Day 9: The Kirkby Stephens Zero

September 2, 2024: Because the weather forecast last night called for rain all day today, I had decided to take a zero day. I wanted to enjoy the hike, not walk through rain all day!

But when I woke up, there was no rain. At least it hadn't started yet, but the clouds certainly looked ugly, as if they could let loose a torrential downpour whenever they decided to wake up and get to work.

 

In the meantime, I decided to use the delay in the rain to explore the town a bit more. I headed over to the main church in town that appeared to be a tourist attraction in its own right, and was surprised when I bumped into John from "Seattle" who was also admiring the church.

He told me about his last couple of days on the trail, which included a taxi to shorten the days. "I just can't do those miles," he told me, "but then someone suggested a taxi and yes, of course!" He was very excited about this discovery, seemingly like he was the first person to ever discover it. It reminded me of when Amanda took a taxi on the Portuguese Camino. He was also starting to send his heavy pack ahead of him from day to day so he could carry a light day pack instead. He also took a detour or two off the main route along other trails that locals had suggested that were shorter or easier than the main trail.

Good for him. I was a little concerned that the last couple of days might have broken him and he'd quit the trail entirely, so I was glad to find that he was still on the trail and enjoying his time out here. In the end, that was the important thing.

But he had miles to do. He was hiking today, rain or not, because he had reservations for B&Bs and hotels along the entire trail and his schedule was set in stone. I wished him dry weather today, and perhaps I'd catch up again later.

This is an actual church--not the hostel! =)

I walked around the rest of the town, checking out some shops and statues and whatever interesting things that might be around, then eventually headed to the Mulberry Bush for lunch where I ordered a panini and a milkshake.

I headed back to the hostel for a bit to relax, and was a little annoyed that it still hadn't started raining yet. I could have gotten some quality miles in by now if I realized that it wasn't going to rain all morning!

By dinnertime, I decided to head out again and was positively angry that I wasted a day doing nothing when it turned out that it didn't rain at all. The weather forecast called for rain from sunrise to sunset. WTF? 

Anyhow, I headed to a bar and restaurant, but was told that they couldn't accept food orders from walk-ins like me because they were too busy. I looked around the room and saw about 5 other tables with people among the dozens of empty tables. What, seriously? They didn't look that busy!

I told him I wasn't interested and went to walk back, and the guy said that he could still get me a drink. "I didn't come for a drink," I told him. "I wanted to eat." The menu they had posted outside looked good, but now I'll never know....

Dejected, I walked to the Spar market and picked up dinner there to take back to the hostel instead. While looking around at my options, I discovered a cheap umbrella. Woo-who! I could finally ditch my umbrella which had been utterly thrashed back on August 21st--nearly two weeks now!

A couple of other guys had also shown up at the hostel, so I no longer had the men's dormitory completely to myself anymore. That was fine, though. There was still plenty of room for all of us and it gave me some people to chat with for a bit.

And thus ended another day on the trail.....

That's another thru-hiker, but I don't know who he is.

Go on, smile! You can do it! =)

For some reason I could never find out, the distances on this sign were measured in furlongs. No idea why. Even the English don't really use furlongs anymore.

Nice use of old, worn hiking boots! =)

This is the common room of the hostel.

This is the window that was completely blown out in the previous photo because the room was so dark by comparison.

Day 8: Racing the Rain

September 1, 2024: It had rained during the night, but I stayed high and dry. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by morning so I didn't have to deal with that, but I couldn't help but chuckle when I noticed Greg wringing out the wet clothes he had hung up outside to dry overnight. That plan definitely hadn't gone according to his expectations!

I checked the weather forecast, which called for a couple of hours of rain in the afternoon starting at around 4:00pm, but I'd be in the clear until then. Well, it would be overcast and ugly, but at least not rainy. I had hoped to hike about 20 miles into the town of Kirkby Stephen, but there was no way I could finish 20 miles before 4:00pm and considered the idea of setting up my tent when the rain started, then waiting out the rain since it was expected to stop after a couple of hours and then pack up the tent and rush the last few miles into town before dark. So that was my tentative plan.

I camped behind the Crown Inn last night with four other thru-hikers.

 

If it didn't rain, I would have preferred camping for the night. Perhaps set up camp maybe 5 miles before town which would give me a nice 15 mile day today. That would be ideal. If it was going to rain all night, however, I definitely preferred being in town. I'd check the weather forecast throughout the day to see how things developed. At this point, I didn't really trust it at all, but I had nothing better to use either. In any case, I planned to hike a minimum of 15 miles for the day, and the last 5 miles I would hike depending on the weather. 

In any case, I needed an early start and woke up to hit the trail running at 7:15am. I wanted to start even earlier than that, but sunrise was coming later and later with each passing day. It was noticeably later now than when I first arrived in England 38 days ago.

The skies started gray and dark, and they stayed gray and dark all day. That was actually a good thing because it didn't take long before I realized that my sunglasses were missing and were likely in a pocket of the tent when I packed it and hopelessly buried within. At least I didn't need to use them today!

The trail headed out of town, passing close to some sort of industrial plant, over a huge pedestrian-only highway bridge then it passed an old, abandoned quarry. Actually, the quarry was undergoing some sort of cleanup process so there was activity happening around it, but they were no longer pulling limestone out of the ground.

Passing by some sort of industrial plant

 

The trail was fairly easy, passing over rolling hills. It wasn't even particularly boggy today. It was boggy--just not particularly bad. Just enough to be annoying, though.

During the entire course of the day, I only saw two other hikers. The first was Greg, who caught up and passed me an hour or two into the day's hike. The second was a woman I first met the day before. Well, to say I "met" her is somewhat of an exaggeration. More like an "encounter" at best. She was a young woman who was jogging along the trail and asked if I was American after hearing my accent. She said she was from New York, a fellow American, but then continued on. As she was running (or at least jogging), she quickly passed me, never to be seen again. Or so I thought. 

Today, she caught up with me again. She left Shap over three hours after I did, but even with my three-plus hour head start, she still managed to catch up and pass me later in the afternoon, She slowed down for a minute or two to talk so it was today that I learned she was actually running the entire Coast to Coast route. I thought she was just in the area and wanted to go for a jog. I hadn't realized that there were people who actually ran the trail. For fun! Given her speed, she could--theoretically--do double the number of miles I did each day. It helped that she carried little more than a water hydration pack and some snacks. She traveled light. I hadn't recognized her as a fellow thru-hiker (thru-runner?) when she passed by yesterday.

Anyhow, although she traveled much faster than I did, her schedule seemed roughly match the miles I was doing each day. She just started later in the morning than I did and finished earlier in the day than I did.

For a few hours, my phone lost a cell phone signal so I was unable to get updated weather forecasts until about 1:00pm and the updated forecast showed no rain until 5 or 6pm. Woo-who! This thrilled me to no end. I could hike 20 miles into Kirkby Stephen before the rain even started! So now I planned to power my way all the into town more-or-less non-stop.

Looking at the forecast for tomorrow, it showed a light but steady rain the whole day which sounded positively awful, so I checked the hostel in town to see if I could book it for two nights. I could take another day off. Now that I wasn't trying to catch my flight, I felt much less stressed about keeping to a schedule. =)

There was space in the church hostel--or rather, a former church now turned hostel--and I booked it for two nights. No camping or hiking in the rain! Hurray!

I pushed onward, hiking hard. About 1.5 miles before town, I decided to take a 15 minute break. My feet were throbbing from the non-stop hiking and I had time for a short break. I wanted to give my feet a rest and eat a few snacks. I kept the break short, however. The weather forecast still predicted that the rain would start sometime between 5;00 and 6:00pm, and at this point, I expected to arrive in town in another half hour--or 4:15. Still plenty early to beat any rain.

Recharged, I continued on, but then it started sprinkling about 15 minutes later. It was only 4:00pm and I estimated that I was only about 15 minutes from the hostel, and I cursed the rain. "But you aren't supposed to start for over an hour!" I tried to reason with it. The rain was light, but still aggressive enough that I pulled out my thrashed umbrella and tried to use it as best I could to protect myself against the rain. Stupid weather forecasts. If I hadn't taken that 15 minute break, I would have already reached the hostel. I could have avoided the rain completely. Argh!

In any case, I finally made it to the hostel and checked in. I was wet, but fortunately not soaked completely through since the rain was relatively light and my time in it was relatively limited, but I was annoyed that I got wet at all. It wasn't supposed to rain yet!

A couple of hours later, the rain stopped and I ventured out for dinner. The first place I planned to stop at had no indoor dining, so I skipped it and wound up going to a Spar market where I picked up dinner to take back to the hostel. On the way back, it started to sprinkle again so that was the extent of my explorations.

The hostel, as it turned out, was nearly completely empty. I figured more hikers would arrive later in the afternoon--it was a long stretch between Shap and Kirby Stephens, but nobody showed up except for one other couple in another room. Consequently, I had a entire men's dormitory completely to myself. Cool! But where was everyone? The weather outside sucked! 

And thus ended another day on the trail.....

Crossing over some railroad tracks

Passing over a major highway on this pedestrian-only bridge

Passing by this old limestone quarry. They were no longer mining it, but they were still doing work to clean up the scars that the mining left behind.

Very easy hiking for most of the day!

Old ruins of an industrial oven

Raining in Kirkby Stephens. Curse you weather forecasters! This wasn't supposed to happen yet!

The hostel I stayed in used to be a church, so the windows in the common area were quite elaborate!

Day 7: Leaving the Lake District

August 31, 2024: I had a splendid night, sleeping well. There was a bit of condensation inside of the tent by morning--a first for this tent, but it was mild and not problematic. The condensation on the outside was more of an annoyance, but also not particularly problematic.

At some point during the night, a fog rolled though the valley below which looked so pretty and serene from my lofty perch on the mountain ridge. I had to imagine that any hikers who had camped or stayed in the valley were waking up disappointed by the thick fog, wondering if the weather was going to be wet and miserable all day. Little did they know how beautiful and clear it was just a hundred feet above their heads. =)

The view from camp looking down in the valley was positively wonderful! My actual campsite was that flat area on the right side of the photo.

 

I packed up camp and headed out. A mile later, I reached Angle Tarn, where all the hikers who passed me the evening before were headed. And it was a gorgeous scene! But I also counted over a dozen tents set up around the lake. The lake was big enough that they could spread out quite a bit, but all the same, I was kind of glad to have my perch above the valley all to myself. I definitely would not have had this lake all to myself.

Angle Tarn was quite scenic and a very popular place for wild campers to camp!

From there, the trail continued to climb and climb, eventually reaching the high point of the day at Kidsty Pike. The weather was clear and warm and the views wonderful, and I was enjoying the hike immensely. At the same time, I was astonished at all the other hikers I was passing and seeing. This was definitely a popular area for hiking.

From the high point, the trail descended steeply toward Haweswater Reservoir, which was positively miserable. It was steep enough that I had to walk slowly, carefully placing each step, and being careful not to slip or fall. I was not enjoying the descent at all! The views, admittedly, were still nice, but the trail was less than pleasant.

View looking down toward Haweswater Reservoir, a water supply for the city of Manchester.

 

In the distance, the terrain clearly flattened out and turned into rolling hills of farmland. And, after Haweswater Reservoir, I would officially be out of the Lake District. It was clearly obvious just by looking at the horizon.

Further off on the horizon, far in the distance, I saw more mountains. Those, I knew, would be the Pennines, and the Pennine Way was over there. I'd finally be back on the Pennine Way again soon, albeit briefly.

I thought the difficulty of the descent would end once I reached Haweswater Reservoir, but the trail alongside of it was surprisingly rocky and overgrown as well. It might have gotten a little easier, but it definitely wasn't easy. It rose steeply in areas to clear cliffs along the reservoir, then descended again after getting around the cliffs.

I stopped to pick up water from a spring with another hiker caught up with me. He introduced himself as Greg, and he wore a patch with a Canadian flag on his pack, which I rightfully assumed meant that he was from Canada. "Wanted to make sure nobody mistook you for an American?" I joked.

He hiked faster than I did, however, so I soon fell behind and he went out of view.

Haweswater Reservoir

I thought I would get a good view of the dam that created the reservoir. It was a big reservoir--bigger than most I had seen in England--so I was disappointed when I could barely see the dam through the trees and from the trail, I could never get a good view of it. Why?! Why?! 

Once I passed the reservoir, the trail finally became a lot easier, crossing over rolling hills filled with farm fields. 

I also spent some time wondering how John was doing. I knew he was somewhere behind me and planning to hike roughly the same mileage that I was, but he had an extra couple of miles up a steep hill to reach the point where I had camped, and the trail down from Kidsty Pike and along the reservoir were very rugged. Not to mention the relentless climb just to get to Kidsty Pike. I hoped he'd manage okay, but there wasn't really anything I could do and pushed it out of my mind for now.

The rest of the afternoon I continued onward to the small town of Shap, an industrial town that every hiker I passed, when they asked where I was headed today, seemed to scoff at, seeming to think it was a horrible place to spend the night. More than once they told me that the only good thing in the town was a fish and chips shop called the Shap Chippy.

So I didn't have particularly high expectation going into town, but I have to admit, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had feared. Don't get me wrong--it's also not the most scenic town in England! But it was a perfectly fine, reasonable town.

Looking at my maps, I didn't see much in the way of wild campsites nearby so I planned to camp in town. The first place I passed that allowed camping had a sign up saying that there was no more space for camping, so I skipped that and headed deeper into town.

I went ahead and stopped at the Shap Chippy for dinner. Not being a fan of fish, I skipped their "award winning" fish and chips and went for a burger instead--along with fries and a Pepsi. It was good, but I wouldn't have called it "award winning" either. Maybe it was the best burger in town, though, in which case the competition wasn't particularly fierce.

Dinner at Shap Chippy!

Afterwards, I stopped at the nearby Co-op to pick up some food for later. Then I headed to the far side of town to the Crown Inn which allows camping in the back for 10 pounds. I hadn't made a reservation, but fortunately, there was space for me. I was surprised at how small the camping area was, however, and thankful that others hadn't filled up the space. Greg was there, already set up and hanging out his dirty clothes to air out. I think he might have rinsed them in a sink and wanted them to dry out as well.

I set up my tent and changed into my camp clothes. They also would wash a bag of clothes for a reasonable fee and since the last time I had my clothes washed was on the Pennine Way a couple of weeks earlier, I felt now was a good time to get that done and handed over a bag of all the dirty clothes that needed to be washed.

The rest of the evening, I hung out in the bar with the other thru-hikers, just chatting. Greg ordered a burger there, which he said was okay. He asked if I was hungry since I hadn't ordered anything to eat (just a Coke to drink), but told him that I had already eaten dinner at Shap Chippy, and he seemed a little envious at the thought saying that he wished he had thought of stopping there when he walked by it.

My laundry was returned at around 10:30 in the evening, and that's when I headed back to my tent to go to sleep. Thus ended another day on the trail.....

Angle Tarn

Deer!

Taking a break and resting my feet! =)

Honesty boxes, where you can get homemade cards or homemade cakes and the proceeds would be donated to a nearby animal shelter.

I liked that this telephone booth had flowers inside as decoration. And it even appeared to be a working telephone!

Shap Abbey is mostly ruins now, but still scenic!

Day 6: Adventures in the Lake District

August 3, 2024: It rained a bit during the night, but I slept well in the landpod. The night felt particularly chilly, but the comforter for the bed was super thick and I was positively hot under it.

After waking up, I went into the main building to eat breakfast where I bumped into the same group of people I had dinner with last night, so we continued our conversation from the previous evening.

Today I planned a relatively short day of hiking, so I didn't rush to get out, but I didn't make a point of lingering too late either. Chatting with the other hikers definitely slowed me down, but I managed to get myself ready and hiking just before 10:00am.

Just as I was leaving the landpod, a fire alarm in the main building went off and everyone in it started evacuating, pouring out of the building. I didn't see any flames or smoke billowing out of the building, so I assumed it was probably a false alarm, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. 

However.... I realized, this might make it difficult for me to return the key for the landpod if I couldn't go into the building to and if there was nobody inside to return it to, but I saw a hostel worker outside directing people to the evacuation zone and handed the key off to him. 

Then I was off, never to learn for certain if the hostel was really burning to the ground or not. Not my circus, not my monkey!

About ten minutes later, I caught up with John from "Seattle" and started hiking with him, chatting away. He hiked up the hills slowly and said it was okay if I wanted to push on ahead, but I had only planned to do a 10-mile day or so and therefore wasn't in any particular rush. I didn't mind slowing down and chatting.

This is John, from "Seattle"

At Grisedale Tarn, there was a choice of three different routes that thru-hikers could take: the easy route, the moderately-difficult route, and the "you've got to be kidding me" route. My plan was to take the moderately difficult route. The guidebook warned that the hardest of the routes required walking on knife edges that could be positively dangerous in strong winds or wet conditions, and the winds were strong! Not so wet, at least not today, but definitely strong winds. So yeah, that route was never a contender in my book.

Anyhow, according to my guidebook, many people think the moderately-difficult route was actually the most scenic of the three, so views weren't even a good reason to do the most difficult route. 

However.... by the time I arrived at the junction, I was reconsidering my options and leaning toward the easy route. There were a few factors leading to my change of heart. One was seeing the steep climb up to the top of the ridge where the moderately-difficult route went. The second was the wind. It was brutal, and I imagined it would be even worse at the top of the ridge. And finally, I was just having a good time chatting with John and wanted to keep hiking with him, and after his disastrous day yesterday, he was now firmly committed to always taking the easiest route selections possible. I'd never be able to convince him to take a more difficult route.

So, in the end, I took the easier route.

The route was nice and easy! =)

The weather was absolutely amazing except for the brutal wind and a bit of a haze on the horizon. Otherwise, clear skies and fairly warm. The views were delightful. =)

After getting over the pass and by the tarn, the trail descended into the town of Patterdale where John and I finally split ways. He headed to a B&B where he had a reservation. I had no reservation but planned to wild camp somewhere beyond the town. Looking ahead on the maps, I saw two potentially good places to set up camp, one located 1.2 miles ahead and a second one that was 2.2 miles ahead. Less than an hour walk, regardless.

Having arrived in Patterdale at 4:30pm, I had several hours before sunset and decided to take a break at the Patterdale Hotel where I ordered a "tasty toastie" (that's what it was actually called on the menu), some onion rings and a pint of Pepsi. Perfect for an early dinner! I sat outside where there were dozens of picnic tables on a grassy field for that purpose.

While there, a couple of the hikers who I had bumped into at the slate mine that decided to take the bus down the mountain instead of walking in that horrible rainstorm noticed me and stopped to chat for a few minutes. They were surprised I wasn't far ahead them already, but I was equally surprised that they weren't a day ahead of me! Of course, they had no idea that I had taken an extra zero day because of the rain, but I had no idea they had taken the day off today. It was a rest day for them.

"Wait a minute," I said, trying to make sure I understood this correctly. "You walked through horrendous weather for two full days... then took the day off when the weather was gorgeous like today?!"

But they said they had already made reservations ahead of time which made their schedule a bit inflexible. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Really quite a bummer for them. In hindsight, I'm sure that they would have preferred taking one of those stormy days off and hiking today. After a few minutes, they left to return to wherever it was they were staying in town.

To kill additional time, I wrote in my journal to get that out of the way and read my Kindle. 

This was the dining area in front of the Patterdale Hostel

I finally left town at around 6:00. I could have probably left even later and made it to camp before sunset, but why risk it? No reason to arrive into camp too late.

So I pushed onward, climbing a steep slope to the top of a ridge to a point labeled Boedale Hause, which had a commanding view over the valley I had just come out of it. It was absolutely wonderful, and I decided to stop there for the night. 

I set up my tent and made myself comfortable. Over the next hour or so, I was surprised that about half a dozen other people hiked by with the intention of camping at the lake another mile up the trail. It must be a beautiful location for that many people to be pushing on to it, but it was starting to seem like it might be crowded there as well. I rather liked the fact that I was the only person at this particular location setting up camp. =)

And thus ended another day on the trail.....

This is Grisedale Tarn. The hard route went up that mountain behind it. The easy route went down the valley near the right side of the photo. The moderately-difficult route isn't visible in this photo, but it would be the ridge to the right of this photo.

Ullswater in the distance

I spent an hour and a half eating an early dinner in front of the Patterdale Hotel and just kicking back and relaxing.

Dinner is served! Yum, yum! =)

View during the climb out of town... the views from camp are gonna be great!