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SCAFELL BAREFOOT 29 September 2011

29th. September 2011 will break all records. It's the hottest September day on record. In the strange and wonderful micro-climate of the Lake District the summit of Scafell Pike will have its own peculiar Lake District weather cocktail, a gale force fog!

I leave Cockley Beck early, before anyone's around to make comments about my barefeet. The things people say are shaped by their own experience,

“That must hurt”,

“I bet that's painful”.

Only a rare individual will think : ”There goes someone following their Bliss”.

Later I'm to meet just such a person. But for now I can settle into the rhythm of the Mosedale trail. It is extraordinary still. The only sound is the tumbling waters of Mosedale Beck. It is my 64^th birthday and I'm planning to run to the summit of the highest mountain in England. For a 25 year long barefoot runner the summit and particularly the ridge that leads to the summit is an ultimate challenge. There is no path as such, only a sequence of cairns in a chaos of haphazard rocks formed of Silurian slate, all as sharp as hell.

I love early mornings alone like this and I wrap around myself the beautiful tapestry of the Lake District. I've used the occasion of my 60^th birthday to run 60 miles around the Lake District coast. I've also run part of this route on a few past birthdays as part of a favourite run from home up to Keswick. The Lake District is so fondled, handled, admired that the scenery sometimes seems embarrassed by its own rugged beauty. From the air you see a criss-crossing of footpaths that scar the landscape. The delicate, yet rugged ecology of Scafell is seriously challenged by the boots that pound up and down the mountain. At least I have no shoes to scuff and scar the mountain. I console myself that my feet and my light running action will not leave any great trace behind me.

I carry no shoes with me on this day. I reckon it will maintain a focus. I know someone who does forestry work with a chain saw without shoes. He reckons that in his vulnerable barefeet he will be more careful than individuals who wear safety gear. They trim down their safety margins, up the risk.

It is perfect in the early morning. It is actually warm and so still that I just want to merge and move into the stillness and into the beauty. I can see Scafell from my sitting room at home in the Duddon Estuary. For years and years it has beckoned me to run it barefoot. How does that saying go?

“The only things worth doing are the things they say you can't do.?’’

Ore Gap is like a dip in the rugged skyline between Bow Fell and Esk Hause. I've tackled the trail barefoot up to Ore Gap on other occasions. I know that at this point the trail starts to disappear in to boggy marsh so I stream hop along the meandering beck. Now I’m moving up using Ore Gap like the sights on a rifle. I aim myself up, toward the ridge which is to be my ultimate challenge.

Each stride modulates and adapts itself to the terrain. I love this. Allowing the feet to fall, so that the knee glides over the ankle while the thigh drops out of the hip and connects across and thorough my open back and into the swinging action of the arm. This is freedom. This is liberation. This is my birthday treat! I've had no chance to prepare this run – none whatsoever. The possibility to get away from a desperate and tragic situation has only opened up the day before.

As I move along I think about the fact that at 7.30am, exactly at this time 64 years ago, I came into the world and the trajectory of my life began. The individual who gave me , the ultimate gift of life is now in a tragic, heart rending plight. For my soon to be 90 year old Mum, time has fallen apart, degenerated. Over the last year the fabric of time started to become ragged and full of holes. Now it has crumbled altogether. As my feet move effortlessly over tricky terrain they seem to be part of an extraordinary sylvan thread continuously spun out as the present moment merges into the immanent future. The fabric of the time/space continuum for me is intact. I do these runs barefoot to feel connected, to become a part of landscape, a part of life. But for Mum this has fallen apart. Her bone structure is not at all frail for someone of 90. Mum has none of the usual rambling short-term memory forgetfulness. But without the thread that spins to keep time and space together she is continually falling over. If only the 'hole' where time and space used to be allowed her to fall gracefully into the present moment. No, instead she is trapped in existential terror. For months the way that time and space spread themselves out so familiarly in a calendar have tortured her. She is totally unable to work out what is happening next, what to move next.

Quite how Mum managed to survive a recent fall down our slate stone stairs will forever be a mystery to me . Her falls seem to be due to an inability to be able to sequence actions. After a week of respite care Mum is desperate to be back in her much cherished independence in her chalet home. The prospects are bleak. The dilemmas for me seem endless. For months now I've been like the fireman on Red Watch, ready to slide down the pole in a fraction of a second for the next emergency The arrival of my brother form Australia has made possible this window of opportunity, my birthday treat.

So here I am celebrating what me and my Mum achieved 64 years ago almost to the minute. The silver filament spins itself out to thread together the moment by moment experience of the ever changing demands of the Mosedale trail. Wow! these feet came into this world 64 years ago and they feel so strong and sure. I have no foot protection. Balance had better be superb. If the foot slips and has to do something ballistic, such as an out of control slip, it could spell disaster. But I have no thought of that, just an intense focus and that extraordinary magnetic pull mountains have as they draw you onwards and upwards – until there's no more 'up' to go not anywhere in England at least!

This 'borrowed day' is the greatest gift for my birthday. And the gliding rhythm, the stillness, the emerging freshness of the morning give a sense of wholeness and connection After all the whole of my support structure has to open out to the full to cope with this sort of terrain. I really love this – the sense of edginess as the present moment merges into the immanent future. The sureness, the seeming solidness of this is in stark contrast to the desperate plight of the partner who brought me to the gift of life 64 years ago. It's not that I'm cocky and confident. It's more that while I'm moving, spinning out the space time continuum in this way I am simply without doubt. Doubt cannot enter into the performance of all this. That's why it is such a joy, such a celebration-

“Get your Thinking Cap on”. “C’mon put your back into it, lad”.

I can hear my long dead Dad words as I get into my flow. Yes, that’s it! What I get out of this is the demand that my Thinking Cap must be be wholly syncro-meshed into my moving body. Yes, this is indeed the joy of the present moment but it is also something more than that. It is the thread that spins into the immediate future that carries the spark- the joy.

The terror in my Mum's eyes haunts me as she becomes trapped in the moment with no 'line' or thread to connect it to the next moment . The joy for me seems to be in the ease with which each moment phases into the immanent future, in the responsiveness, the sense of belonging to the landscape, in the finest grain detail as the foot falls to the ground . Indeed this seems to be where the wholeness lies, in the sense of 'threading' integrity through each step. Out of integrity comes a high level of focus, that mindfulness, that bodyfullness, that one-pointed single-mindedness. It reveals, as it always does, a rich sense of joy, of connection, of love, belongingness, a will to really live.

Why am I doing this when it’d clearly be easier with some foot protection?

It’s true that I’m continually surprised by what the human foot can do. But I’m equally fascinated by the human will. I’ve worked out there are two windows on the human will; the willing and the wilful. These two three letter suffixes –ing and –ful that tack themselves onto the word “will” beautifully encapsulate the two windows. The ‘willing’ and the ‘wilful are two aspects of the will and sit juxtaposed, close together . Yet, paradoxically to get from one to the other is a giant leap, one that needs a magnificent exertion. Running a trail barefoot such as this makes this paradox stark. If I try to push and force things I end up in wilful frustration. If I leave myself alone then there is a willing joy.

“Isn’t that painfull’? is probably the most common thing people say to me.

As the stones get sharper I realise that my relationship to pain is really quite different when I’m in a state of willing joy. Pain reveals itself as the gift no one wants and right now it’s the sentinel and guide that shapes each footfall.

Hey! it’s so great just to 'Go with the Going'. In race-horse terms' the Going' describes the underfoot terrain: “The Going was firm at Kempton Park today”. Of course, the horse being a good animal always 'Goes with the Going'. And, so now must I. Here the going is soft so I need to firm up. Here the going is hard, I might need to soften more. Sections of trail are fast, others sections slow. All this adds to a developing sense for me of the slender, delicate yet extraordinary tensile strength of the woven thread that connects space and time together as one stride integrates with the next. Occasionally glimpses of heaven and eternity are revealed. The breaking of this thread is the Hell that my Mum has descended into. The beads of experience now fall scattered and shattered on the floor of her brain.

“Go with the going.”.

“Wherever you go, there your are.”

“ Certain of mind, certain of step”.

“Pride has a pinch”.

I’m just ahead full of jingles and soundbites as I run along. There is such a solace in the solitariness of the early morning and in the mindful/bodyful demands of the place and of the occasion and all it represents.

I reckon I love my fellow man as well as most but I spend so much quality time in such close and intimate proximity to my fellow man. I touch people for a living. It's who I am. What I do. Damn it ! I need this solitude. It is my soul food, my nourishment. I cherish the gift of today more than any other previous birthday occasion run. At this level of focus “certain of mind, certain of step” it is clear to me that the opposite of the aloneness I now experience is loneliness. A loneliness that will so surprise me before the day is out.

Everything is working really smoothly. Recently I've been working on allowing my foot to open up fully, to roll up and make the smooth arcing move that actually lifts most of the foot off the floor simply, as a result of a release that moves through the linkages from head to toe. I'm probably the only person on the planet who gets excited by this incredible feat of bio-engineering. This action is an essential preparation for the moment of change of support, when my foot leaves the floor. When the right preparation is allowed to happen, change of support becomes no more than a tweak that deftly lifts the heel toward the rump. This also forms the essential preparation for a free controlled falling movement out of the opposite ankle . It will also allow the body to ease forward in a way that ensures that the knee drops freely out of the hip and back. The knees and feet stay resilient, soft and springy, prepared to absorb and cushion at the moment of foot fall. This head-to -toe integrity opens up the support structure such that it can adapt swiftly to unexpected contingencies. Shoes protect the foot from such unexpected scuffs and slippages. Without shoes I must maintain a continuous relaxed alert vigilance to minimise the possibility of damage. “Mindfulness is bodyfulness”. It's all about leaving yourself alone so that the Thinking Cap can engage fully and create an animal like grace in movement.

I'm going with the Going and I'm going well. It could be a good title for a song!

It's steep but not rocky. About 200m before Ore Gap where a cairn mark the ridge above Angle Tarn there is low cloud. Visibility is down to 2 or 3 metres. As I hit the ridge I begin the wonder whether attempting the summit in these conditions is really such a great idea. I've no back- up support team, no shoes, and no mobile phone signal. The GPS system is lying in bits back in the camper van, the batteries having corroded so badly that the apparatus is kaput. After all, this run has not been set up with sponsorship for charity – no trumpets have been blown. So why not move along the ridge in the mist to the point where tracks cross and then drop south into the Esk Valley. This would make a delightful round. It’s a lovely autumn day bathed in warm sunshine down in the valley. The decision is made. I am abandoning the summit attempt. I pick my way along the ridge and when I meet the criss crossing of paths I make my descent back down into the Esk Valley. I keep glancing up to the blanket of cloud when the Scafell summit lies wrapped in grey tissue paper cloud. It's so beautiful, like the Garden of Eden in the Esk Valley and so unbelievably still having just experienced the gale force fog on the ridge 1000feet above me.

I go slower and slower and eventually I stop. I seem to be hoping that he cloud might suddenly lift in the rapid way that weather conditions change on mountains. I lay on my back. Listen to the stream. Watch the sky. Merge into the stillness and the solitariness. I look again at where the summit should be.

It's a sign for sure.

The cloud lifts and there's the summit in all its glory, beckoning and taunting me by degrees in the same way that it has been doing for years when I look out of my study window. It seemed to me like a birthday gift freshly unwrapped from the grey tissue paper wrapping of the cloud.

It's a sign for sure.

It has been decided. …

… I'm already up and off picking my way up the tributary of the Esk that will lead me back up to the ridge. The unwrapping of the gift was only temporary but I am back-on and focussed. Certain of mind, certain of step and the Going is good. Aside for a bit of a rocky scrabble by a waterfall the Going is soft.

There's no track as such along the ridge upto the summit but the sharp stones are scuffed and polished from thousands of boots. There are cairns at regular intervals. The low visibility is no big issue. Its a bit like stream hopping leaping form rock to rock. You get into the way of it. Occasionally the mist evaporates revealing the way ahead. The closer to the summit the stronger the magnetic pull

I meet a young couple who are intrigued to find someone in bare feet materialising out of the mist before them. We have a friendly interchange.

“It's my birthday treat” I explain.

They think: ”Couldn't you just have a party”.

Again the mist parts momentarily revealing the very steep rocky ascent to the summit. The curtain of mist drops again.

At the top I don't feel in the least like yelling “Yes!” and punching the air. There's maybe a half dozen people clustered around the round rocky shelter at the summit. Wrapped in the mist, wrapped in their own preoccupations, no one seems interested or even particularly notices the bare feet. I guess I'd hoped for a friendly interchange, may be a photo opportunity. No worries. I make sure I get to the very topmost point and then I head on down leaving the slightly desultory atmosphere at the top.

The summit pulls you up magnetically and I have done it- really done it. It is only a little after midday. If anything doing down on this terrain is trickier than going up. I've been completely focussed on getting to the top. Now I have to get down safely. 200 meters from the summit I stop to brush a sharp stone from my foot. I've lost any vestige of celebration. I set off again. The mist clears momentarily. I can't believe my eyes. I am heading back toward the summit 180 degrees in the opposite direction to the one I thought I was heading in.

The mist envelopes me again. It in fact is only a moment of temporary disorientation. Between the onset of a kind of sea-sick feeling and the voice that called out to me from the mist was no more than a handful of seconds. However in those few moments something seismic seemed to shift inside me. The centre of gravity in me somehow shifts and tilts the balance away from solitariness and toward interdependence- a need for company. I am experiencing a raw terror. In a flash I've dropped from being “certain of mind, certain of step” into a gripping vulnerability, a terrifying fear of falling. The solitariness, the aloneness has turned into a desperate loneliness. I am orphaned in a universe where the ground and the sky, north, south, east and west have become a grey formless mass. All sense of ambition and achievement has gone along with anything that seemed to give ground to existence. Perhaps this is how it is as you leave the womb and enter the field of gravity for the first time . There is one key difference however: I am still the fleet of foot, focussed individual, confident and confident in my physical prowess, still the individual who has lived the dream, achieved a peak experience. Of course I have a map and compass. I can position to within 200meter. Also the gale force fog has blown consistently from the south-west all morning. I'm not even physically exhausted. A little later I will realise that I am experiencing something of the terrifying existential hell that my mother has descended into.

I'm so afraid of falling I can't move.

Mountains can do this to you: Flip you in a moment from feeling indomitably large to being implacably small. My head is hung low, my crooked right index finger touching my upper lip. This is the exact posture my long dead father would adopt when he was anxious or lost in thought. For a long time I’ve been holding it all together, trying to tie together the frayed and broken of the thread for Mum. Now I seem to have become an integral part of that suffering, vulnerability and tumultuous doubt. The dying that is such an integral part of living seems a very real possibility. It is not so much that my thread has broken as it has for Mum, it is more that momentarily is has ceased to spin...

… a voice comes strong and clear from out of the mist:

“Are you alright?”.

As these words echo out of the mist it is as if for all the world the ground slides back under my feet. The sky slots back into place. The disembodied voice from the mist has fixed my position on the inner existential landscape. As I find my bearings I feel like an infant who has lost his parents and just found them again.

“Are you alright?”.

In fact Joe's actor trained, well projected voice was not directing his question to me at all but to his companion, Eric, who is getting over a recent knee problem. Together they are picking their way down and like me they’ve lost the cairned track on the ridge.

“Yes, Oh yes. I'm fine really”. I say initially to the mist and then to the emerging figure of Joe, Eric is a few paces back, map and compass in hand.

I must have cut an odd figure in this posture of despair, my barefeet on the rocks in the swirling mist. In a few moments Joe will mention this posture saying he wished that he’d photographed it. But for now his actors sensibilities are engaged, trying to read the character.

Joe and Eric are among the special and rare breed of individuals who see my barefoot exploits as someone following their bliss and Boy!... are they welcome to me right now! Far better than a magnum of champagne being cracked open on Scafell, they give me such a boost, a real tonic. Joe is so enthusiastic about the barefoot explorations and so congratulatory about my summit achievement.

We are a bit lost, both a bit off track. But we are lost and off-track together. Joe and Eric are wanting to travel south west to Wasdale where they are staying and I want to go south-east to Cockley back. But what the hell we can be lost together and we split the difference between south west and south east and, head roughly south together enjoying our new found companionship.

As we pick a way down it isn’t long before the earlier terrifying spectre of Death has turned into a light hearted banter between us.; What if we were irrevocably lost on the mountain.

What if we had to eat each other?

Who would we eat first?

Well you can’t eat me ‘cos it’s my birthday!

Joe and Eric are not so convinced about this suggesting that it’d be quite rounded, Yeah perfect in fact- to sacrifice yourself on the same date that you were born. Eric was thought to be a bit grisley…..And so on and on as we made our way down, levity growing out of gravity, the magic of the laughter of friends.

At one point Joe will turn to me and say intently:

“It’s been a big day for you , John hasn’t it – a big squeeze”. Something significant has indeed shifted, easing me toward the interconnected of all human life . I am more open to seek help as the threads fray.

Dropping out of the low cloud is like descending into heaven. Our companionable southerly direction has dropped us down into the Esk Valley. A section of the Esk was my version of Paradise in my youth. We amble along a perilous goat track high above what I call the Fourteen Pools plunge, a series of idyllic waterfalls and clear pools.

By now Joe and Eric are miles from Wasdale but for the gift of their good company I will gladly take them in the van to Wasdale. It’s a hairy journey over the Hardknott pass… what the hell.

Life has become a great adventure again.