Mount Pantokrator, Corfu

Mount Pantokrator on ascent

Friday, 25 July 2025

Ascent:      450 metres
Distance:  11 kilometres
Time:        2 hours 48minutes

Mount Pantokrator    909 m   1hr 28mins

At 909 metres, Corfu's highest mountain wouldn't quite qualify as a Munro, but it is nearby, and it is my tradition to climb the highest mountain on any island that is visited. It was to be the hottest day of the holiday, and the temperature was to rise to 42°C. We started at 6:30am for the 8-kilometre drive to Old Pethithia, the oldest and highest village, at 450metres, on the island. Gregor was to run it, and my intention was to walk up as far as the ridge at 650 metres, from where I could view the island and the nearby shores of the Albanian Riviera. I doubted that my groin strain and aching legs would take me any further.

It was still cool, and the morning breeze made ideal conditions for the walk as Gregor ran off in pursuit of the summit. I found the narrow marked path that twists its way through the limestone and burnt-bark olive trees; Gregor missed it and ended up on convoluted dusty trails for 13 kilometres to the summit. The path emerged on a higher trail road that took a more direct route to the summit.  I decided to head along, expecting to meet Gregor on his descent, at which stage I would turn back. I was walking more easily than expected, and unexpectedly met Gregor at a junction just 1.4 kilometres below the summit. He was still running his ascent but had done an extra 7 kilometres. I decided that the final section involving a climb of 220 metres along a metalled road was worth the effort. Two cyclists pedalled past on sections that made Mont Ventoux look easy; my shouts of 'Allez' were probably not appreciated.

The summit was a disappointment, with a collection of phone masts, a mini Eiffel Tower and fencing around the high point. Gregor was chatting to the cyclists and was ready to run down. There was no place selling drinks, contrary to the blurb about the summit. I scrounged a mouthful of water before beginning the 5 kilometres of descent as the morning heat began to intrude. I was down shortly after 9am. The car battery was flat from overuse of the air conditioning, but a friendly local from somewhere in the Midlands of England was on hand with some jump leads and advice on the restaurants in Old Perithia that we hope to return to this evening. We were back at the villa by 10am, desperate for a litre of water to revive our dehydrated bodies. It was already 38°C.

Path to Mount Pantokrator

Dried limestone vegetation

JCBs get everywhere

Memorial

What's wrong with a cairn?

G&K at summit

Digital Destruction

Looking over to Albania

Favourite Places - 1 - Langdale

Above Cathedral Quarry looking over Little Langdale 

I was sitting on a hill above the Cathedral Quarry in Little Langdale, looking over the open jaws of the Cathedral to Langdale and beyond, the Helvellyn Range provided the horizon. I have been here many times before, and it always gives me a deep sense of belonging. As do so many locations within a couple of miles of Chapel Stile in Great Langdale. Slater's Bridge and the Cathdral in Little Langdale, High Close Youth Hostel, the circular walk to Skelwith Bridge and Elterwater via Colwith, the Britannia Inn, the Old and New Dungeon Ghyll pubs, Loughrigg Fell, Silver How, Elterwater Quarry and the Great Langdale Beck. It may be because I was conceived in the Langdales Hotel, when my parents honeymooned there. It is now Wainwright's Bar, part of the Langdale Estate where we have taken a week's holiday for the past 43 years.

As a young child, we visited Langdale a couple of times a year in a hired car. We had a family holiday when I was a 16-year-old at a nearby campsite on Neaum Crag. I swam in the River Brathy and made my first solo hillwalk from Silver How to Blea Rigg and the Langdale Pikes. I was down at the New Dungeon Ghyll to buy my first pint of beer in a pub before noon, and I was thirsty. 

The following year, on my first holiday with friends, we stayed at the High Close Youth Hostel. On a glorious July evening, we listened to records on the lawn where I was captivated by a girl from Leeds, and we arranged several rendezvous over the next week as we walked over the fells between hostels. 

During university days, I visited Langdale to climb on Gimmer Crag with two of my friends who had joined their university climbing clubs. We climbed most of the high fells, sailed in Windermere and spent a New Year at the Bowder Stone cottage and saw in the New Year with Beryl Burton. On moving to Glasgow, my journeys to Lancashire would usually involve a diversion through the Lakes, very often to Langdale to climb the fells. 

We bought a timeshare at Langdale in 1984, and on the first visit when the children were 2 months, two and three, we took them on an ambitious walk up the Langdale Pikes, Gregor strapped to Aileen and me carrying and cajoling our daughters, it was probably a mistake. In the following years, they learnt to swim in the pool, climbed many of the Lakeland fells and visited all the sights as we swamped them with Beatrix Potter books and Wainwright hills. We have only missed two years, both owing to my work commitments. 

We watched our family grow and fledge, we walked almost every path, and visited most attractions and pubs. I climbed all the Wainwrights and hope to complete a second round soon. Langdale is a favourite place, where I started life, it is my all-weather playground and where my memories of life's journey teeter over each other. 

Langdales Hotel now Wainwrights

Langdale Beck by Langdales Hotel

High Close Youth Hostel

Lodge for 43 years

View from our Lodge

Happy days

Brtannia Inn

Family on Loughrigg Fell

Slater's Bridge

Poo Sticks?

Aileen on Slater's Bridge

The gate to Rydal Terrace

Grasmere from Rydal Terrace

Langdale from Loughrigg Fell

Inside the Cathedral

Langdale Pikes from the Quarry

Elterwater Quarry

Gregor and me on the Colwith to Skelwith Trail

Langdale Estate, Loughrigg Fell and the Amritt Museum

Langdale from Loughrigg Fell

I was making the best of my annual Lakes holiday despite being unable to attempt any longer hillwalks. I had planned to climb 20 Wainwrights earlier in the year, but things change. I walked on the first two days, but aggravated my groin strain, and my legs and hips were aching, something I had never known in the past. 

On day 3, I spent 4 hours on a tour of the Langdale site with Andy, the head of grounds maintenance, as he narrated a detailed and personal history of the Langdale Estate from its days as a gunpowder factory selling its products to the United States to the present day. The 35-acre estate was then bought by a local businessman, Richard Hall, who built the Pillar Hotel and converted former industrial buildings into cottages. He allowed two huts to be rented to rival climbing clubs from Lancashire and Yorkshire, and they competed to find new routes on Gimmer and other local Crags. He also made available an old barn to Kurt Schwitters, the German Dadaist, who was responsible for the Merz movement that was a precursor of Pop Art. In 1947, Schwitters began to create what became the Merz Barn, the slate wall of which has now become an exhibit at Newcastle University. Andy's talk was authentic and revealing and should be captured on YouTube. He told me he was cooperating on the production of a book, but it would never inspire the imagination in the way of Andy's oral presentation as we walked around the estate, firing questions that gave Andy the scope to produce real-life answers.

The next day, I agreed to meet with Mark for a gentle walk around Grasmere, no hills allowed. I met him on the Loughrigg Terrace overlooking Grasmere on the flank of Loughrigg Fell; we had walked in from opposite directions. I have been up Loughrigg on dozens of occasions. Wainwright devoted 16 pages to it in Book Three of his Pictorial Guide. Loughrigg Fell he wrote has "a bulk out of all proportion to its modest altitude: but no ascent is more repaying for the small labour involved in visiting its many cairns, for Loughrigg has delightful grassy paths, a series of pleasant surprises along the traverse of its summits, several charming vistas and magnificent views, fine contrasts of velvety turf, rich bracken and grey rock, a string of little tarns strung out like pearls in a necklace and a wealth of stately trees on the flanks." Wainwright could certainly string out a sentence.

Start of Loughrigg Terrace

Grasmere from Loughrigg Terrace

Needless to say, we climbed Loughrigg Fell up the steep, well-made path from the terrace. There were two others at the summit, a full-on fell walker who ranted on about how he had walked all the Lakeland hills in dire conditions. Mark was quiet, but I could tell he wanted to escape. I decided to put an end to the lecture by telling the walker that Mark had completed 23 Wainwright rounds. He stopped talking, aghast that he was a mere novice. We were able to have a friendly chat with the Indian lady who was standing nearby and wanted a picture taken at the summit. Mark then suggested returning to Ambleside by all the cairns that Wainwright had eulogised about. It took about two hours as we zig-zagged along the velvety turf, wallowing in the vistas and magnificent views.

Windermere from Loughrigg Fell

Velvety Turf

I had a notion to visit the Amritt museum in Ambleside to study the life of Kurt Schwitters, so we headed back in that direction. My groin and legs were giving me some distress by the time we reached Rothay Park. I was thirsty and hungry, so I dropped into the Apple Pie Cafe for lunch, washed down by a carafe of water. The Amritt was quiet with only a handful of visitors, despite two excellent exhibitions of Beatrix Potter and Wainwright. There were only a couple of Schwitter's paintings in the museum, but the other exhibitions held me for a couple of hours. A video of Wainwright was playing, and I found myself laughing aloud along with a lady who had entered the room. She was on a mission to complete the Wainwrights that her late husband had started but were unfinished.  She had her doubts about whether she had the endurance to do this, as she was born in the same year as me. She was in the Lakes to visit his ashes at Black Sail, and I sensed that she was looking for some company. I might have offered to help, but I doubted whether I would be able to walk in the next couple of days. Mark, not for the first time, had taken me to the limit.

Merz Barn Wall

Schwitter Painting of Bridge House, Ambleside

Schwitter Painting of Lakeland Farm

Schwitter Painting