A Fast Ascent of Cat Bells

The ascent of Cat Bells in the Lake District is a popular walk and for good reason. The relatively short ascent to 451 m can be achieved by most with a reasonable level of fitness. Those who do make the ascent are rewarded with some spectacular views. For this reason, it is very popular with landscape photographers.

It is an ascent that I’ve made twice myself (here, and here), and each time I’ve been rewarded for my efforts. Each time I stand at the summit though I always think to myself what it would be like to run up the path. I’ve been up there before and seen some fell runners and being a keen runner myself I’ve always thought I’d be able to make it.

Running Friends

The idea of running up Cat Bells had been bubbling away at the back of my mind for sometime when I noticed that fellow photographer and vlogger, David Dixon was doing a lot of running as part of a January challenge. The challenge of running up Cat Bells would be much easier and more enjoyable if I had a friend to run it with. It wasn’t long before me and David had hatched a plan!

Is Fitness Important in Landscape Photography?

Being a vlogger I obviously wanted to video my run up Cat Bells, but I didn’t want the video to be me and David just running up a hill. So we both decided to do our own videos with slightly different themes. In my video you will find me running up Cat Bells and doing a little photography, but also talking to David about how fitness impacts my landscape photography.

So if you want to know why being fit is important to my landscape photography, or you simply want to see some dawn shots take from the summit of Cat Bells, the check out the video below.

Of course as David is vlogger himself he recorded his own video of our little adventure. So for a slightly different point of view check out his video below:

Your Thoughts

Does you physical fitness impact your landscape photography? How do you like to keep fit? Let me know in the comments below.

My Photographs

And finally, here are the photographs I took that morning.