Another Long Walk: 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.