Built from rough-cut, closely packed igneus rock, the disintegrating dry stone wall looks like a pile of crude cannonballs glistening darkly in the rain. It has lost a lot of height, but its half-life is long; perhaps a hundred years old or more, it still looks robust enough to outlive me.
For an area of about 10 square miles in the heart of the Lake District, these unattended, mostly abandoned walls are virtually the only human structures. We opt to camp on a snug bank between one of these and the river Esk, stern solidity on one side and the boundless energy of a wild river on the other. Usually I fall asleep to the susurration of traffic beyond the window; this time it is the symphonic, hypnotic sound of cold water cascading over rocks. Strange how we have reframed simple things as rare luxuries.
Upper Eskdale is England’s answer to a Himalayan sanctuary, a stark citadel of rock and earth that collects the holy waters of the Scafells, Esk Pike, Bowfell and Crinkle Crags. Yet by some wonderful sleight of hand, it remains a remote redoubt, hidden in plain sight, the antithesis of the chocolate-box bustle between Bowness and Grasmere.
As this is the Lake District, the absence of humanity is not exchanged for an abundance of vegetation and wildlife – the sheep see to that. There are pipits and ravens, tiny glimmers of tormentil, dwarf juniper clinging to the crags, but in part thanks to the arguments of rewilders I have become increasingly conscious of the potential for more.
Even so, spending time in these hills is rarely less than revelatory. I wake to the sound of a tent spasming in a fit of rain-lashed wind. Unzipping the door reveals a low ceiling of incontinent cloud, and I feel briefly indignant at the absence of summer.
As if in reply, a pulse of sun breaks through from somewhere and begins travelling over the valley, a light-creature rippling over the screes and moraine, lighting up the vast face of Esk Buttress, before retreating to somewhere out of reach. My friend and I are the only human witnesses.
