Walking the Line 1

Having got the bit between my teeth yesterday I decided to go for it today. Luckily I did a bit of research last night and in less than 24 hours have become a rain-gauge nerd.

This might form part of a little series (if today hasn't put me off) of blips called Walking the Line based on G's job of 'walking the line', the pipeline that carries water from Thirlmere in the Lake District to Manchester. He would regularly walk the line from Thirlmere to Staveley and sometimes on to Watchgate. This is not intended to be a literal, organised or historical journey, just a randomly eclectic, emotional one. 

It started badly because I didn't find what I was looking for. No matter because this blip probably fits better with one of his stories. I knew that G used to check the Helvellyn rain-gauge (about 3 times a week I seem to remember him saying). I assumed this was on top of Helvellyn but it is actually on Birkside ... just as well I checked it out before I went. It is one of the highest rain-gauges in Britain. Rainfall is measured electronically these days but before that it was the job of someone to go out and check. Once I was up there I could see it made sense as it would be one of the main catchment valleys, whereas rain falling on Helvellyn itself might head down either way. As I looked across to all the small tributaries that start up here I thought about all journeys, their 'start' and 'end' points, the tiny tributaries and the deltaic meanderings to an eternal sea, and wasn't entirely sure whether this was an end, a beginning, or just one of the bits in the middle. All very T.S.Eliot ...

'Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.'

The forecast today was poor with rain heading across in the afternoon but I thought I might be able to make it up there before it set in. I had a rough idea and a grid reference but wasn't (rightly) very confident about finding it. With no-one checking manually any more it could well be pretty hidden. It's a slog up and I put in some extra height so I could have the benefit of a better view across where I thought it might be. I wasn't far off Nethermost Pike when the rain started and so I headed back down off the path across rough fell to roughly where I thought it should be. No joy. I started to quarter back and forth for a bit but before long the weather was closing in and I knew how dangerously easy it is to become disorientated up there. I made for the safety of the path cairns as visibility dropped to almost nothing. I was soaked through, - must get some new gear.

Grim as it was it reminded me how terrifying it must have been for G when he told me about getting caught up there in a white out. He said he paced out a square and just kept going round and round it until he was able to safely descend. I don't recall how long he was out; it was a long time and they had begun a search for him. It was before the days of mountain rescue. The foresters and workers of Manchester Corporation would do the equivalent of mountain rescue in those days and G said they would often be called upon to look for lost walkers. 

Ironically, as I headed down, feeling more drowned than Fred Astaire's pet rat, I saw a party heading up. I was baffled as conditions were already grim. As I got back down to the tree line I glanced back up and noticed that they had changed their minds and were heading back down - good call.

For anyone interested there's information on the Thirlmere - Manchester pipeline here.