Day 3: The Hunt for Water and a White House Invitation

July 29, 2024: I once again woke up early with the sunrise. The midges were awful, however, and breaking down camp went quick since the quicker we finished, the sooner we could be hiking and the sooner we were hiking, the less bothersome the midges would be.

The weather was clear, the terrain was relatively flat and mild. At least compared to the last couple of days! 

An hour or so into our hike, I passed a blue Nalgene bottle laying on the side of the trail, nearly half-filled with water. Being in the water bottle, it seemed likely that the water was probably good, clean water--but we also didn't know where it came from. It looked like it had probably fell out of someone's pack within the last day or two. I was hiking ahead of Karolina at the time and picked up the bottle. At the top of the hill, I took a break and waited for Karolina to catch up. 

Then, after she did, I asked if she wanted the water. She was happy to take the water, but much to my surprise, she was actually more excited about the bottle itself. She had apparently been wanting a Nalgene bottle for eons and was quite happy to acquire one for free. =) The extra water inside was just a bonus for her.

Not the kind of water we had expected to pick up on the trail,
but Karolina was pretty excited about the find!

A couple of hours later, we crossed the A635, and parked on the side of the road was a pop-up trailer serving food and drinks for passing motorists and the occasional hiker wandering by. We stopped for a break. I ordered a burger and a Coke while Karolina ordered a sausage sandwich, a Coke and a tea. Everything was delicious!

I'm eating my burger at the pop-up trailer/restaurant.

 

Filling up with water was a high priority. I had tablets, but they were limited in numbers, so I didn't want to rely on them any more than was absolutely necessary. I thought about trying to fill up at the pop-up restaurant but the guidebooks showed a lodge a couple of miles up the trail (and I had passed a sign right next to the highway pointing to it saying it was 2 miles away), and I had enough water to get us two more miles so I figured we'd refill there.

The trail passed a couple of reservoirs along the way--rumor had it they fed into the water supplies for Manchester and the surrounding area--but when we arrived at the lodge, it appeared to be a private home. There was absolutely no signage marking the building or anything to suggest that the public was allowed to enter. The building itself looked well-maintained, but appeared to be deserted at the time with nobody around. I took a quick look around the building but didn't see any spigots to fill up with water either.

Seems like we passed a half dozen different reservoirs today!

 

That was.... a bummer. We really needed to fill up with water. There was a creek nearby--running off from the reservoirs we had passed earlier--but I had been hoping to avoid using that since I'd have to use the iodine tablets to treat it.

I filled up with a liter of water, but didn't treat it immediately still hoping to find a better source of water later. Our guidebook showed a campground further up the trail, near another reservoir--seemed like we were passing a reservoir every hour or two! 

So we had hope that we could fill up at the campground, but I wanted the extra liter just in case I started getting thirsty enough that I'd want to drink it before reaching the campground.

However, when we arrived at the designated reservoir, we couldn't find any sign of a campground at all. WTF?! What's up with all these listings for accommodations that didn't seem to exist? At this point, I started treating the water I carried. There was no way I'd make it to the next civilized water without needing a drink before then.

Karolina, not wanting to carry any water that she didn't plan to drink, filled up later from a difficult-to-reach source that was much more murky than the water I had. She had to lay down on the ground and get her head into a grass-filled ditch, but she managed to fill up with water--abeit really ugly, horrible-looking water. (Although to be fair, it wasn't that much worse than the water I carried.)

Karolina filling up her water bottle from a small, stream on the side of the trail.

 
Anyhow, we took a longer break on a windy ridge just past the phantom campground where, for the first time in two days, I managed to get a cell phone connection. This was essential to begin our hunt for a new water filter. Now I could get online and start figuring things out. Looking ahead on the trail, I didn't see anything that jumped out at me as a place to get a water filter. I could find it listed on websites like Amazon, but where would I ship it to? But I also had an ace up my sleeve: Dilton Martian.

He was an Englishman who I happened to know from Atlas Quest and Walking 4 Fun, and he was in the area. He lived hours away in the south of England, but happened to be camping not far from the trail as part of a scouting group so I sent him an email about our water filter problems and if it was possible for him to acquire one for us before we met up later in the week.

I sent the message into the ether, checked some other email, then we pushed onward.

Late in the afternoon, I saw something that looked like a giant oil rig, which baffled me since I was pretty sure that they weren't drilling for oil in these mountains. As we approached closer, I reached the page of my guidebook that included that section of the trail and it explained that the tower was just a broadcasting mast. The reason it looked way bigger and stronger than a typical broadcasting mast, however, was because it had been designed to survive a nuclear blast! My guidebook also noted that cell phone reception near here was particularly good. =)

No, it's not an oil rig--it's a broadcasting tower that's designed to survive a nuclear explosion!

A bit later, we passed by Nikie's food bar, which was located on the side of a busy road in an old shipping container. The guidebook said it was closed on Sundays, so originally I figured we'd miss out because I had expected to pass by on Sunday. Our miles for the first two days were considerably shorter than we had expected, however, and it was now Monday--which meant the food bar would be open! Hooray! Except when we arrived, there was a sign on the structure saying that the business was temporarily closed through Thursday. Boo!

I was dejected. We took a short rest at the tables out front where, annoyingly, a big rig had parked right next to it. Although the food bar was closed, the porta-potty behind it was not so I went back and did my thing there.

The food bar, alas, was "temporarily closed" when I passed by--much to my sadness. I was also annoyed by loud truck that had parked right next to it.

 

After returning to the table, Karolina pointed out that it was a shame that the White House was another hour to hour-and-a-half away.

"Wait, what?"

The White House, we had been told by day hikers earlier in the day was a legendary restaurant and bar for thru-hikers on the Pennine Way, but when we passed them, they said it was something like 7 or 8 miles ahead. That was far too far away for us to reach today, which we told them, and they said we could also sleep in late tomorrow since they didn't think the place opened until noon. We had kind of assumed we'd probably pass by in the morning when they were still closed and didn't give it much thought after that.

Until Karolina mentioned that it was only about an hour to an hour-and-a-half ahead.

"It's that close?" I said. "I thought those people told us it was maybe 7+ miles away?"

It was fairly late in the day. After passing by Nikie's food bar, our plan had been to start looking for a place to camp, but I realized that it was entirely possible for us to reach the White House before sunset if we pushed onward, and that provided a couple of major benefits.

First, we could order real food rather than eat the stuff out of our packs.

Second, we could load up with lots of clear, clean water since today had largely been a bust in that regard.

Third, maybe we could charge some devices.

Fourth, the guidebook mentioned that there was a decent wild camp site just before the restaurant and bar, and an even better one by an old quarry about a half hour walk further on. We knew there would be a place to wild camp near there!

"I think we should try to hit it. This evening. Right now," I told Karolina.

"We can do that?" she replied. It was late in the day and she mentioned the White House sounding somewhat longing--kind of a "so close, but not close enough" kind of disappointment. Apparently, it never even occurred to her that we could actually reach it this evening.

But the sun didn't actually set until a little after 9:00pm, and so we still had plenty of time to reach the White House well before sunset, and then we knew there would be a nice wild camp site only a half hour beyond it. It was totally doable!

Karolina got very excited about the idea.

"But we need to go NOW. Our break is over!" Although we could make it, we didn't really have free time to dawdle anymore. 

The thought of food really lit a fire under our butts, and we hiked hard and fast.

Not as fancy as I expected of the "White House", but it was absolutely luxury for us! And, to be fair, it was white, and a house. No false advertising here!

We arrived and took a table inside. I ordered the Mexican chili with "chips" and two pint-sized Coca-colas. I put "chips" in quotes because I was never sure what I'd get when I saw that on the menu. Sometimes, they gave me French fries, but other times, they gave my potato chips. Whenever I saw something like "burger + chips" on a menu, I could never be certain which I would wind up with. It was kind of annoying. I wished the British were more consistent about how they used the term "chips". In any case, it was still a surprise when they came out with actual French fries rather than potato chips. =)

Karolina ordered a local beer instead of Coke, and also ordered a dessert. That woman can eat more than a platoon of men! I was only able to finish maybe 2/3rd of my dinner, and I hated the idea of wasting the part I couldn't finish, but Karolina the Vacuum Cleaner offered to finish it off for me and did just that. How...? That's all I wanted to know. How does so much food fit into into her stomach?

Dinner is served....

Anyhow, while waiting for our dinners to be prepared, the workers pointed me to an outlet where I could charge my devices and they poured out the horrible, ugly brown water we had been carrying and replaced with with several liters of pure, clean water. There was also a wi-fi connection, so I could get online and had gotten a reply back from Dilton Martian that he's working on getting a new water filter for me. Yes! Things were looking up!

A little after sunset, I had finished dinner, used the toilets (I even brushed my teeth in the bathroom so I didn't have to do that in camp later), and it was time to get going. The sun had technically already set by the time we left, but only by a few minutes and the sun descended so slowly, it was still surprisingly light out a half hour later when we arrived at the quarry and set up our campsite.

According to my GPS, we had covered 17.7 miles for the day--far more than we had ever imagined we'd do after our pathetic 11.8 and 10.6 miles respectively the previous two days. But it was late, and we were exhausted, and both of us basically hit the sack the second we laid down. We were exhausted!

Hiking after sunset has its advantages, such as this lovely view we saw just before setting up camp.

You'll find these monuments everywhere! Every high point seemed to have one, even when it wasn't a particularly noteworthy high point.

Every road crossing should have one of these. *nodding*

So many reservoirs....

From some of the high points today, we could still see the skyline of Manchester, but if I recall correctly, today was the last day we'd be able to see Manchester.

Inside of the White House

Day 2: Sheep Poop, Airplane Wrecks and Rescued By Heather

July 28, 2024: I woke up a little after 5:00am--sunrise! I used the free time to read my Kindle (Toxic Prey by John Sandford).

Started the day, which consisted of not breaking down camp this time. I had strategically camped at a trail junction specifically so we could slackpack a half-mile or so up the side trail to the site of a B-29 Superfortress bomber crash site. I didn't really know anything about the crash site. Before I started the trail, I hadn't even realized that there was a crash site! 

The guidebook mentioned that there was a B-29 crash site off trail somewhere, but none of the details about why it crashed, when it crashed, or even how far off trail it actually was. Eventually, I figured out it was 0.4 miles off trail, according to a sign near the last trailhead we passed, but I still did not know any of the details about the crash. But it sounded like a potentially interesting place to visit, so I was keen to walk the near half-mile off trail to check it out.

Debris from a B-29 Superfortress wreck

 
It would be even more appealing to visit if I could leave my heavy gear in camp and slackpack to the crash site, then pick up the rest of the gear after we returned and continue northward along the Pennine Way. So that was my plan.

The condensation in the morning was absolutely terrible, so I hoped some of that would evaporate while we took our side trip to the crash site.

I grabbed the water filter to fill up with fresh, cold water from the nearby stream, but much to my surprise, it didn't work. I couldn't get even a drop of water pushed through the filter. This was bad.... With all the sheep and, more pointedly, the sheep poop everywhere, I didn't trust the water sources out here. The idea of drinking sheep-poop infused water did not appeal to me at all, but dying of thirst was even less appealing. Had I realized we couldn't resupply our water from creeks, I would have carried more.

After fiddling around with the filter for five or ten minutes with no results, I feared we'd have to drink the untreated water and hope for the best--at least until we could get clean water later in the day when we were back in civilization but then I remembered--I almost always carried tablets to treat water as a backup option. Was that still in my bag?

I searched my red bag and found the old iodine tablets. Yes! It wouldn't be as tasty as filtered water, and it won't remove contaminates from the water, but it's still a much better option than completely untreated water. So I filled up a few water bottles for ourselves and added the tablets--but we'd have to wait at least a half hour before drinking from them.

Long term, I needed to find a new filter somewhere. I had enough tablets that it might last us a week or so, but we needed a better long-term replacement. Something to worry about for another time, however.

Back on track, we left camp and headed out to the B-29 crash site. We had no maps or GPS tracks to follow--just a trampled down and often muddy path leading off to the west.

All 13 American crew members died in the wreck, thus the US flag.

Found the site without any trouble, and it resembled other airplane crash sites I had seen with a debris field spread out all over the place, but recognizable pieces like a landing gear. A large, American flag had been set up at the center of the site, which led me to think it was an American plane that had crashed rather than a British one like I had first assumed. A memorial plaque placed nearby gave me additional details.

It was part of the photographic reconnaissance squadron of the USAF, and crashed on November 3, 1948, while descending through clouds and killing all 13 crew members.

While paying our respects to the sadly departed, a drone started flying over us which I found annoying. A group of a few other people had arrived and apparently needed a birds-eye view of the crash site.

We took a few photos of our own, then headed back to the campsite.

Back at camp, a few more day hikers had arrived and passed us on their way to the crash site. It seemed to be a popular place for people to visit, and the trailhead for it was only a few miles away.

We packed up camp, then continued northward with fully-loaded packs once again. Ugh.

The sheep are everywhere, and they are always watching....

 

Several hours later, we were walking near the edge of a very steep slope. The trail was utterly flat, following the contours of the hillside, and Karolina was walking ahead of me listening to an audiobook on her cellphone. (I was listening to some podcasts myself.) 

But somehow I stumbled and lost my footing and found myself somersaulting down the steep slope. I distinctly remember my body falling down the slope, back first, and my feet flying over my head while I tried reaching out and clutching nothing but air. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that, but I landed in a thick layer of heather as the momentum of my fall caused me to roll a couple of a times before I finally came to a stop.

My final resting position left me on my stomach, with my backpack still on my back. Somewhat to my surprise, nothing was hurting. Not even a little. The slopes were covered with heather, often times a few feet thick in places, and it felt like I had fallen onto a cloud, or maybe a particularly fluffy pillow. It caught me gently and brought me to a stop safely--not that my heart wasn't racing and my brain was still trying to process what had just happened.

Karolina kept walking, not having any idea of the distress I was in.

"Karolina!" I shouted, trying to get her attention. "Karolina! Stop!"

Eventually she heard me, turned back and asked what I was doing in the bushes five or six feet below the trail. "I fell! I tripped! Or something...." Honestly, I'm still not even quite sure what happened.

I was a little disappointed the event wasn't caught on video--I imagine the video would have been spectacular!

The trail is definitely rugged in places!

 

After deciding that I wasn't physically injured in any way, I started trying to make my way back to the trail. It was difficult, however, because the heather was so thick. I couldn't get my feet to reach solid ground, so it felt like I was "swimming" up the heather back to the trail. It was slow and difficult going.

Finally back on the trail, I took stock of all my possessions. Everything that was in my pockets was still there. Neither of my pedometers had fallen out, my phone hadn't fallen out. Not even the earbud I was wearing while listening to the podcast had been dislodged from my ear. I checked the side pockets of my pack--the water bottles, guidebook and so forth, but they all stayed in place as well. And even my hat with the handkerchief hadn't been dislodged in the fall. Absolutely nothing was missing or become dislodged! Which was particularly good because if it had, it could have been very difficult trying to find it in the thick heather.

Karolina scolded me for doing something so dangerous--pointing out that if that slope hadn't been covered in heather, I could have rolled a hundred or more feet down the mountain before I stopped and possibly been killed or severely injured!

It wasn't like I had tried do that. Sheesh! It was an accident. I had no plans to make a repeat performance--but I was grateful for the soft landing that the heather provided. 

But my good fortune ended about an hour later when I took another bad step and twisted my ankle--which hurt quite a bit for the rest of the day. That injury, I knew, was practically inevitable on these long-distance hikes. It seems like it always happens eventually, no matter how careful I try to be. But it didn't seem serious, and I continued hobbling along, albeit at a slower pace than before.

Soon the trail led down a steep slope to Crowden. It crossed over a dam, then a busy road with a lot of fast-moving traffic that required us to stand around and wait for about ten minutes before there was a break in the traffic wide enough for us to dash across safely. Where did all these drivers come from? Where were they all going? Why couldn't the trail people at the very least build a center divider so we could cross one lane of traffic (from one direction) at a time? 

Crossing the dam near Crowden

My guidebook seemed to show that Crowden was a village, but it seemed like it mostly just consisted of a single campground. It was a little off trail for us, but since we had no filter to treat unlimited amounts of water, we felt it was best to drop in and fill up with water there while we could.

It also gave us the opportunity to the use toilets and buy some cold drinks and ice cream. It was a good place for a break as well, which Karolina used to take a nap for an hour or two while I continued reading a book on my Kindle.

Eventually, it was time to push onward. The climb out of Crowden was steep and hot. Temperatures late in the afternoon felt terribly hot, and we took a couple of short breaks. Our packs felt annoyingly heavy, freshly loaded down with lots of water. There were creeks up ahead, but I had us carry some extra water out of the campground so we didn't have to use the iodine tablets so much and they might last us a bit longer. Consequently, our packs were even heavier than they would have been.

Eventually the trail reached the top of a plateau, following along the edge of some steep cliffs. "You better not fall here!" Karolina scolded me again. "Heather won't save you this time!"

"It was an accident!" I replied, shaking my head.

These cliffs were so tall and steep, we even spotted some rock climbers on it. (See the orange coat near the bottom of the photo?)

 

My guidebook mentioned a nice place to wild camp near the junction of two creeks a little beyond the cliffs, and upon reaching it, it did turn out to be a pleasant place to camp. We arrived a little after 5:00pm--a bit early in the day to stop since we had only completely a measly 10.6 miles (which included the side trip to the B-29 crash site, so even fewer Pennine Way miles). I was wore out. Hot, tired and still limping along on my sprained ankle, I was ready to call it a day.

 We stopped and set up camp. I, for one, was glad the day was over.

Generally a lovely day for weather, although it was pretty hot by late afternoon.

Thank goodness for heather!

National trails in the UK are marked with that acorn symbol, but the finger posts like this one usually spell out the full name of the trail as well.

A weir by the Crowden dam

A lot of the acorn symbols marking the trail had googly eyes attached to them. =)

Day 1: The Backbone of England--The Pennine Way

July 27, 2024: I've heard the complaints, and after a couple of years of not posting about my hiking adventures, I am back! For a little while, at least.... These blog posts are not something I particularly enjoy writing, however, and it's been quite nice taking a vacation from it.

The Edale train station, and the beginning of my hike.

Anyhow, I'm back! For now, at least.... And this time, I ended up in the merry old lands of England. Northern England, to be more precise. Flew into Manchester, which is where I woke up at 5:50 AM in the morning.

For three weeks, I'd also be joined by Karolina, who stayed up quite late the night before watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. "Just go to sleep," I tried to tell her. "You can watch it on YouTube later." But she, like much of the rest of the world, had to watch it live.

Anyhow, I set the alarm for 5:50 AM, which should give us enough time to eat a quick breakfast, pack up our bags, check out of the motel and walk to the trail station about a mile away with plenty of time to spare.

That went off without a hitch, although Karolina did grumble a bit about staying up too late and waking up too early. (I can't say that I gave her much sympathy on that count! She knew the schedule!)

Anyhow, our train was waiting on the platform when we arrived, but the doors were locked shut and they weren't unlocked to allow passengers to board the train until about 5 minutes before the train was scheduled to depart, which we found somewhat annoying. We would have much preferred to board the train immediately and wait on the train rather than standing around it outside waiting to get in.

But finally, we boarded our train, and it departed Piccadilly Station precisely on time at 7:48 AM. 

The train cut through the countryside, mostly eastward, until arriving in the small hamlet of Edale at precisely 8:38 AM. Edale would mark the southern terminus of the Pennine Way, a 250-or-so mile trail that would lead north to Scotland.

Upon disembarking the train, we looked at some maps to get our bearings and started following a narrow road into the town where we eventually found The Old Nag's Head, a bar that marked the official start of the Pennine Way--the backbone of England from the Peak District to the Scottish borders and the first National Trail in Britain.

We didn't stop for a beer, but we did stop long enough
for a photo of the official start of the Pennine Way.

 
We took the necessary photos, including me pretending to use a British phone booth that actually appeared to be in working order, even if we didn't actually use it ourselves.

Then we took our first steps along the trail. The day was sunny and warm, and the birds were singing.

The trail was, at first, relatively flat and easy, passing through pastures filled with sheep and overlooking the valley bottom that the train followed. An hour after the train dropped us off, we saw another train following the tracks and stopping at the same stop we had stopped at. The train, at this time of day, ran every hour. If we had missed the last one, this would have been the train we would have taken instead.

The trail was relatively crowded with people. Not just those of us thru-hiking the Pennine Way, but also hoards of day hikers who came out to enjoy the vastly popular Peak District views. It didn't help that we started our hike on a Saturday when the day hikers were at their thickest.

The trail passes through lots of sheep pastures. Lots and lots of sheep pastures. Every day!

Several miles in, we reached our first big climb of the day, known as Jacob's Ladder. With an excruciatingly heavy pack and badly out of shape, both Karolina and I were quite winded going up it. How can so many muscles hurt at the same time, I wondered?

We took a short break at the top, which seemed satisfyingly symmetrical with the break we took at the bottom of the climb.

Climbing Jacob's Ladder

We took a longer break further on near an area labeled as the Kinder Downfall, where a small creek flowing over a plateau waterfalled down a steep embankment and carved out an impressive canyon.

The weather, however, had continued to worsen throughout the day, and by the time we arrived at Kinder Downfall, we felt the first few drops of rain. According to the forecast, the storm was just a passing storm that wasn't expected to last more than a couple of hours. Normally, I would pull out my tarp and try to wait it out, but I didn't have a tarp this time. Nope, this time, I was carrying an actual tent!

I decided to upgrade my sleeping accommodations from a tarp to tent for several reasons. First, there aren't always a lot of trees around to help set up a tarp in England. I almost always preferred to use a tree to hold up one end of the tarp whenever I set it up, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to find that regularly. Second, I knew I'd have to camp in campgrounds relatively often along the way, and campgrounds generally don't provide spaces well situated for tarps. Plus, in a campground, it's nice to have a little extra privacy that a tent provides. And finally, the midges! A tarp provides no protection against these evil little beasts, and I knew that there would likely be days I needed that protection.

So I switched out my tarp with a tent, and therefore did not have a tarp to throw over myself when it started to sprinkle.

Kinder Downfall

I did, however, have a rain fly that came with the tent, so I pulled that out and threw it over us like a blanket.

The rain picked up steam and became a little more aggressive. The hoards of day hikers on the trail started to thin out, but they never disappeared. Not completely, at least.

Karolina was exhausted, not just from the hike but also a lack of sleep, and decided to take a nap. I read my Kindle under the rain fly and was perfectly happy trying to wait out the rain.

We ended up staying there for about 2.5 hours, but sure enough, the rain eventually stopped and the skies even became partly sunny again. We did not, however, get through the rain completely unscathed. The rain fly has one significant problem that my tarps didn't suffer: ventilation flaps. Basically, holes in the fabric to allow air in the tent to ventilate. When the tent is properly set up with the rain fly on top, the holes are situated in a manner such that the rain won't enter them. When you throw it over yourself like a blanket, however, the rain definitely does soak into the holes.

So we were a bit wet from the rain. Not soaked through like we would have been just standing in the rain without the rainfly, but definitely wet.

I repacked the tent and we continued hiking.

According to my GPS, we ended up covering 11.8 miles on this first day, and reached camp at about 8:00 PM. It was quite a bit later than we had intended, and we had hoped to cover closer to 15 miles per day so were already behind schedule. But we set up camp at a lovely location near a creek and a trail junction. After eating some dinner, we pretty much hit the sack immediately. We were both pretty exhausted!

The Old Nags' Head marked the start of the Pennine Way.

There was no ice cream in the phone booth,
but there was an actual working phone!

Late in the day, we could see the skyline of Manchester on the horizon.

The zoom lens on my fancy camera really let me zoom in close to Manchester!

This area is infamous for its bogs, but much of the boggiest sections have been upgraded to use these stone slabs.

That's me taking a break at the base of Jacob's Ladder. =)