Angle Tarn - Wild Camp

Terra Nova Voyager

The Lake District

Cumbria

England

 

Angle Tarn is a lake in Cumbria, England, about a mile north-east of Hartsop. Located at an altitude of 479 m, with a maximum depth of 9 m. The lake is very distinctive in that it resembles a fish hook in shape.

 

It was forecast to thunder storm in the night. A severe weather warning had been issued. I decided to brave the elements and camp out anyway, I was after all a man of danger, right?

 

Only my second wild camp I had pushed myself and chosen an ambitious location. A friend had joined me late on and set up her tent just over the nearest hillock. We had said our good nights and bedded down for an early night after the arduous trek with the heavy bag. Tiredness shrouded my memory of the storm forecast and I ambled along into a dreamless slumber.

 

I woke suddenly, very late, in the inky dark facing my tent doorway which I had left open facing the tarn.

 

Flashes of an electrical storm sizzled all around and to my eyes widening shock lit up a tall shadowy figure seemingly stood right outside the fucking tent!

 

Wearing a wide brim hat and bandaleroes, he was stick thin and cut an intimidating figure.

 

I hesitatingly questioned..

 

"hello..? "

 

Discombobulated from waking into the storm.. A definite tremble in my voice accenuating my spike of fear..

 

"Hello?!"

 

I shouted this time. An escalating spiral of terror and unproportionaly intense desperation spuring my overly confident ejaculation..

 

He turned, way too slowly, almost creakingly, like a Sinbad skeleton, to look at me..

 

I woke with a start. Just before those eyes found mine.

I was facing the other way, in my vulnerable sheath of a tent.

There was no storm.

There was no ancient scarecrow.

 

The eerieness of the dream figure and isolated setting combined to deeply unsettle my soul. A sigh of relief involuntarily escaped my frozen lungs.

 

Far away the single crack of thunder left me with the hair on my arms fiizzling.

 

That was intense.

 

I worried, had I shouted out in my sleep. Had my nearby compatriot heard my dream cries?

 

Too vivid to be a regular dream, what had the spirit wanted to communicate?

 

Humbled by a real man of danger. These hills hold such secrets.