One of the minor hassles of walking the Wainwrights is that there are times when I'm up on the fells and I get to thinking "I'm happy, I've done enough, I don't really fancy going up that next bit just for the sake of another tick on a list". At the time it seems the right thing to do, there's no point in over-stretching, it takes the fun out of it. After all, we've probably all heard, and possibly even used, phrases like "the hills will still be there tomorrow". Fell-walking is supposed to be about pleasure, not pressure.
Trouble is, it plays with my mind, especially straight after the choice becomes irrevocable, usually on the walk-out. Those nagging thoughts that it would have been easy, that I've let myself down, that I'll have to walk large bits again for less gain. It needles me, it makes me regretful, and eventually it starts to rob me of the pleasure that I thought I'd had.
The problems become even more apparent later when an OCD list-ticker such as myself, 200 miles away from the fells, looks at the map and at the "to do" list and thinks...
- twice I've been up Skiddaw and twice I've not continued northwards that extra mile to visit Bakestall...
- if I'd detoured the extra mile to Lonscale Fell the first time I went up Skiddaw, I wouldn't have had to go up there again last week...
- if I'd just walked that extra mile further during the 2008 wildcamp with Chris, I would have got to Shipman Knotts...
- if my mind hadn't been preoccupied with other things, I wouldn't have turned back half a mile short of Green Crag way back in 2006...
- if I'd been a bit more strict with myself, I wouldn't have declined the half-mile detour to Rest Dodd during the 2007 wildcamp with Chris...
- the further mile or so from there to The Nab would have been doable too...
- and as for the first two circuits of Seat Sandal, before the third attempt when I actually did reach the top, the less said, the better.
So now, apart from a couple of decent-length walks during each of which I can pull in a handful of currently-unascended tops, I'm left with several singletons or pairs of unvisited short-walk fells, linked only to places that I've trodden before. "Fragmented" is the word that springs to mind.
I suppose that a weekend dedicated solely to nabbing these scattered things would be effective, but there'd be as much time spent driving as would be spent walking - where's the fun in that?
Rest Dodd
Maybe I should simply chill out, bin the list and just walk for the hell of it.
Mind you, I'm only 20 shy of the finish - that's the stats-equivalent of the last mile...
Maybe a beer would help?
