On the mountaintop, everyone is insisting the weather is fine. It’s at least fabulously clear up here, as it has been all morning on 11 November 2021. At dawn, I had wiped the frost from the inside of my windscreen to see Windermere silvered with a filigree of mist. Around the valleys a few lights were on, and not just farmhouses. No doubt hardy souls were pulling on their walking boots, stuffing a bag with a flask and packs of nuts, readying themselves for the pilgrimage.
It’s a 45-minute drive from where I’m staying in Troutbeck to the graphite mine at Honister Pass – which holds the UK record for the greatest amount of rainfall in 24 hours . It’s then a steep climb to Great Gable, roughly two and a half hours of well-kept steps, then sheep paths, then rivers of rocks. Along the way is a view from Honister Crag to Buttermere and Crummock Water, twinkling side by side in a valley of rusty bracken and green slopes.
