A couple of weeks ago I had to use up my last couple of days of annual leave so I went up to the Lake District to camp and walk by myself.
There were two reasons for going. One was for the sublime pleasure of those hills in Autumn. But the other was that I just wanted to be alone, away from other people’s voices and away from other people’s demands. Really, I just wanted to be away from other people.
And so I was. And it was good. But on my second day’s walk, I set off from Seathwaite in patchy clouds and occasional sunshine and made my way up Scafell Pike – straight into what can only be described as the Apocalypse.
By the end of the first hour the sky was dark and lowering. By the end of the second there was steady rain and a strong wind. By the end of the third I was in a lashing torrent, driven by a gale with visibility of about forty feet. As I approached the summit I was practically on all fours. I was, to put it plainly, frightened.
Now there was something about all this that was not just physically challenging though. It was also deeply, desperately lonely. And entirely alone on Scafell Pike, in cataclysmic weather, it felt as if the world was ending.
Now I’d like to say something here from Psalm 23 about fearlessness, God’s comfort and green pastures. I’d like to say that in that apocalyptic moment God spoke to me and told me I was not alone at all. But God didn’t.
God just left me there. And because he didn’t speak comfort into the rain and the wind, I knew why I was up there. I was up there to come down again. And suddenly I wasn’t glad to be away but happy to be going home.
I reckon pretty well everyone gets lonely. We miss the families we push away, the friends we have lost or who are far off, the lovers who are out of reach. And we are separated from them variously by our own fault, by their fault and by no-one’s fault.
But the apocalypse, as I found out on Scafell Pike, comes quickly. So I suppose the question isn’t really ‘why are they so far away?’ but ‘How quickly can I run back towards them?’
It really was frightening on Scafell Pike that day.
The picture was taken the day before, looking west from Raise, just along the ridge running north from Helvellyn. To the right is Skiddaw and to the left Scafell Pike, Scafell and Great Gable.