rishi Sunak. It was his last chance saloon as he slithers into a less traumatised existence. He was as belligerent and defensive as ever, unable to accept the facts of his government's mistakes that he was taunted with. Accountability and Integrity were never his strong suits. He rolled out his usual fact-checked lies about his opponents with the venom of a teenage miscreant, never failing to pour scorn on Keir Starmer when challenged about his own policies. 

We decided to go out and get some exercise, Gregor was starting his training for the Berlin marathon and I was keen to climb a Wainwright hill. Most of the tops were in the cloud so we set off for Tarn Crag above Easedale Tarn. Parking proved impossible, so we headed for Stone Arthur above Grasmere. We found some parking at Michael’s Nook and we were soon enjoying the walk alongside the gurgling beck that runs alongside the beautiful Lakeland houses that snuggle the hillside.

As soon as we reached the steep well-built stone path, Gregor disappeared into higher altitudes as I kept what I thought was a decent steady pace. After 150 metres of ascent, the path traverses at a more gentle gradient until it reaches a sharp left turn before climbing the final 169 metres to the summit. The soundtrack today was of Meadow Pipits. Just before I reached the summit Gregor began the descent, he would run back to Langdale in what would be a 22-kilometre run. 

I overtook a Geordie couple helping their 17-year-old blind Jack Russell up the final stony section of the climb. The dog was struggling but had always enjoyed the hills and its indomitable spirit was evident as it topped out a few minutes later. The descent was fairly quick, there were several groups of young people struggling up the steep stone path and asking how much further. Maps are too much bother and they had probably not discovered OSMaps online. The rain had held off and it had been a fine outing. 

On the drive back over Red Bank I stopped at the High Close Youth Hostel. We always came this way on arriving for our Langdale week to capture the views of the Langdale Pikes before descending to our holiday destination. I had always wanted to revisit this special place but the family were more anxious to get to Langdale for a swim. I had stayed at the hostel during my first teenage holiday with 5 friends. 

We had ten days of youth hostelling in the Lake District with mountains, beer and girls as our objectives. The highlight was a late afternoon in glorious sunshine on the west-facing terrace of the Youth Hostel. A record player was playing Bach, the Langdale Pikes looked perfect, and about 40 teenagers were chatting each other up and checking each other's itineraries for the week ahead. I wandered around the gardens but the sunshine and excitement of the 1960s were missing. The then pristine lawn was less well cared for, ruined by a fire pit, and the hostel looked less well maintained. It reinforced the sense that I was part of the lucky generation that was able to book affordable holidays, taste real ale, climb unspoiled mountains and start an analogue romance on the west terrace of High Close Hostel.

Little Mell Fell

Matterdale from Little Mell Fell

Saturday, 29 June 2024

Ascent:       215 metres

Distance:    4 kilometres

Time:          57 minutes  

Little Mell Fell       505m    36mins

Gregor and I were on the way to Langdale, 40 years exactly since our first visit when Gregor was 3 months old and we climbed the Langdale Pikes, carrying and cajoling our three under four-year-old children. We watched the family grow and banked our memories as we explored every corner of the lakes. We swam, walked, climbed, sailed, canoed, raced, visited museums, attended events and had a drink and meals in most of the pubs. This year it was just the two of us.

We had started slightly late and after calling in at Penrith for some provisions, I thought there would be time to climb Great and Little Mell Fells. We headed east on the A66, Lakeland was dressed in dull colours and rain was threatening. We decided to climb Little Mell Fell from Green Barns after failing to find parking on the road to the north of the hill. We squeezed into the start of an unused tractor track that made a zig-zag to the higher slopes. At the end of the track, a small herd of cows with many calves were grazing with bucolic nonchalance.

The final part of the climb was through grasslands towards the lonely trig point. Ullswater snaked its way through the fells to the south and east and clouds skimmed the tops of the eastern fells. The music was provided by skylarks as they dipped and dived in the gentle breeze. We descended down the main path to the south to create a circuit and then headed back along an empty road to Lowthwaite and Green Barns. It was beginning to rain and time was pressing if we were to make Langdale in time for the Euros that began at 5pm. I suggested that we forget Great Mell Fell, it would allow Gregor to have a 9-kilometre run from Ambleside to Langdale if we continued via the Kirkstone Pass. I would sign in and unload the food and stuff for the week, it would jolt my memories of all the wonderful previous holidays with Aileen and the children. 

I checked the news before the game started. Amidst all the depressing news about the general election campaign and the fallout from Joe Biden's fall from grace during his debate with Trump, there was sad news about the death of Joss Naylor, the legendary 88-year-old fell runner. He had been an astonishing athlete on the hills, training by proxy as a sheep farmer on his hill farm in Wasdale. I had the pleasure of meeting him during a Mountain Marathon in North Wales when he was partnered by Mike Walford, one of my school cross-country colleagues who had become a successful fell runner in the Lake District. We sat with them by the tents at the end of the first day and Joss regaled us with tales from his remarkable career. He also competed in the world's biggest liar competitions held in the Bridge Inn pub in Wasdale every year but his achievements were the truth.

Great Mell Fell from the ascent of Little Mell Fell

Little Mell Fell 

Peak Joss Naylor

In the Thick of the Election

Jenga: the government's operation mode

Rishi Sunak's general election is the mistake that keeps on giving. I had predicted a summer election to some colleagues in May, and they guffawed, but I did not have the gumption to make a bet. And that is my problem, the UK has become a government-franchised casino where aspiring neo-capitalists make money on their phones without ever producing anything.  I still live in a world where price, outcomes and community benefits are what matters.

Think about it.  Government procurement of nuclear power stations, HS2, hospitals, PPE equipment, Test and Trace and consultancy advice for outsourcing services has been a bonanza for unscrupulous middlemen (and women) who have driven up inflation on facilities and services. These used to be delivered by local democratic bodies that were more prudent and focused on getting the best cost, and on-time delivery whilst supporting local businesses. Only 10 of the 40 hospitals promised by Boris Johnson have made progress, HS2 has been cancelled apart from the most expensive bits in the Home Counties where the cost of land acquisition, tunnelling to satisfy the 'loyal' Tory voters, and finance and design costs have gone stratospheric. PPE equipment did not meet specifications and much was trashed and most consultancy advice was lost down the back of the number 10 sofa.

The NHS is at the heart of most people's priority for rescue. I remember it was working extremely well when I retired 14 years ago. I could get an appointment with a GP on the day of phoning, there were annual checks for several common ailments, my wife had regular breast screening and A&E worked well apart from Friday and Saturday nights when alcohol had taken its toll. Hospitals were usually local and well-managed. Community care was usually provided by councils and delivered by someone local who could turn up in the evening to clients if there was an emergency. Most of these characteristics are sadly gone. 

Andrew Lansley's jenga-inspired reforms started the rot, knocking down existing structures and then rebuilding them at a cost that amply rewarded consultancies and many senior health managers. Local hospitals that served their communities were replaced by mega hospitals, designed, built and inflated by PPP contracts that generated massive profits for the finance and construction cartels that took an ever-increasing share of NHS funding. These mega hospitals are difficult to access, too complex to be efficient or effective, infested with building and technology malfunctions, and encouraged the medical silos to put their demands above patient needs. No wonder they are in special measures.   

And community care, well, that has languished as a bottom feeder squeezed out of resources, outsourced to companies who paid minimum wages whether in residential homes or their peripatetic carers. This should be the priority investment to save for the NHS.

The rail franchises failed again and again and several have been replaced by government-run operators like LNER. The privatised water companies introduced by Thatcher and Major governments and allowed licenses to pollute by the water regulator have provided excessive dividends for investors but failed to invest in the infrastructure so that our rivers and beaches are the worst in Europe. The same Europe that had introduced water and air quality standards that have been sacrificed on the altar of Brexit.

We are still uncovering the extent of the government's lethargic management of COVID. The government wasted £billions on badly procured equipment, temporary hospitals and applications and failed to harness the knowledge and experience of public health agencies and councils. 

The bizarre Rwanda scheme for off-shoring asylum seekers has cost £370m without a single person being sent to Rwanda. It will cost £600m if 300 people are sent there according to the Migration Observatory. 

Much evidence of the Government's failures has been kicked into the long grass. Many £millions have been spent on Inquiries that were never intended to be reported until after the general election. What further acts of incompetence will we discover when Grenfell Tower and the Covid inquiries eventually emerge from the burial chambers of the Johnson/Truss/Sunak opaque government?  

Volume house builders make 20%+ profits by building houses designed and replicated across dozens of sites by CAD systems rather than architects and designers. They take little cognisance of landscape or vernacular buildings, they are often poorly specced, cramped and only as sustainable as required to meet minimum standards. Developers have been land banking for years and only develop when the market is favourable. They try to avoid planning conditions that require a proportion of houses for social renting or the provision of play parks, pathways and contributions for other community facilities or services.

The Labour Party blaming councils for delays in planning shows an ignorance that does not bode well for increasing the rate of housebuilding. The land acquisition by councils, the design of housing, a shift to net zero housing and the provision of community facilities should be at the forefront of new housebuilding policy. The blitz of planning regulations threatened by Keir Starmer is the shibboleth of lazy thinking. Planning decisions must reflect community concerns, not the land banking and excessive profit-making of volume builders.

All bets are off about who will not win the election, the electorate has long ago decided that it will not be the Tories with their irascible PM and Gone Girls and Boys.

Rant over, for now.

General Election Half-Time

Half-Time Prime Eviction Candidates

Chris Philp

Emily Thornberry

Halfway there, the campaigning for the general election has been dire. This is not surprising since the government, which should hold all the cards when calling an election, has yet to achieve anything to crow about. Negativity has become the lingua franca of all parties. There is much to be negative about - Brexit, Covid, the cost of living, mortgage rates, NHS, community care, housing and public services. Immigration, policing, pollution, HS2, and delays to public inquiries have been catastrophes. Tax is at its highest ever level and the number of Tory MPs involved in corruption or sex scandals has broken all records. Rishi Sunak has been helicoptered around the country like an amazing dancing bear. He generates pathos and despair amongst his MPs as well as 80% of the electorate. 

The Labour Party has tied itself in knots by their pledge to make no tax increases and a manifesto that is light on progressive policies. It has pegged its future to the Tory's spending plans, a wishlist of economic growth and, in the meantime, a remix of austerity. The country is so disillusioned with the Tories that Jeremy Corbyn could probably have won this election. He would have been a step up from Johnson, Truss and Sunak. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer is campaigning like a human air fryer - safer, more cost-effective and environmentally friendly but not able to produce anything exciting. 

The other parties are having fun. Ed Davy in particular, as he buzzes around the country in LibDem 1, the election bus, there is no LibDem 2, it is just another Lib Dem joke, geddit?. But he has modelled himself on Mr Pastry as he clowns about but combined with his sincere broadcast about his role as a carer for both his mother and disabled son he has got into the game. Daisy Cooper has been a cheerful accomplice and with no chance of forming a government they have been able to offer more progressive policies than Labour in the safety of knowing that they will not have to do a Nick Clegg and rescind them in office.

The Greens have also benefitted from the security of being able to draft their manifesto as fiction and provide the reader with some optimism paid for by the UK's non-dom citizens and the oil companies. Their joint leader, Carla Denyer, has performed well and scored some good points during the numerous leadership debates when the two main parties have been slugging it out for a scoreless draw. Similarly, the Welsh and Scottish Nationalists have landed some punches, and unlike the Reform Party, they have focused on the issues that matter most. In Scotland, John Swinney has had a torrid time as the other parties have lambasted their performance over the past 17 years. Swinney has inherited the fallout from the inglorious exits of Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf.

The press has been predictably true to the political prejudice of their owners and the BBC has tried to be balanced in what is one of the least well-balanced elections since 'Things can only get better." Comedy shows have not been afraid to ridicule the trio of prime ministers who have been responsible for the chaotic events of the outgoing government.

Rishi Sunak has had little support from his cabinet, they seem to have gone to ground, and even omnipresent rent-a-quotes like Grant Shapps have gone awol, although Penny Mordaunt always enjoys a good fight. The ultimate Tory deterrent, Chris Philp, makes me reach for the zapper faster-than-you-can-say Emily Thornberry. They would make a great pairing for GB News, and be guaranteed to eliminate the few remaining viewers

 

Amulree Grahams

Meall nan Caorach and Meall Reamhar

Sunday, 9 June 2024

Ascent:              525 metres
Distance:          10 kilometres
Time:                2 hours 50 minutes

Meall nan Caorach      623m.     1hr 12mins
Meall Reamhar.           620m.     1hr 48mins

After leaving Dunkeld following a Sunday brunch with Emily and Gregor the day after their wedding, I drove to  Amulree, crossing the A9 was like stepping into a skipping rope going like pepper. I had planned to climb two Graham Hills that faced each other at the head of the Girron Burn, I figured that they would be manageable after a couple of days of indulging in wedding celebrations.  There is parking space for a couple of cars at the start of the track to Girron, an empty farm building, and then a tricky path that leads to a track that continues for 3 kilometres to the bealach between the two Grahams and is named Grouse Butts on the OS map. I met a walker coming down, he was from a walking club in Lancashire and had opted out of climbing Meall nan Caorach, the second hill, leaving it for his younger colleagues. He was eighty but looked in fine fettle and had managed 210 Munros but had declared from finishing a Munro round.

Shortly afterwards, I left the track and made a rising traverse to the summit of Meall nan Caorach. It was steep but mainly over grassy and heather-covered ground. The visibility was good but it was quite cool for June. I dug out my wind top at the summit and admired the 360° views. I was staggered at the number of hill tracks festooning the hillsides, presumably built to give access to grouse shooting. It was a steep drop of 160 metres to Grouse Butts and a similar steep climb to Meall Reamhar. I was making reasonable time and after a break for a drink and some photos, I decided to descend down the ridge to the northwest rather than dropping down to the track. Three Land Rovers were making their way down one of the tracks to the west of the summit. The descent was less straightforward than I had expected with several boggy sections but the compensation was the prolific bird life with dozens of meadow pipits and lots of grouse in the heather.

Some large erratic boulders provided a picturesque foreground for the Griffin wind farm about 10 kilometres away.  A large and healthy-looking rowan tree was growing out of another large boulder and opening its fissures in the process.  I made a beeline for the car but came across Girron burn that was slow-moving and about 2 feet deep. It took an extra 10 minutes or so to double back and cross it upstream where it was running faster and shallower, but I still ended with wet feet. The walk had been the perfect way to recuperate from the food and drink of yesterday. I was home by 6pm for a bath to remove any ticks as I had been wearing shorts whilst walking through long grass, bracken and heather in deer country.

Summit of Meall nan Caorach

Meall Reamhar from Meall nan Caorach

Meall nan Caorach from Meall Reamhar

Looking north to the Griffin Wind Farm

Lomond Hills from Meall Reamhar

Erratic boulders

Rowan Tree on the descent

Summertime and the drinking is easy

Ben Lomond as May fades out

Setting up the Race in Killearn Park

Killearn Houses on the trail

Announcing the first finisher

32:44

Killearn 10k Trail Rcae

View from the Village Hall

Summer arrived on 31 May with two days of sunshine and a warmth that made you thirsty. It was the Killiearn 10k trail race, the sort of event I enjoyed in my running days. Gregor was competing for the first time in what is now his local race. A real beer festival was also taking place at the Old Mill pub. It seemed a good way of spending some time after a hard day in the garden and still feeling some aches from my latest COVID vaccination two days ago.

Killearn is one of the more salubrious villages that nestles beneath the Campsies and enjoys panoramic views towards the Highlands in the northwest. It was the home of George Buchanan, the historian and humanist who argued that the source of all political power is the people. The massive monument in the village suggests that, despite its twee characteristics, Killearn celebrates its radical roots.  

I arrived at 10:00am and watched the organisers erecting the tents, tapes and other paraphernalia that are required for well-supported community-run events. Dozens of marshalls were being despatched to locations along the trail that climbs out of the village and then runs along an old pipeline route to beyond the Dungoyne Distillery and back and involves over 150 metres of climbing. The field of 250 runners included lots of locals, a couple of football teams and a running club from Glasgow. There was an equal number of males and females. 

There were no over 70s, perhaps I should have entered. I jogged out to the 2.5-kilometre point to watch as the race climbed steeply to the pipeline. Gregor was going like a steam train and had over a minute on the next couple of runners.  I decided to run back to watch the finish and caused some confusion among the marshalls as I ran past at a pace that would barely achieve an hour for the 10k. The Police even stopped the traffic as I jogged down to the Main Road. The sergeant called me over, he had been at school with my daughter over twenty years ago and wanted to catch up.

I got back to the finish line about a minute ahead of Gregor who was 5 minutes ahead of the next finisher in an impressive time for a hilly 10k over tough terrain. Emily beat her hoped-for time and we hung around for the prize-giving. Then on to the Beer Festival, it was already heaving as the runners, visitors and locals soaked up the beer and the sun in conditions that restore your faith in summer days. After using up my couple of tokens and realising that the excellent draft Summerisle was perhaps a little too tempting, I baled out. I had just returned home when John called round he had been hillwalking in Glencoe as he nears the completion of his fourth round of Munros. We discussed a trip to Fisherfield later in the year. It had been a good day and the European Cup was still to come.

Buchanan Monument

Summerisle mythical island of the Wicker Man