A busy evening of wholesome exercise with Luke, my old friend from Keighley. We met at Barden Bridge, a mile or two beyond Bolton Abbey near Skipton, North Yorkshire. This is Wharfedale, part of the Yorkshire Dales, and as landscapes go, tearfully close to heaven.
We set off at 7:30 and walked steadily upwards for an hour or so, till we reached the craggy summit of Simon’s Seat. No postcard shop, no ice-cream hut, and best of all, no people. Less than two hours earlier I was inching through the clouds of choking diesel fumes in the centre of Leeds. Now we were two men perched on a rock at the top of the world. Just the wind in the rocks and the haunting, lonesome cry of the curlew. This astonishing panorama can barely have changed in a century. Perhaps several centuries. Was this an escape from the real world, or an escape to it? I don’t know, but in an existence that for the most part wounds and drains and exhausts, here was a moment of healing and replenishment and true joy.
George Bernard Shaw: “Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long”. Which Luke put more prosaically: “It’s the Everest syndrome, unfortunately. Should start to move down while the weather holds.”
This is where we we began our slow jog along the paths across the tops. The slabs soon gave way to springy peat, and for a while it was like running on a very firm mattress. I could have bounced along forever on a surface like this. Hard not to chuckle. As we started the long, winding descent down the other side of the hill, the peat became a rocky path, and quite treacherous in places. More than once I thought I’d lost my footing, and waited for some horrible impact on my knee or elbow or face, but it never arrived.
Luke is younger than me, and faster and fitter. Last year he ran a half marathon in 1:45. But he’s not run for a few months so is gratifyingly out of condition. On this surface and incline, we couldn’t run fast in any case. The benefit wasn’t so much aerobic as muscular. The climb and the long descent and the variety of surfaces meant muscles were being woken up for the first time in ages. Tomorrow I may ache.
The total jaunt was 8.95 miles. 2.65 of those were steep climbing, then just over 5 of running until we reached the 8 mile point. Here I could announce my exhaustion without shame, leaving us a warm-down walk of a mile or so. That final mile along the River Wharfe in the darkness was a good time to reflect on Hillary’s famous remark that “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves”.
We hope to do it again next week.
*** Confessional note: I admit it. I’ve no idea what a curlew sounds like. I once read a pamphlet describing the walks on Marsden Moor, west of Huddersfield, which said “the moors here are haunted by the lonesome cry of the curlew”. It’s too good an image not to recycle.
