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Then, of course, a man must be trained to the task—that is, if he is to do it with the greatest possible ease. Few of the men who have done these enormous walks could be termed ‘trained,’ by any stretch of the imagination. This form of athleticism is different from any other popular sport, and the training requisite is therefore of a different kind. The man must not be too finely drawn, as a good deal of ‘substance’ is required. A fell walker is constantly jolting himself as he copes with the ground, leaping here, balancing himself on a rock pinnacle there, and unless there was a considerable reserve force no man would be equal to the task.

All the fell-walking records have been made over three great mountain groups: Skiddaw, lying to the north of the Greta, including the peaks of Skiddaw (3,054 feet) and Saddleback or Blencathra (2,847 feet). About twelve miles south of this is the Scawfell range, the backbone of the Lake District, lying at the heads of Borrowdale, Langdale, Wastdale, and Eskdale, and comprising three main peaks—Scawfell (3,163 feet), Scawfell Pike (3,208 feet), and Great End (2,984 feet). These are divided by Eskhause from the Bowfell Chain (2,960 feet), and by the Styehead Pass from Great Gable (2,949 feet) and its kindred giants. This district contains the roughest and highest ground in England; in fact, its rocky slopes afford the crag-climbing which has given the Lake District a name for such work. Helvellyn is the remaining mountain mass, divided from the Scawfell group by a long moor, some 1,800 feet in average altitude, and nine miles in breadth, and from the Skiddaw group by the vale of the Glenderamakin. It divides the Thirlmere and Legburthwaite valleys from Patterdale and Grasmere, its chief peaks being Helvellyn (3,118 feet), and Fairfield (2,863 feet) across the Grisedale Tarn depression. The rest of the country is furrowed into deep, narrow valleys.