This Blog is principally about the Pyrenees, a region that I have come to love dearly in my more mature years, if I may put it this way.

I do, however, retain a soft spot for my first love - the English Lake District. It was there, back in 1959, that I was introduced to mountains by my father - for which I am forever grateful. That visit also had the elements of an early trekking experience as, over four days of a short school holiday, we hiked from one Youth Hostel to another.

The Lake District cannot boast high mountains, even by UK standards. There are many much higher in Scotland and several in Wales. Yet, with their low-altitude, glaciated valleys and rugged appearance they punch many times above their weight. The highest peak in England - Scafell Pike (981m) resides there - but the special appeal is the lakes that radiate from a central hub along the valleys, making the main mountain ridges appear as if they are spokes in a wheel. The physical geography is more complicated than that, but what I have expressed suits the purposes of most people.

Last weekend, Angharad and I joined 11 others in the Lake District for a retirement celebration of a friend who had hired an ex-farmhouse a little above what many consider to be the most beautiful of all the major lakes - Ullswater. Saturday and Sunday saw us hiking among the mountains that culminate in 'High Street', the name deriving from a Roman Road that once traversed its spine. After a terrible winter of rain that brought floods and landslides to many parts of the Lake District, we were blessed with settled weather, albeit cold for the time of year. As we climbed higher on the Sunday, Ullswater gradually displayed its full length of 14.5 kms, including the graceful curves and sylvan bays for which the lake is famous. It was a wonderful scene that appears on the front of many Lake District postcards, but what really arrested our sights were the snow-covered peaks beyond the lake head, including Helvellyn, the third highest peak in England (950m). Prior to our visit it had been cold enough to snow over high ground and we were now reaping a dividend - the proverbial icing on the cake.

As we descended late afternoon, I talked to another hiker who, along with two women companions, was staking out a three-day route that he called the 'Triple Spine Lakeland Challenge', one of the spines being the 'Roman Highway' that we were on. I gracefully declined the offer of joining the challenge in June - I don't think at my age my knees could withstand 30-40 kms on each of three consecutive days with significant ascent and descent. It did seem, however, to be one of the more interesting endurance challenges. Check it out on http://tslc.uk/.

We were loathe to leave the next day and our mood was not helped by a 50-minute hold-up on the motorway. A short detour into the Yorkshire Dales, however, taught us that mountain excitement can exist anywhere as we put on our mini-crampons to scale the snow-covered Penyghent.

My mountain roots

Gordon Wilson

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