Everyone should have a favourite hill

The first time I climbed my favourite hill I was ten years old. My best friend and I had decided we wanted to do more off road cycling than our town had to offer and, without telling our parents, pedaled our way to the foot of the climb one sunny summer afternoon.

By the time we reached the top and did a bit of exploring in the woodlands there the light was beginning to fade. Neither of us had lights, and we’d both lost our grasp on what direction we needed to head to get home. Instead of doing the sensible thing and sticking together, we had a massive argument and went in opposite directions. My parents eventually picked me up from a stranger’s static caravan, whose door I’d knocked on to ask if I could use their phone, having just staged a dramatic entrance by sliding down a steep grass slope completely out of control. My friend made it home without requiring a physical rescue, but not without falling off his bike and breaking his arm in the process. Oops.

A few years later, and arguably a little more aware of our abilities and limitations, the same hill became a weekly destination on post-school bike rides. This was during the mountain bike boom of the mid-nineties, when all anyone seemed to do all summer was ride their bikes. We swarmed up and down the hill trying to prove that we were fitter, faster, more skilful than our peers.

The view from the top of the hill, looking toward its neighbouring (and more impressive) siblings, the Mendips

Since then, I’ve watched a near-full solar eclipse from within the earth ramparts of the iron-age hill fort at the hill’s summit, camped out under the stars with nothing but a sleeping bag separating me from the earth, watched the only glowworms I’ve ever seen floating serenely among dense undergrowth. As I’m typing this, the hill is just over my right shoulder, watching over our town just as it has for millennia. It’s my constant reminder that the outdoors, and nature are easily within my reach. Perhaps more importantly than anything, it was the hill which made me want to climb more hills, to look further afield and experience more of the outdoors, something which my parents were not particularly proactive in encouraging since it was not something they did themselves.

People who develop a connection to nature are more likely to want to protect it, less likely to take part in the sort of activities which actively harm it. This feels important on a global scale, with species of animals and plants at risk of destruction and extinction, but also from a local perspective; the last time I walked to the hill I was struck by just how much litter was in the hedgerows which line the road, presumably jettisoned from moving cars by people who don’t share the nature connection which would always prevent me from adorning the countryside with the single-use plastic detritus of fast food drive-throughs and multinational corporations.

In the week that a panel of experts have released a report condemning the lack of available options for young people in England to escape from the sedentary trappings of modern life, I want to encourage anyone who happens to read this to befriend a hill, if you have not already done so. Like all good relationships, it may require work; the hill may not feel friendly when your muscles are aching as you make your way to the top, the wind may bully you when you are at your most exposed, but you will not regret it.

Whether it’s a local one or further afield, everyone should have a favourite hill, find yours soon.