My son Jimmy and I finally completed all the English Marilyns in 2012. In fact we could claim to have 182 out of 176, having also done Thorpe Fell Top, Lovely Seat, Baystones, Raw Head and Horse Head Moor when they were valid, and Black Mountain when it was half in England. We have, of course, revisited it since it emigrated to Wales.
After setting up the completion with camping tours of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and the west country in 2010, and Northumberland National Park in 2011, we were left with ten Lake District summits to polish off in 2012. The first six of these - Low Fell, Mellbreak, Hard Knott, Black Combe, Dent and Blake Fell - were conquered in a youth-hostelling trip with my two sons Jimmy and Liam over the Jubilee weekend at the beginning of June. Mellbreak was found to be, well, steep, while Blake Fell was enjoyed as a satisfying and beautiful route.
That left four fairly big 'uns to do, and myself and Jimmy, aged 19 at the time, returned at the end of July to sort them out. One of them very nearly sorted me out though. After driving up from Macclesfield, our first one was Seatallan, which was reached with a straightforward ascent. We varied the descent to take in Buckbarrow on the way down.
After overnighting at Ennerdale YH, we climbed up onto Red Pike and then across to High Stile for the second one of the four we needed. We crossed High Crag and dropped steeply into Black Sail Pass, where we overnighted at the famous YH-cum-bothy - an experience recommended to everyone.
The following morning looked rather greyer and wetter, but we pressed on with our climb up Pillar. This is a formidable mountain, and is not to be messed with. We sheltered from a heavy shower of rain about halfway up, but then pressed on to attain the summit - 175 down, one to go.
The initial descent from Pillar took us into Wind Gap, and the weather really closed in. The original plan had been to press on to Scoat Fell and take a longer graded descent into Ennerdale. However, with the deterioration in the weather, I suggested an escape route down Wind Gap. A PROW was indicated on the OS map.
This was a poor piece of decision making, and one of which I am not proud. For in reality, the steep grassy slope down Wind Gap was not suitable terrain in these wet conditions. Jimmy coped admirably with it, but I am afraid I slipped, and soon discovered how much friction there was between my wet waterproof overtrousers and wet steep grass - none.
I accelerated at a terrifying speed as I overtook my son from ten minutes behind to fifteen minutes ahead in a matter of seconds. Rolling over onto my ample belly appeared to be the manoeuvre that enabled me to come to a halt. I was bumped, bruised, cut, sore and shaken - but still in one piece. I was undoubtedly lucky that I had not tumbled, only slid, and that my head had not hit a rock. Jimmy carefully picked his way down to where I was, collecting my dropped trekking poles on the way. We then carefully and slowly zigzagged our way down to safer ground, paused for a lunch of hot soup, and then completed the route to Ennerdale YH.
A mixture of good wholesome YH grub, a good night's sleep, several painkillers and our shared determination meant that I awoke the following day as keen as ever to have a crack at our last English Marilyn, Harter Fell. Although the ascent route was a rather steeper one than I would have chosen myself, especially after the previous day's scare, it was a relatively untroubled walk, and we had done it.
As some may well know, we participate in SOTA - Summits on the Air, in which we make amateur radio transmissions from the summits we reach. We did this as usual from the top of Harter Fell, with Jimmy on VHF FM chatting to local hams in Cumbria and Lancashire, and myself making contact across Europe on short wave, using Morse code.
We headed towards Hard Knott Pass initially, in order to permit a more graded descent, and that was it - we had achieved our aim of activating every English summit, becoming only the fourth and fifth out of the six so far to have ever done so in amateur radio terms.
A family holiday in August allowed us to bag ten new ones in Pembrokeshire and the surrounding area, but most summit trips have been repeats to old favourites - including The Cloud where I enjoyed meeting Graham Illing and chatting about St Kilda.
Jimmy and Tom Read on Harter Fell
