It seemed a little incongruous, ethereal even, to be walking out of Kendal early in the morning, my path illuminated only by the dim light from a head torch. Dreamily, I wandered back some years, to the times when I used to set out on alpine climbs at ungodly hours, slightly groggy from the early morning rise and shivering in negative temperatures. The sounds of rasping coughs and squeaking, frozen snow underneath cold, steel crampon blades breaking into the chilled morning air. Fancy a pint?†The landlord, without waiting for an answer fills the glass. It helps you know — someone shouts, above the cackle of wet and weary walkers that now fill the pub — to repair the paths on the fells. I didn’t know, but I did notice a sign on the pump in front of me, ‘Fix the Fells, 10p donation from every pint of Old Man’.
