Not quite the peak of perfection
Dougal Paver explains why discretion was the better part of valour at the company's mammoth hike this weekend.
Well, we did it. Or rather, I did sixty per cent of it then decided the drugs weren't working and came back down. Good call, if the tales at the bar were anything to go by.
It, of course, was our planned double-header of Scafell Pike - England's highest peak - and Great Gable, the centre point of Britain's favourite view.
All told, around 10,000 feet of ascent and descent and therefore the perfect training hike for our Pyrennean trek this summer for Claire House Children's Hospice.
Our Trek Guide, the supremely sensible Lee Gilmore of HSBC, managed to find us a route up Scafell Pike that combined relative ease with stonking views of the great cliffs and rock walls that frame this most under-rated of mountains.
Deep, soft snow towards the summit added a sense of adventure to proceedings and the occasional scramble gave those with a hint of vertigo a few gentle colly-wobbles to help secure the trip in the memory.
Enough was enough when, as the cloud shrouded Great Gable, ten of our number said they were up for scrambling to its imposing peak.
Going up would be fine, but coming down 2,700 feet of scree wasn't my cup of tea now that my dicky knee was starting to hint its displeasure at proceedings. Those drugs only go so far, you know.
Sure enough, in the bar of the incomparable Wasdale Head Inn later that evening, there were more than enough admissions that it might not have been the most enjoyable of descents to salve my bruised ego.
The only physical damage befell one of my team who headed down the flank of Great Gable with me. A slip and a slide later and Norm had an elbow like a tennis ball.
Game, set and match for those with a yen for adventure, I'd say.
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