LAKE DISTRICT
GLARAMARA is one of those mountains most climb around rather than on. It’s a peak most of us have heard of, but how many could say they really know this rugged jumble of rock with the charismatic Norse name? We decide to give it some long overdue love.
Glaramara isn’t a hill of high profile. Its long, prone spine lies supine among the giants of the central Lakes. Where other mountains rear their heads, Glaramara remains sunken and indistinct, a creature of camouflage and self-effacement. Now that I’ve landed on its gristly back, I’m grateful for its strange humility – because it’s drawn me, an unwitting stomper, into a secret.
I had thought to use Glaramara as a platform from which to better eye the towering characters of the Lake District’s legendary mountainscape – Great Gable, Scafell Pike, Great End, Bow Fell. To trample over it, in other words, like a tourist after the money shot. But having reached its lower flanks, I’m surprised to find myself looking into a valley, The Combe.
The atmosphere here couldn’t be more different from the valley I’ve just climbed out of: Borrowdale, the secluded wooded cleft that cradles the body of Derwent Water. The Combe is suspended above Rosthwaite’s white-washed cottages like a mezzanine, where the air is more rarefied. The treeline has long since passed, and the dew green grass is veined with rivulets running from Combe Head and Raven Crag.
Most eye-catching are the bumps that bubble up under the skin of the valley floor. Fairies were born here, surely, in the vibrancy of an imagination that existed before science got hold of it. Even in geological parlance, they bear a name that carries a whiff of magic: drumlins. Formed from glacial deposits that assembled themselves into the shapes of half-buried eggs, they exude a homely sense of comfort and safety. If I had a tent with me, I’d pitch up in the ground between their curving edges.
Perhaps luckily, there’s no time for idling today. Glaramara, despite its humble demeanour, forms one of the longest ridges in the Lake District. Over 5km (3.75 miles), it will carry me south towards Great End, where I’ll edge along the base of its fearsome north face towa
