Pylons and Poles

Pylons

You have almost certainly seen, on your travels, individuals struggling up the hill carrying elaborate metal contraptions. These structures, known as ‘mountainbikes’, are the modular components of pylons, especially designed for when a communications mast or cable carrying pylon has to be erected in an inaccessible place. Each operative collects a ‘mountainbike’ from a depot at ground level and is responsible for delivering it to the point required for the mast’s erection, where it will be assembled along with others to make the mast. It is demanding work, the only respite being the occasional downhill stretch where the ‘mountainbiker’ can climb upon his burden for a few seconds and allow it to carry him as it rolls down the slope.

Owing to the extreme difficulty of the work, success rates are low. Many a time, a ‘mountainbiker’, weary and mud-spattered, can be seen in the car park lashing his component to the back of his vehicle, to return it to the depot of his employer. Penalties for failure are harsh. Punishment consists of having one’s clothes daubed with lurid graffiti and being made to wear a ridiculous hat to advertise one’s shame to the world.

Walking Poles

These sharp pointed accessories were being widely yet secretly used by popular outdoor writers throughout the 20^th century. Then, in the early 1990’s, at a pre-arranged signal, they all ‘came out’ simultaneously, declaring themselves, through the columns of the outdoor press, to be users. They were photographed with up to two of these things and, free now from guilty secrecy, unburdened themselves, describing the joy they derived from them.

Following this other walkers started experimenting with them, believing they could ‘handle it’, using just the occasional pole for descents with heavy loads or for river crossings. Since then poles have become endemic. It is a sad sight to see users, clad in their Gore-Tex hoodies, lurching along canal towpaths or stumbling round the local park. The waste of resources is huge: experts have estimated that the average user could, for the money spent on poles, afford 25 pints of beer or 10 packets of cigarettes instead.

About 12 years ago I got in with a bad crowd and was persuaded to try a pole. 'Just one', they said, 'It'll give you a really good time, won't harm you and you can control it'. Well I couldn't. The first time I 'used' I had a bad trip. Luckily the grazes and contusions eventually healed and I suffered no lasting harm.

Activists are now campaigning for walking poles to be available only on prescription.

Suffering

My good friend H- has many years of experience in tour and mountain guiding. During this time he has come to recognise that nationalities each have distinct characteristics. The one which defines the British, he says, is a love of Suffering.

I can readily concur with this. Indeed, I confess that my first trip to Iceland was on a trek led by the legendary guide D- P-. Our shelter was the rude sheep-house and our sleep mat was the soft sheep droppings therein; we were nourished by the tinned treacle pudding we brought from home and potent cocoa brewed on a fragrant primus.

I have encountered many seekers after Suffering. Did you realise, for instance, that there are people who fill pitta bread with leftover porridge and eat it cold as a packed lunch? Difficult to believe I know, but I have encountered a number of such cases.

I recall old Mac, our scout leader when we were youths, who would have his morning shave using tea left over from breakfast. We once caught his colleague, P.B., in the act of putting all the elements of breakfast - cereal, eggs, bread, tomatoes, bacon, jam etc, into one pan and heating it on the primus. When challenged, he remarked, 'It all gets mixed up inside you doesn't it?'

The trainer on a winter skills course I once attended produced a plastic tub of Christmas pudding at lunchtime. 'Got all the nourishment you need', he proclaimed as he spooned it in, cold. 'And is a bloody miserable experience', he didn't proclaim.

I think it has something to do with our early years. I have already described our nights in damp sleeping bags under flimsy cotton tents. Also, we spent a good deal of time in clammy institutions called Youth Hostels (See Post Hostels and Huts for more details). Being comfortable can seem like cheating.

In England we have a man who does his hill walking naked. Think about that for a moment. Think about the searching wind, the icy shower of rain, the midges, the harsh rub of webbing straps; twigs and brash. And police. He has been arrested many times for conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace or something, which must be terribly inconvenient, and the consequent imprisonment very distressing to an outdoor man. How frustrating it must be, every time you go into a country pub for your mid-walk pint, to be shouted at and thrown out. In a documentary I saw about him once, he refined his suffering still further by being accompanied for part of the way by a young woman, also naked. His public nakedness meant, of course, that he was the only man present who could not allow himself to become excited by the situation. The only explanation can be this urge to Suffer. He is a fine example of the British love of Suffering. Not one to show the children though.

If you want to know more, and are not about to eat your dinner, here he is:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/naked-rambler-could-face-a-lifetime-of-imprisonments-after-european-court-ruling-9823945.html

But possibly the mightiest seeker after Suffering of all is the marathon walker John Merrill, who comes from the same part of the British Isles as I. Now in his seventies, he continues to walk monumental distances, applying to himself certain painful strictures. At a steady speed of three miles an hour for 10 hours each day, taking no breaks or stops of any kind, he walks thousands of miles. His feats are legion and include going all the way round the British coastline, America coast to coast, Lands End to John o' Groats, the Great Divide, and many many more. He refuses to have companions when walking and takes no fluids.

He is a product of the English boarding school system which probably explains his superior capacity for self-distress.

Here he is:

 http://m.johnmerrillwalkguides.co.uk/ABOUT-JOHN-MERRILL.html

8. The Food Chain Again: Midges

Previously on the subject of the food chain I took it as far as carnivorous animals. Some would say that that leaves only the addition of Man, the topmost predator of all, to complete the  chain. Not true: somewhere above us in the food chain are those buzzy bitey things of various sorts, commonly referred to as midges.

Have you ever sat of an evening by a babbling brook, and thought, 'What do these things eat when I'm not here?' Well, we humans are just the gourmet end of the midge diet spectrum. We are plucked and ready to eat compared with, say, sheep, or owls; in summer many of us are ready cooked. We must be a considerable delicacy.

We are also far more plentiful now than we were in earlier evolutionary times. The implications of this are serious. In mankind midges have an increasing supply of high energy food; we will form a growing proportion of their diet and they will evolve accordingly.

The midges of the English wild places are tame stuff compared with those of Scotland and elsewhere. Nevertheless, they can deliver a serious chomp when in the mood. Often I have returned from a bivvying expedition with a face resembling that of an elderly pugilist. But this pales into insignificance compared with the midges of Greenland which are capable of biting a hole in your boat.

  

I spend a lot of time in the vicinity of Mývatn, a large lake in northern Iceland. Literally translated, its name means 'midge lake'. For a week or two in June each year, billions of the things clamber out of the water and go buzzing around. They like nothing more than to get into a nook, cranny or hole.

Now, my head, and yours too I expect, has several holes in it. And the midges don't know the rules. No-one has told them that the holes in my head are off limits. I am not a cliff. Consequently I am forever batting the things out the holes in my head – evicting them from my ears or snorting them from my nose. They don't actually bite much: I have had worse damage in England. The female of one species does use us as a dietary supplement when pregnant though, so when in Mývatn watch out for the ones with a lump in front. Rather, their speciality lies in being a nuisance, swirling round one's head and, as their navigational skills are execrable, forever blundering into one. A mosquito net is an essential piece of equipment when working or travelling in that area during the midge season.

You will though, however carefully you plan, find yourself without a mosquito net from time to time. Do not panic: relief is still possible if you adopt the method I call the Fifty Yard Blurt. First, affect an exaggerated air of insouciance, sauntering along for 50 yards or so. While you are doing this, and being careful to avoid any outward show, gather your energy in the manner of a coiled spring. Finally, explode abruptly into a high speed 50 yard dash. Midges are not sharp witted; they will not register your departure until it is too late to discover where you are. (Their 5 second memory span helps here). Now you can saunter a while until a new posse of midges builds up around your head. Then repeat the procedure as before. (Note: if preferred, metres can be adopted in place of yards without affecting the ploy.)

One must remember as one curses them, that, around Mývatn, the midges' poo and dead bodies nourish the region, making it a green and pleasant place, supporting huge numbers of birds and fish which feed off the larvae. Damn.

7. Monuments

Monuments

As we walk our northern hills we cannot fail to be impressed by the monuments which grace many of our summits. Whether folly or memorial, they are the result of inspiration and great effort on the part of our forebears. Some are widely known and visited: Stoodley Pike for instance, above Mankinholes*, or the Wellington Monument and Crich Stand in Derbyshire.

Fig. 1

My pleasure though, is to seek out the lesser known ones, quietly awaiting us in less spectacular locations and often with endearing eccentricities all their own.

Just such a one is the modest yet finely executed monument atop Cackstone Nab in a quiet corner of Derbyshire. About twice life size, it depicts a workman, clad in the workman’s garments of a century ago (fig.1). Set on a shallow plinth it bears the touchingly simple legend, ‘Arnold Tweddle, Fettler’. The inarticulate decency of the piece demands our respect. Despite its modest size, it has been well positioned so that fine views of it are to be had from the southern and western approaches (figs 2,3) and it is well worth making a detour in your walk to take it in.

Fig. 2 View from the South

On asking locally I was unable to get information as to its origins and the significance of Tweddle. Sadly he has faded from memory. All the more important then that his monument remains, mutely insisting, ‘He lived. He fettled.’

Fig. 3 View from the West

There is a postscript. Earlier this year I was able to track down the person who is probably Tweddle’s last remaining descendant, Mrs Tracey Crippen of Cleethorpes. I visited her in her neat bungalow in a respectable street just off the seafront. She told me: ‘It were in t’road in t’garden.’

Fig. 4  Showing North  aspect

*Note: The small industrial town of Mankinholes was founded by the Victorian industrialist, Jedediah Knowles, always known, because of his imperfect personal hygiene, as ‘Manky’ Knowles.

6. The Food Chain and Greetings

The Food Chain

Producer                             Herbivore                                      Carnivore

No serious expedition can consider itself properly prepared for emergencies until it has included a herbivore (vegetarian) among its number. The graphic above, which I am sure is familiar to most of you already, makes it clear why. But do remember, it is not a light thing to eat your vegetarian; it should only be resorted to in the most extreme situation.

Greetings

To greet or not to greet? You need to make a judgement based on who's involved and where you are:

Close to car parks and other public facilities: greeting is impractical here: there are too many people around, and they neither deserve nor expect acknowledgement, being, after all, mostly picnickers.

Look out though, for the couple with a child in a backpack. These are real mountain types, grounded the while by having recently received an infant. They can only dart out for a brief moment of low altitude pleasure until the child lustily complains, needs feeding or has a poo-plosion. See the longing in their eyes as you bound along, and give them a supportive smile.

Big groups - What does one do about big groups? One cannot greet each member - one would sound like a dementing police constable. The best plan is to greet the first few in a generalised sort of way and then adopt an amiable leer for the rest of them. This can be replaced by a look of humorous resignation on rainy days.

An individual hunkered down over a hole in the ground - avert the eyes and walk on. I don't want to talk to you.

     

5. Hostels and Huts

Hostels provide a cheap and simple place for wayfarers to rest, eat and clean up before moving on, and for school parties to practise swearing.

English Hostels:  in my day there were special features which distinguished English hostels from the rest.  English 'Youth' Hostels were run according to the principle of Suffering (See Post, Suffering, 23rd May 2015). They eschewed comfort. Housed in redundant mansions, their gaping fireplaces yawned bleakly out, crying for the fuel that never came. They refused admittance except at certain tightly defined periods of the day. This was so that their wardens (note the term), who chose this career as an escape from human society, could recover from the trauma of the previous day's forced interaction, and stoke up and repress sufficient reserves of anger with which to greet the next intake. Each hostel retained an elderly cyclist who was tasked with intimidating children. Since 1980 I have avoided English hostels. Perhaps they are better now.

Then there are things called huts, which can be very variable: I have stayed in huts which have employed cordon bleu chefs, and in, er, well, huts.

It is sometimes the practice in the part of the world that I infest to haul large parties from hut to hut, either on foot or by coach. In the huts the group members are decanted onto sleeping platforms for a night's hand to hand trumping. They are booted out by their couriers early next day to walk about and look at stuff. If I see such a party approaching I pitch my tent outside. At least I'm inhaling my own gases.

A 'cool' urban hostel which I often use is different again. Its bar/restaurant has regular music nights and is a valued part of the city's nightlife; it is frequented by celebrities.

Having said that, after bed time it can suffer from the same kind of irritations as any other hostel:

The squeaker: any room with more than two beds is equipped with a bed having a hair trigger squeak. The unfortunate occupant soon becomes aware that any movement, however slight, causes a high pitched squeak. Becoming ever more self conscious the occupant lies awake, breathing ever so shallowly, scared of moving, and so stiffening with painful cramps. Counter intuitively, they may increase movement at times in order to randomise some accidentally regular squeaks - dispelling any intimation of malarkey. Meanwhile the tension rises as the other occupants  quiver, wide awake, in anticipation of the next random squeak.

The cougher: a resident with an irritating throat tickle which causes spasms of inconclusive coughing. We take turns at being this one.

The ostentatious broken relationship phone call: a male occupant has discovered the call of the life of the natural and free man. (He got his end away last night). He decides to call his fiancé back home and tell her that a/ he loves her dearly, b/ he's not ready to settle down, c/ he loves her dearly, d/  he wants there to be no secrets between them, e/ he loves her dearly and f/ they should meet henceforth less often, and in a mature sort of way, when he's not getting it anywhere else. At this point the conversation starts over again, repeating as before, with an increase in volume and incidental expressions of regret. The other occupants should postpone going to bed until his pay-as-u-go sim runs out.

• Update Spring 2015: Recently there have been menacing developments. I refer to the now ubiquitous Tablet , equipped with Skype or Facetime. Whereas before, one's pain was limited at least by the fact that the perpetrator's pay-as-u-go sim would run out, it now has the potential to go on indefinitely, fuelled by the charging lead plugged into the socket I want to use for my Kindle. Or until the Tablet falls from his insensible hand as he rolls over, emotionally exhausted. The whole performance is furthermore accompanied by a light show as the glow of the screen bounces around the room. There is not even the compensation of being entertained by the other side of the conversation: the accoustics of the device are so poor that, from our distance, there is just a tinny 'weer - weer - weer' sort of whine. One must resort either to earplugs plus sleep mask, or vandalism. It's probably not necessary to assault the perpetrator . Though come to think of it, there might be merit in it, with an accomplice directing the cam towards the action.

The Whimperer - Residents with a high payload of guilt and/or terror live torrid lives in the hours of sleep. This results in expressive yelps and despairing mumblings which are frustratingly difficult to decipher by the wide-awake listeners.

The Sock Rotter -  As we all know, a gas expands to fill the space within which it is contained. So when some backpacker hauls off his boots to expose the decomposing remnants of ancient socks clinging wetly to pale necrotic skin, we know there is no escaping the thick, foetid stink soon to be sliding towards us. As far as I am aware no-one has died from the miasma of the sock-rotter - in fact there are those who claim to have been cured of sinusitis by it. But a cleaning person once told me he sometimes sweeps up discarded noses which, he believes, have been torn off by despairing victims of the sock-rotter during the night.

There are unanswered questions about this phenomenon. Is it an affliction or is it anti-social behaviour? Is the perpetrator aware of the smell? If so does he/she like it? I'm going to ask next time. Oh, no - I'm not. I'm English.

The Snorer - Much has been written on the subject and most of us have experienced it. As well as the obvious irritation, I find I experience a mix of awe and fear for the person's welfare. How can the human respiratory and vocal equipment be put through such violence  without damage? How can the perpetrator sleep through it when no-one else can?  My good friend R suffers from the affliction. When, as a group, we set up a new camp, the scene resembles the humourous song, 'The Banana Boat Song', by Stan Freeburg. He drags his tent a distance from the main group and looks beseechingly back at us. We shake our heads (‘Too loud man’). He moves further away and turns his sad eyes towards us. Our fingers point. He moves on. At a great distance, the outcast is finally allowed to put up his tent. Faintly in the night we hear his depredations, muted by great distance, as we drift off to sleep.

Shared Facilities - another drawback of hostel life. Not having en-suite means trekking out for toilet visits and showers. Disaster awaits those of us with poor personal organisation. Having on many occasions forgotten to take my towel, I have had recourse to drying myself on: a fleece, my underwear, multiple paper towels snatched from the dispenser and centrifugal force. My friend Clugston, in similar circumstances, managed to dry himself by juxtaposing parts of his body around the mouth of a hand dryer. However on a subsequent occasion,  when he tried it with a Dyson Air Blade, an intimate part suffered a serious injury. I am doubtful however of his real motive for  that particular insertion.

One night during a quiet part of the year I had a room to myself. Wanting a pee,  and there being no-one about, I nipped to the toilet sans trousers. Of course, the swipe card which opened my door was in my trouser pocket. My only recourse was to go down to  reception clad only in my Sloggi minibriefs and queue with as much insouciance as I could muster. The receptionist told me it was quite a common mishap and that I was at least lucky enough to have the Sloggis: one gentleman had only a paper towel with which to maintain his dignity.    

4. Fear Flatulence and Gravity

Fear, irrational

Note: To view this blog in chronological order click on the first item at the top of the blog archive on the right.

A certain amount of 'atmosphere' goes with the territory for those of us who wild camp or work in remote places: swirling mists, sinister looking shapes viewed through the dusk, scufflings and animal sounds maybe, and a general feeling of isolation. These can vary from the pleasantly spooky to the outright chilling. Or -  no sound at all! A friend and I once wild camped at the place reputed to be the location of the novel, Wuthering Heights. It was one of the stillest nights I have ever experienced. If the ghosts of Heathcliff and Catherine had come out for a mumble, however quietly, I could not have missed it. I prayed for the the wind to get up to mask any haunting that might be going on.

Of course, it is all in the mind. My friend Yatterclack had an irrational fear that, if he looked out of his tent at night, there would be something looking back at him.

Often, the duvets one is provided with in guest houses and hostels are too short. Being moderately tall I find that, if I pull the thing up to my chin, my feet are exposed. If I make sure my feet are covered, my shoulders get cold. So I end up in a foetal position, which soon becomes uncomfortable.

What has this to do with fear? I hear you ask. Well, I have a confession to make. I fear the Ankle Grabber! Even in the safety of my own bed at home, if a foot breaks through the very secure tucking-in at the end, it quivers with hypersensitive anticipation. I expect at any moment to have my ankle grasped by bony fingers, the sole of my foot to be tickled, teeth to bite my great toe, or to feel some creature brush by. I have to have the 'Be a man now' conversation in my head, of course, where I attempt to ignore the situation and drift back to sleep. It seldom works. My imagination conjures up all sorts of dreadful creatures milling about under cover of darkness, inexplicably fascinated by my foot. Once, when I did get back to sleep again I dreamt straight away that a wild looking ginger haired man had grabbed my ankle and was trying to drag me out of my bed. Breathless with terror, I did what I should have done at the start: got out and re-made the bed.

(My dad was a wild looking ginger haired man, but it was definitely not him. I know well enough what it's like to be dragged out of bed by him.)

There are often wild looking ginger haired men in hostels

Flatulence

It is bad form to bang off in a tent.

G

Gravity

The hill walker and Gravity are in a state of constant war. We strive to grow up; gravity pulls us down. 

                                        The hill walker strives to go up; gravity pulls him down.

My friend Jobson made light of gravity and paid a terrible price.

He should have done what I always do. I stand on my head for an hour or two after each walking expedition so that the fabric of my body can settle back into its original position. Be careful not to overdo this precaution though: look out for shrinking of the lower limbs and swelling of the head, and if you detect them, desist immediately.