By the fluorescent lights of the predawn station, one can see, at the end of the outdoor platform, a conductor and engineer moving in their morning ritual between the doors of a three-carriage train. Along this platform we walk, stopping to wait in the heavy thrum of the idling diesel engines, as if the noise could offer some refuge against the North Atlantic chill. We stand there, still adjusting the tension on our backpacks, so far unbroken to our burdens, thinking about the trip. This would be a long walk, and the feeling of this particular load--these bags of nuts and cheese, these extra socks--doesn't yet feel normal on our backs. With a click and a hiss, the train doors open and we step aboard. The familiar recitations are performed, "This is a six-nineteen Northern Rail service to Carlisle...", and soon the pitch of the engines changes and our seats pull us forward into the Dales countryside.
We don gaiters and outerwear while standing in the aisle of the train, and I'm just struggling to get my rubber gloves tucked into my sleeves when we pull into Appleby. We hop off onto the platform and the train rumbles away. With the clouds racing low over the mountains, this windy village station is no place to linger, and we climb the painted iron bridge over the tracks and are off. In the past year of hiking in northern England, we've come to accept that no matter the difficulty of the hike we plan through the moorland, it's the lowland access through pastures and farmyards that proves most challenging. In this case, the hike we've planned is a four-day, 67-mile route in the northern reach of the Yorkshire Dales, and today the lowland access is appropriately arduous. Though we have 21 miles to walk and scant sunlight on this day, the winter solstice, we will spend two hours just getting a few miles to the edge of the moor. We are definitely going to finish this one after dark.
We climb the ridgeline along a deeply incised valley, our route soon disappearing into the clouds. In the mist, we chase a trail out along the wrong strata, then need to ascend a mossy slope to regain our route. Up on the moor, the wind is cracking and the cloud base soon lifts. We are being buffeted about, but are traveling east at the moment and the wind is at our backs. At the head of the valley, spray from a small waterfall is being whipped upwards in a dramatic arc. The route across the plateau is not well defined, and we tromp across a few miles of saturated moorland, jumping between the tussocks that promise the most floatation. We find four dead shrews in different places.
We clamber down the rocks alongside a thundering falls, then join the River Tee, which will lead us downstream to the Strathmore Arms and our home for the night. We find the river running high and the trail underwater in places, and pinned in by the cliffs above, we clamber along a slick rocky shoreline. We're losing the light, and are grateful to complete this slick section. Within an hour it's truly dark, and we're traveling by headlight. We quietly slip along the edge of a farmyard, trying hard not to disrupt the family at their dinner table. We walk along a barn with coarsely slatted walls, and I can hear the sheep on the other side of the wall bleating and grunting at the noise and light. As Kelly calls out that she's found a trail marker, I slip hard in the sheep muck and literally eat shit. That laugh carries us through to the Strathmore Arms, the northernmost pub in Yorkshire.
At Kelly's urgent suggestion, I clean up my face before walking into the pub, and we are given a great reception of shock and hospitality. Celina takes us up to a room and notes that she'd had the radiators on all afternoon in anticipation of our arrival; this comment would echo in my mind in days to come. We are pretty stoked when she asks what sort of bread we'd like her to bake for breakfast the next morning. We get our stuff laid out to dry, and head downstairs to the pub for hot food. At one point, a small brass band shuffles inside and plays a few carols before continuing to the other pubs in the Teesdale valley.
We get going early the next morning. There are twenty miles of country to traverse and we're really hoping to get in before nightfall. We see a strange hilltop with a tight stand of trees encircled by a wall, which appears on our maps as a small, perfect circle labeled 'Kirkcarrion'--it is the burial mound of a bronze-age chieftain. Our route continues below reservoirs and over a couple sections of moorland. Though it's quite windy, the precipitation is broken by brilliant sunshine, and the landscape is spectacular amid the snow flurries.
Our destination is the Tan Hill Inn, a remote pub isolated in the midst of the moor. In a way, it's the existence of the Tan Hill Inn, a refuge in the hills, that inspired this trip. We keep a strong pace all day, sheltering only briefly in the lee of stone walls to scarf caloric snacks. We're still not there when the shadows of the hills spread across the moor. We make a final stop in the deep twilight to dig out our headlights, check the map, and eat Marg's ginger cookies. The last leg is only a few miles, but what an epic.
Sleightholme Moor. A deep, sodden expanse of bog moss that stretches for miles. Any physical sign of a pathway is gone: godspeed, traveller. We step into it. Water is everywhere; only the quantity of plant matter varies. We are jumping ponds and streams, shifting between islands of moss. Vegetation disguises watery pits that sink into the face of the bog like mouths. Every half mile, a white-painted trail post is planted, clearly sarcastic in this perverse context. Before 'quagmire' and 'morass' became figurative terms for an inextricable mess, they were used to describe the particular geography we are currently traversing. We are 'bogged down' and having a hell of time making any progress toward the Inn. It's dark, and we're moving into a spitting headwind, tracking our route by the course of a gully below us. There's an occasional glimpse of light up on the moor--could the Inn be so distant? I experience dark thoughts: we arrive to find Inn is shuttered. Desperate, we break in. Encounter some horrible evil. I shake it off and keep tracking the gully on my left. We cover more distance. Pause amid standing water to eat food and regain energy. We can see the Inn clearly now, a cluster of buildings under the orange sodium lights. A snowplow and a van. We make the road and cover the last few minutes. We're there.
Inside the stone-floored vestibule, we strip off wet layers and rest on a wooden bench. Even with the pub just feet away, sitting down out of the wind is shelter enough. When we finally get it together and walk inside, the Inn is everything we could have hoped for. We throw down our gear next to a pair of bunk beds and leave our boots to dry in the laundry room. The young barkeep Sandy is passionate about his coal fire, and he keeps it clear of ash and well stoked. I drink strong ginger beer and feast on a giant Yorkshire pudding, filled with mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, and steaming steak-and-ale. I wear my sandals around the bar and revel in being dry. What a night.
We awake and continue our journey south, descending into the small towns of Keld and Thwaite before regaining the moor. It's interesting route-finding through human settlements. Many walking routes in England follow ancient rights-of-way. Winding in improbable ways through modern villages and pastures, these paths have remained part of the landscape through hundreds of years of evolving human land use. In a town, a discretely marked gap between two buildings may be the ancient highway. Where it meets a farmyard, the right-of-way invariably runs amid the outbuildings. Routes through pastures may trace a boundary or run entrenched between a pair of walls, or may angle across a dozen fields. Where paths cross fences or dry stone walls--easily destroyed by climbing--landowners maintain crossings, and the variety of crossing styles astounds. Like the dozens of basic techniques humans have used for lifting and moving water, these techniques for barring livestock but allowing humans to pass represent a great reminder of humankind's ingenuity. From simple wooden ladders, and beams that pass through a fence to form steps on either side, to tight squeezes between standing stones, trapped swing-gates, and the amazing cantilevered stone staircases that protrude from the face of the wall itself, these structures all address the same need. Of course, the sub-category of latched gate mechanisms contains yet another amazing expression of human creativity.
Without a detailed map, it can be impossible to find these rights-of-way. Especially in lowland agricultural areas, maps are absolutely necessary for navigating the complex networks of public footpaths and stone walls. My first walk in the English countryside, a solo fall outing on what was ostensibly a marked route above Hebden Bridge, left me so confounded that I bought a map of the hillside--sure as heck not getting lost here again--in the village before even returning to Leeds. The UK mapping agency is a for-profit government monopoly, and though the printed maps are painfully expensive, the quality of the mapping is indisputable. I've included a small example section from our walk in the Dales. Click to enlarge and check out the details! Every stone wall is marked with a fine black line, and many features like rocks and cairns are labeled. Though absent in this map frame, rural pubs, with their coal fires and cask ales, offer an important sanctuary in winter months, and are indicated with a blue beer mug. We have even found a number of archeological sites like stone circles, rock carvings, and early settlements using these maps. The sinkholes common in the limestone-rich Pennines are labeled with the regional term 'shake holes'. There are some great place names. The green-diamond trail marks the Pennine Way and our route.
There's a reason that the hills of northern England are empty in the winter: it can be a harsh landscape. On this trip, we spent few days out in the wintertime hills were rewarded with beautiful snow-swept environments and not another soul walking in the moor. Clearly, the folks concerned with comfort had stayed home. Though temperatures never dipped far below freezing, winds were very strong throughout and we encountered a full spectrum of precipitation types. The third day had the roughest weather: continuous precipitation all day, a lot of water moving around the hillsides, and a crossing of wind-torn Great Shunner Fell into in a onslaught of hard-driven sleet. Descending below cloud base on Great Shunner Fell, we encountered some truly powerful winds that forced us to the ground. It was amazing weather, and descending into Wensleydale, we found the valley floor flooded and the road to Hawes underwater. We would go no further that night.
Like signing up as the off-season caretakers at the isolated Overlook hotel, we make the fateful decision to shelter up in the cold, echoing Green Dragon Inn. There we find a bitter, shrew-like landlady who recognizes us as trapped prey, and treats us poorly. She huffs at everything, demands we order food, charges us double rates for drinks, won't open a tab though we're the only patrons, scolds Kelly sitting in 'the cat's chair', and is an icy presence. The real blow is her unwillingness to turn on the heat for more than a couple hours in the empty wing of the hotel where we are sleeping--especially important as we need to dry our soaking gear. We shiver through the night and don wet clothes in the morning. The Green Dragon in Hardraw is a really bad joint.
We escape the evil landlady's clutches and turn it around in a major way. The river has come down, and we are able to cross into Hawes for some hot food at a friendly cafe. We walk up to the Wensleydale cheese factory, recognized just days prior with EU-protected origin status, and buy a little wheel of tangy cheese to eat with our Christmas fruitcake. We strike up into the moor, and though we still face some serious winds, we are in good spirits and have only about 12 miles to cover. Our descent down into the Ribblesdale drainage is spectacular. Because of its remote character but good rail access from Leeds, this valley has been the base for many of our previous adventures. Our walk offers expansive views of the valley and some familiar spots like Ribblehead Viaduct and the Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough peaks. We make it to the valley floor, and have time for a bowl of soup at the Station Inn, right next to the rail line, before catching the train back to Leeds, just a few hours before rail service shuts down for Christmas.
The GPS track from our walk shows a route that follows the purple-brown regions of highland moor, dipping into the green farmland in the valleys. The track is colored by our walking speed. The slow climbs appear as bright green, particularly when oriented into the south-westerly wind, and some purple sections show us making good time along small roads. Lots of other little details appear as well: our pace also became more steady as the north-to-south trip went on, and slow sections appear for the first-day rock scrambling along the River Tee and the mid-trip slog through Sleightholme Moor. The initial three miles from Appleby train station to the Pennine Way and edge of the moor aren't shown.
