Permanent Tourist

The personal website of Mark Howells-Mead

Posts about cumbria

  • An autumn ramble from our holiday rental to the top of the nearby Wainwright Fell above Keswick.

  • Warnscale Bothy

    Of all the walks Jo and I have undertaken, the path to Haystacks in the English Lake District seems to be the most prone to failure. The attempt we made in 2020 was no exception, although a sudden change in the weather led us to an alternative success.

  • Oh, did I forget to mention? Jo and I walked up the biggest mountain in England in 2017.

  • We spent the Christmas and New Year period travelling to Scotland and back by road again.

  • Ullswater, Cumbria

    Ullswater, at last

    Perfect photographic conditions on the shores of Ullswater in the Cumbrian Lake District last week.

  • “Life of a Mountain: Blencathra” trailer

    I enjoyed Terry Abraham’s earlier film “Life of a Mountain: Scafell Pike” a great deal, so when I saw that Terry was making a new film featuring Blencathra, I jumped at the chance to contribute through a Kickstarter campaign. I can’t wait to get my copy of the film later this year and this trailer, recently completed, shows why.

  • Terry Abraham’s wonderful outdoor films

    Terry’s videos make me want to turn off my computer and head for the British hills immediately: whether to a well-known place like the Lake District or to places which will be new to me.

  • Helvellyn with Mark Richards

    Helvellyn – the third highest peak in the English Lake District and therefore the third highest in England – has long been a goal of mine. The peak draws me much more than the higher Scafells, with a famous ascent via the rocky and precipitous Striding Edge and what must be a breath-taking view from the…

  • A terrific hike and a personal achievement in the central-western Lake District on our anniversary.

  • Todd Crag

    A shorter hike up one of the Lakeland fells, at Ambleside.

  • An old haunt, which I first visited in very similar conditions in the mid 1990s. This weather and this landscape were where I first began trying to take “proper” landscape photos using a Mamiya C330 on loan from a friend and mentor. I used to drive around the English Lake District fairly aimlessly, looking for…

  • A photograph of one of the most photographed trees in the English Lake District in the truly appalling conditions I encountered this January.

  • I don’t usually bother celebrating my birthday in any great fashion, but as I turned forty this year, I decided to make an exception and plan a short break away with Jo, so that I could look back on the arrival of mid-life with some fondness. After some to-ing and fro-ing on a destination, I…

  • Coniston Water

    In all the times I’ve visited the Cumbrian Lake District in the north of England, I’d only ever been to Coniston Water once before. After all of the dramatic, deep lakes lined with craggy fells and forests, the long, flat, placid body of water didn’t inspire me photographically and so I quickly passed on. However,…

  • It had long been a goal of Jo’s and mine to extend our walking and “bag” one of the Lakeland fells. However, we hadn’t anticipated doing so in quite such a challenging way.

  • One of the many hundreds of gems which lie in folders in my cupboard; one of the thousands of frames taken over the years with traditional film cameras.