MOUNTAINS OF FLAVOUR

HARRISON WARD’S backpack is not what you might call ‘lightweight’. On a balmy, breezeless spring afternoon I meet Harrison and photographer Dan Toal in Glenridding; and that bulging, slightly intimidating pack is propped up next to a wall. Harrison is about to lug this cargo several hundred metres up a Lakeland mountain at my request, so just to see what I’ve got the man into I give the pack a tentative heave on its handle.

“Jesus. Shall we go to the pub instead?” I suggest, feeling a slight twinge of guilt as my arm howls in protest.

“I don’t mind the weight. It’s all part of being a Sherpa,” Harrison says with a wink.

Within that humble hillwalking rucksack Harrison has managed to fit the following: all the necessary clothing and equipment for a wild camp in the Lakeland fells; all the fresh ingredients for Neuchâteloise fondue, Hungarian goulash and Tirolean gröstl, in quantities sufficient for three grown men; and all the necessary cooking equipment, crockery and cutlery to cook and eat the aforementioned. The more I think about it, the more amazed I am that it all fits into a single 60 litre Berghaus rucksack. “I’ve cooked for 30 people on the side of a hill before, all from the contents of one backpack,” he says. “That was a heavy one.”