I ain't afraid of no ghosts, or hunting for brocken spectres

 

In a break from #StileCup duties I went out for a blast of fresh air, and with lockdown measures still in place, inevitably it was to Benson Knott. Cold and damp out, with none of the magic of the snow there had been earlier, I resigned myself to a retrospective enjoyment type outing. I joked with a couple descending from the top about being able to see Snowdonia (you can when the conditions are just so) and plodded on through the reeds and bogs to the steepening that marks the final ascent to the twin summits of the hill.

As I got there, the clag yellowed, the sun making a bid to appear. Once I’d puffed up to the top, it was obvious the sun was nearly breaking through. On the north east side, there was still dense clag, but the cloud was clearing to the south and west. Seeing the sun, I realised it might be possible that a brocken spectre of my shadow would be projected onto the murk above Docker Garth wood. Up above the cloud, it was wonderfully warm, even spring like, as the temperature was inverted. I waited, I waved, I ran about, I cursed the sun heating the southern cloud, and making it bubble up rather than dissipate, whilst always teasing that it might do so. Oh so fleetingly, I caught giant shadow arms waving back at me on the mist below, a merest hint of a rainbow glory, but nothing as spectacular as in the mountains proper.

Maybe the conditions were not quite right, the angle of the sun too steep. Heading back down into the murk, there was an instant damp chill, that really made me shudder: not a ghost, but the cold clammy feel of near freezing cloud as you drop off a clear hill top in winter and back into the gloom.  The feeling was instantly recognisable, transporting me back to other mountain days. Cheerfully, I ran home to feeling I’d stolen something magical from Kendal’s murky Saturday.