Cold and Damp

Humidity in the 95+% range, windchill in the –4 to –6 range for what seems like week after week.  For variety it rains.  The East Coast of Blighty does not feel like the place to be as the cold damp creeps into joints and bone.

I have been planning a walk to my favourite woods now for at least two weeks, but always something gets in the way (common sense mostly).  The fields around it are just claggy mud, the walk is one thing, the two hour clean up afterwards, something else.

But it is not forever, things will change.  This is the time I get a chance to catch up on reading, and that is a worthwhile occupation.

Today postie delivered me my waterproof map of Dartmoor.  My old traditional paper-version suffered somewhat with the elements. Despite being dried out and a lot of micropore tape stuck to it to mend the rips, it was time to retire the thing.  Well, semi-retired, it is now taped up on the wall for easy reference.

So now the planning can begin for trip 1 to Dartmoor 2010.  As ever it will include considerably more than will get done.

Last time I was there, I really enjoyed walking along a section of Leat, so that will be on the list of things to do.  The list of things to do, will not necessarily get onto the list of things done, but that’s life.

The plan is for 7-9 days living out of a pack, probably with 1 return back to the car for more food, otherwise the diet just gets so tedious.  It is the sort of timescale where things do have to be planned a bit more if I don’t want to stagger off the moor a total shambles.

I might venture into the Northern part of the moor a little, but I have never been that lucky with firing times, one day I will get around to High Willhays and Yes Tor.  Two tors which illuminated my imagination so many years ago in a geography in one of those hideous temporary buildings without heating  we had classes in for pretty much the duration of my schooling while existing in a tediously flat part of Britain.

I will reach the high points of Southern England at some point.  High Willhays now acknowledged as the higher of the two, by some six foot.  For centuries Yes Tor being considered the highest.

The three bits of ancient woodland, should also be on the list of things to visit.  I have only been up close and personal with Wistmans Wood previously.  Piles Copse being viewed from the other side of the valley via the remains of the railway bed.  Black-a-Tor Copse I have not seen.

So now it is about getting my packweight down and my fitness levels up so these two opposing elements meet sufficiently that I can lift my pack and walk with it.

Daunting.

The Wild Places

A book by Robert MacFarlane.

I have been meaning to read this book now for considerable time.  Always something seemed to get in the way ranging from another book to sheer forgetfulness.  Eventually though its turn came.

Glad it did.

Partly it was about trying to reconnect to Roger Deakin, and extracting vestiges of his world.  One of the books which got in the way of this one, was Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, one of Rogers favourite books.

Rogue Male had inspired a journey and a section in Wildwood by Roger Deakin, and this adventure is also recounted in The Wild Places. Roger and Robert had done the trip together.  They had planned more but Roger fell ill.

The Wild Places is beautifully written and the book itself shoots of branches into other books, continually referencing books as the start point to various adventures.

MacFarlane puts himself through some pretty extreme experiences, Ben Hope, was obviously quite the adventure and is referred back to a lot in the subsequent text.  Why not, a night alone on a mountain top in sub zero temperature lives long in the mind (and imagination).

As the book progresses so does Robert’s concept of wilderness, it moves from the traditional concept of wild, the blasted mountain top, the bleak moor, too the insect life under the bark of a rotting tree.

Wild is all around us, you just have to know what you are looking at.

I sort of knew this, but I needed to be re-told.  As I plan the excursions of the year, they are too wild places, these are the peaks od my wilderness experience, but its only going to be a short part of the year.  Like anything, you have to enjoy the “getting there”.  The walks to gain a bit of fitness, to try and see them as a small adventure in themselves rather than just the “plod” to get used to the pack weight once more.

The need to practice, refine the skillset to enhance the experience should never be underestimated.

This book reminded me, everything is in the detail.