Storm Isha pounded the Lake District but couldn’t defeat its beauty

It was a stormy Sunday evening as I sat alone in a tiny, isolated farmhouse in the Lake District, the stunning swathe of Cumbrian countryside that is a jewel in England’s crown. Outside, Isha lashed the land with wind and rain as I tried to work.

Suddenly the house plunged into darkness – a power cut. I’d had no mobile signal since I’d arrived at the farmhouse, up a bockety lane near Lake Coniston. Now, I had no internet, no laptop power, candles or torch, and no idea what to do next.

Thankfully, I had a little power left on my mobile phone, which could function as a light for a few minutes. I also had half a bottle of Beaujolais and seven sticks left for the dwindling fire. Isha mocked me from the skies, howling down the chimney.

William Wordsworth, the English Romantic poet who was Cumbria’s most famous son, was impassioned by nature and, especially, the Lake District. He was inspired during walks on its fells (hills) and dales (valleys).

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“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her,” he once wrote. As nature tried to tear off my roof, I struggled to agree with the English bard. Then I watched, forlorn, as the remaining power drained from my phone.

Earlier, as Isha bore down, I had driven back to the farmhouse on roads that ran like rivers. I had been to a hotel on the shores of Lake Windermere, near the pretty town of Ambleside, to meet Jon Bennett, whose heart truly loves nature.

Bennett recently completed a remarkable feat: his 750th ascent of Helvellyn, England’s third-highest mountain. It stands tall near the village of Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived in Dove Cottage. The poet wrote reverentially of the views from Helvellyn.

Bennett is one of the Lake District National Park’s three fell top assessors, who are employed to climb its mountains throughout winter to report the conditions to other walkers on the lakedistrictweatherline.co.uk website.

Each morning from the beginning of December until Easter Monday, one of them hits the hills. Bennett is in the middle of his 16th and final season as a fell top assessor.

“I am aged 61. It is time to let someone else do it now,” he said. I replied that he looked fit enough to do it for another 20 years. He smiled modestly, but I sensed he agreed.

“I won’t be stopping going up the hills. No, no. I’ll do it for pleasure.”

Bennett is originally from down south, in Buckinghamshire, 30 miles outside London. There are few big hills down there. A former hotel manager, he moved to the Lake District 30 years ago, drawn, as many before him, by its natural splendour. He also gives boat tours of the lakes.

“The quantity of life is down south – the most shops, theatres etc. But the quality of life is up north,” he said, as we sipped coffee and watched Isha begin to whip the lake.

Helvellyn is not the only mountain Bennett regularly climbs as an assessor; he has been up Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain, “50 or 60 times”. He has also done all 214 of the “Wainwrights” – the fells described by Alfred Wainwright in his famous guidebook.

But Helvellyn has a huge easterly face, so it holds snow and ice for longer than Scafell Pike and is therefore more unpredictable. It is also more popular, due to its enthralling ridge routes such as the famous Striding Edge.

Helvellyn’s summit is 950 metres, which is higher than Wicklow’s Lugnaquilla. Bennett’s 750 ascents total the same height as more than 80 trips up Mount Everest.

He usually begins his climb at about 10am. He reports the conditions underfoot on the way, and the weather, windchill and wind speed up top. Between the three assessors, two of them do five days each fortnight and the other does four.

Bennett is proud of the service they provide to walkers, helping to keep them safe.

“A key piece of advice is to know when to turn around. The mountain will always be there another day. I’ve had 750 successful ascents of Helvellyn. I’ve also turned back many times.”

The previous, stormless day, I had been to Grasmere, where Wordsworth is buried with his wife in the shade of a yew tree on the grounds of St Oswald’s church. The town teemed with walkers returning from the hills, some of whom may have consulted one of Bennett’s reports before setting out. Even if nature betrayed them, the fell top assessors would not.

Now, on Sunday evening, I wondered what it would be like on the top of Helvellyn as the winds raged. I watched the light of the fading fire flicker and dance on the ceiling. There was nothing else to do but watch. Isha made sure of that.