Tarnbagging in the Lake District

In the 1950s, Colin Dodgson and Timothy Tyson swam in every tarn (463 according to them) in the Lake District. I tell their story in the April edition of Outdoor Swimmer. Apart from a couple of news reports in 1959, little has been written about these two outdoor swimming pioneers so it was good to bring their amazing feat to a wider audience.

However, 'collecting the tarns' came after many years of bagging mountains. By 1951 they had climbed all the Munros (Scottish mountains over 3,000 feat), plus most of the English, Welsh and Irish peaks. Real outdoor heroes.

Outdoor Swimmer, April 2018.

Read more in Outdoor Swimmer, Issue 13, April 2018.

Breca Buttermere swimrun

At the beginning of July, along with teammate Calum Hudson, I took part in Breca Buttermere, one of the most gruelling swimruns in the calendar. It comprises of around 40km of fell running and 6km of swimming across the western fells and lakes of the English Lake District. It was a long, but brilliant, day and a report can be read on the Guardian running blog.

Despite everyone telling me to travel as lightly as possible, I carried a camera round the course - if only to capture the bizarre sight of people running across mountains wearing only a wetsuit and swimming hat. 

Climbing Low Bank after swimming across Crummock Water. Picture: Richard Nelsson

Calum Hudson. Picture: Richard Nelsson

Climbing Low Bank. Picture: Richard Nelsson

Tarnbagging in the Lake District

Tarnbagging is the sport of visiting as many English Lakeland tarns as possible. There are over 300 of them so adventurous walkers have the perfect excuse to visit remote parts of the national park. However, as I point out in a Guardian travel piece, this is hardly a new trend. In November 1959, Harry Griffin, the Guardian's legendary Lakeland Country diarist, reported in the paper that two Grasmere men, Colin Dodgson and Timothy Tyson, had bathed in approximately 463 tarns. Tyson was aged 75 when he finished the challenge.

Millican Dalton

Harry Griffin, the journalist and climber who died in 2004 is usually remembered for his Lakeland Country Diary columns that appeared in the Guardian for over fifty years. However, he was also part of a small band of 1930s rock-climbers who helped revive the sport after the First World War. This week's Footless Crow republishes a 1975 piece by the man himself in which he recalls half a century of climbing in the English Lake District.

It's a fascinating read but what caught my eye was a sentence about Millican Dalton, the self-styled Professor of Adventure. Griffin writes: "There were no professional guides in the Lake District 50 years ago, apart from kindly old Millican Dalton, the Borrowdale hermit, who would take you up the Needle, make you a tent or rucksack, or cook you a meal in his cave." The man also featured in a Country Diary from September 14 1984:

Another description of the famous cave dweller can be found in the 1992 obituary of climber Paul Orkney-Work, in which he is quoted as saying, "(Dalton) made his own clothes and equipment and never washed. My mother broke off the engagement eventually. She said that he had a rather strong goaty aroma. But he took no offence and when she married my father he made them a tent for their honeymoon, in the gipsy style, with hoops rather than poles"

Read more about this amazing character in Millican Dalton: A search for Romance & Freedom.

There are a number of Griffin articles in the Guardian Book of Mountains, but his work also appears inDouble Measures. Here he writes about Lanty Slee, a notorius bootlegger and yet another cave dweller. Hidden underground in a quarry area near the Langdale valley the sometime farmer produced illicit whisky that was said to be the best for miles around.

Mountain rescue on Great End

While walking in the Lake District on Sunday I came across a serious accident on Great End. Basic details can be read here. It was hard to get phone reception but a number of people eventually managed to contact the emergency services. Within an hour (and probably less), the first members of the Keswick Mountain Rescue team were on their way and soon a steady stream of rescuers carrying equipment and stretchers were powering up the hill.

This is an amazing service, all the more so as the Lake District Mountain Rescue Association is a charity almost totally funded by voluntary contributions. The unpaid volunteers are available at all times of the day and night, 365 days per year.