Fear and Trauma Climbing Fairfield Fell. ***
Growing up barely ten miles from the mountainous and much beloved English Lake District National Park, I did a lot of hiking and scrambling (climbing involving also the use of one’s hands) year-round most often with a group of like minded thirteen to sixteen year old friends. One popular if steep and lengthy hike took us to the 873 metre summit of Fairfield which is categorized as a fell (from old Norse – see footnote) fells being one notch down so to speak, from mountains. Stormy winter weather was approaching however little did we know that almost immediately on reaching the – guaranteed to be very windy summit, we would all be scared half to death, on our knees and considering pleading for salvation, redemption and anything else that came to our overactive and imaginative youthful minds.
On summiting amid noisy blustering winds and looking up in awe at the scudding, swirling storm clouds which were barely above us we saw a vision, yes a vision we all immediately agreed, of a massive supernatural and animated human-like figure clearly outlined against the background of the menacing clouds. I see it still in my mind’s eye.
With our pulses and fears quickening by the second and with the by then howling, screeching most likely Beaufort force seven or eight gale making conversation difficult if not impossible, remaining on the summit quickly became dangerous to the point of life threatening. Unnerved and our youthful imaginations working overtime we convinced each other that the figure must be some sort of religious sign to us! Perhaps we postulated, yes we really did in our innocence of youth, that we might be in that moment doomed if not also for good measure damned since none of us had an ounce of religion in us.
Fortunately someone soon realised that we were looking at the shadow of one of our own, of our coterie, we ‘band of brothers’. Greatly enlarged, the lone figure was distorted some and was being projected onto the flying clouds by the low winter sun at our backs which was momentarily peeking out from behind a cloud. I have never since encountered such a chance, highly visible natural phenomenon. Oh for the joys of that long ago innocence of youth in the current and tragic Covid 19 pandemic-centric times. Oh for a mountain peak or indeed that of a fell.
*** FOOTNOTE.
A fell (from old Norse fell, fiall.) is a high and barren landscape feature, or a moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Scandinavia, the Isle of Man, parts of Northern England and Scotland.
(Credit: Wikipedia)