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Why the Fells Get Wet Faster Than You Think

Anyone who walks regularly in the Lakes, the Pennines, Snowdonia or the Scottish hills knows the pattern. A bright start, cloud building to the west, and then a grey curtain sweeping along the ridge at the speed of a train. On open fell at 600 metres, a shower that would be a mild nuisance in the valley arrives with wind behind it, and the wind chill on a wet ridge can feel twenty degrees colder than the car park you left an hour ago.

The answer isn't owning better kit than everyone else. It's carrying a few key pieces where you can reach them, and having the habit of stopping early to put them on rather than waiting until you're already soaked and shivering. Once your hands are cold and clumsy, everything takes three times as long.

The Shell That Earns Its Space

A waterproof jacket for British hills needs three things above all: taped seams, a hood that adjusts properly at the sides and back with a wired peak, and pit zips or some other way of dumping heat when you're climbing. A jacket that makes you sweat is a jacket that soaks you from the inside. Pit zips are worth more than any technical fabric claim on the label.

Lightweight two-and-a-half-layer shells pack down small and are fine for summer showers, but for three-season fell walking a proper three-layer shell with a decent beavertail hem is the better investment. Waterproof trousers should have full-length side zips so you can pull them on over boots without sitting down in the bog. Cheap over-trousers that need to be wrestled on are the ones left at the bottom of the rucksack, and they're no use there.

Re-proof your shell at least once a season. A wash with a dedicated technical cleaner, followed by a wash-in or spray-on proofer, and a low tumble dry to reactivate the finish, will bring back the beading that makes rain run off instead of soaking in. That single job does more for waterproof performance than most pieces of new gear.

Hands, Head and the Small Dry Kit

Hands lose function before anything else, and a wet pair of gloves is worse than no gloves at all, because it conducts heat away from your skin. The reliable system is thin liner gloves for walking, a warmer pair for stops, and a spare third pair kept dry in a small dry bag. Over-mittens that fit over wet gloves are a wonderfully cheap trick on a cold, exposed summit.

A warm hat goes under the hood, not instead of it, and a spare dry hat in the pack costs almost nothing in weight. Round out the small kit with:

• A neck gaiter or buff, which can be pulled up over the chin in driving rain.
• A spare pair of socks in a dry bag, for the walk out when boots have finally given up.
• A lightweight sit mat, so you can take a break without soaking your legs on wet peat.
• A small microfibre cloth for drying glasses, camera lenses and map cases.

Packing So You Can Actually Reach It

Everything that must stay dry goes inside a rucksack liner or a dry bag, including your spare layers. Then comes the practical bit: waterproofs should live at the very top of the pack, or in the top pocket, so that getting them out takes ten seconds and doesn't involve unpacking the whole bag in a gale. On a long day, a small stuff sack on the outside, clipped under the lid, works well.

Practise the routine at home. Stop, turn your back to the wind, take off your pack, put on the shell, zip up, gloves on, hat out, pack back on. Then do it again in the rain on a local hill, because the first time you try it in anger is not the time to discover that your trousers need two hands and a bench.

Repair Skills Worth Having in Your Fingers

A repair kit that lives permanently in the rucksack should include a metre of duct tape wrapped around a pencil stub, a self-adhesive fabric patch or two, a small length of cord, a spare zip pull, a needle and strong thread, and a couple of cable ties. With those, most hill mishaps become an inconvenience rather than an epic.

Learn a few specific fixes. A split seam on a waterproof can be taped on the inside and patched on the outside. A broken bootlace can be knotted and re-laced short, or replaced with cord. A snapped walking pole can be splinted with a short length of alloy tube and tape, which will get you down a rough descent. A sticky zip often frees up with a rub of candle wax or soap kept for the purpose. Sewing a button, darning a sock and patching a torn gaiter are all twenty-minute jobs that save you buying replacements, and they're far easier to learn on a kitchen table than on a col.

Reading the Sky, Choosing Shelter, Timing Your Layers

The best waterproof is good judgement. Look to windward and watch for the dark, soft-edged curtains that mean rain rather than mist. Showers on a westerly often arrive in trains, with clear gaps between them, so a ten-minute wait behind a boulder or crag can mean walking the next hour dry.

Use the terrain. A tall wall, a sheepfold, a rocky outcrop or a stand of pines will all break the wind while you layer up. On a convex ridge, the lee side is drier and calmer; on a summit, drop twenty metres and the difference is noticeable. Time your stops for those natural shelters rather than stopping wherever you happen to be when the rain starts.

Keep the map and compass in a clear case round your neck, under the shell, and know your escape route before the cloud comes down. Tell someone your route and your turnaround time. Then, when the shower passes and the light comes back across the moor, you'll be warm, dry and still enjoying the day — which is really the whole point.