8. The Pennine Way - part one

Edale Valley, early morning as we set off

So, we’re all set for The Pennine Way and after unusually for us, a cooked

breakfast we get a lift to the start in Edale.  Originally the route went over the summit of Kinder Scout, the hill north of Edale, an area of deep gullies in sopping wet peat.  The more walkers, the more difficult it became and apparently people regularly got lost because a straight line was so difficult to maintain and/or they sank up to their waists in mud.   Sensibly the route now skirts the worst of this to the west and difficult areas are paved with huge slabs of stone up to six feet by four and four or five inches thick.  We were to learn that without the slabs the route would be nigh impossible.  Before the climb started, we’d just gone through a stile when a sheepdog flashed past us close to a dry stone wall, turned at the end of the field

The packhorse bridge at
the bottom of Jacob's Ladder

and began to work the sheep towards the shepherd, who these days was comfortably sat on a quad bike.  A working sheepdog is something I’d only seen on television (who remembers Phil Drabble and One Man and His Dog ?) and it was an amazing sight which we just had to stop and watch, even knowing that we had sixteen miles of moorland to negotiate before the day was through.  A little later we passed a group of four Canadians as we approached the first big ascent at Jacob’s Ladder and that was the last we saw of them until our bed and breakfast place where they finally arrived two hours after us.  Very satisfying.

Edale Valley after a stiff climb to the edge of Kinder

It was very lucky for us on our first day to have a perfect day for walking, sunny but not hot, a stiff breeze but not too cold and great views with early light cutting horizontally across the valley below us, throwing fine shadows and defining the shape of the landscape.  It was ten miles to the first road crossing at Snake Pass, preceded by a long two miles plus slabbed section across Featherbed Moss which otherwise would have been impassable.  After such a long dry summer the exposed peat higher up was the consistency and dryness of Weetabix.  Down at Featherbed Moss either side of the slabs which ran for over two miles it was more like Weetabix that had soaked for an hour or so in black ink.  Just after the Snake Pass road crossing, Heather tripped over a rock and went down just like the proverbial sack of potatoes.  Doubly lucky, firstly because this was an isolated rock in an otherwise sandy track rather than the usual rock strewn path and secondly because she didn’t break anything.  However, she did develop some wonderfully iridescent bruises over the next few days on hip, knee and thumb.

looking back from even higher up

In this first day over our sixteen miles and about eight hours we saw perhaps forty or so people walking.  Quite a lot we thought, but these numbers were to drop significantly over the next few days.  About two miles before the finish of the day we came across an incident which reinforced our belief that Heather’s fall was lucky.  It was a walker who it turned out had broken an ankle and eventually had to be stretchered out by Mountain Rescue volunteers.  He was wearing low cut walking boots with no ankle protection and had gone over on a path consisting of mixed rocks ranging from tennis ball to football sized lumps.  His companion was on the first day of what he expected to be the whole 250 miles of the Pennine Way so that plan was completely ruined.  

It became the norm to finish the day with a long steep downhill slog to a road where accommodation waited and this first day was no exception.  The weather had remained wonderful all day and we were able to enjoy slanting sun and shadows again, by now pointing eastward as the sun began to sink lower. 

One of the nearest villages to where we staying was called Hadfield and was the location for the fictional Royston Vasey in the TV show The League of Gentlemen.  For those of you who don’t know this one, I believe that it was set in a village full of very odd people who were suspicious of outsiders “You’re not from around ere, are you ?” is all I can remember.

Our second day was the beginning of what turned out to be a pattern with a

visibility isn't always ideal

little variation.  Gloomy to start with and then rain sometimes accompanied by mist for hours, usually stopping before we finished for the day.  There were very few people about today and as we climbed and the visibility dropped, thoughts turned to the difficulties of being lost up here but hey, we’re doing this for fun, what could possibly go wrong.  If we hadn’t had a map, a compass, a guide book, Ordnance Survey mapping software on my phone and a long line of stone slabs underfoot snaking into the distance I don’t know what we would have done.  We approached the only road crossing of the day after four and a half hours walking and from about a mile off we could see a refreshment van parked with a flag flying and the hatch open.  Chance of a cup of tea !   With a half mile to go there was no flag and the hatch was closed and as we walked up a slope to arrive at the road it was gone.  It was 1.00pm and you should have heard us laugh.

For us the birding highlights of the day were a flock of 40-50 Fieldfares, winter visitors who were here very early in the first week of September and my first sighting in England of a Ring Ouzel, a lovely name I always think.  It’s a shy bird and looks like a Blackbird with ecclesiastical leanings, being black with a white blaze across the upper breast.

There’s limited accommodation at each stop and we were in what in the olden days (1960s) would have probably been a coaching inn.  “I’d like a room with a shower and a stable for my horse”.  “Certainly sir, and for yourself ?”  We met the Canadians again who were planning to walk the whole route in 22 days and saw several others we recognised.   It also turned out that we were pretty much right above the longest tunnel on the British canal network, Standedge on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal.  This is not a tunnel for the claustrophobic, just over 3 miles long, about seven feet wide and a similar distance from the water to the top of the tunnel, with no towpath.  Originally it was also unlit and with no towpath, horses could clearly not have been used to propel the narrow boats so while the boats were ‘legged’ through the horse had to be walked over the top.  Legging was a very dangerous occupation.  One man on each side of the boat, lying on a plank would push the boat along by walking along the tunnel wall.  One slip, into the water and they would be crushed against the tunnel side by the boat.

approaching Stoodley Pike

We’ve seen a number of people who are camping for some or every night on the route and have huge packs, so they move like particularly lethargic snails channelling their inner pack-horse.  It must be very hard to maintain balance on the exposed tops with the strong winds because I imagine the packs must act a bit like sails.  Still, each to his own.

On one of the days we had absolutely filthy weather with driving rain for hours.  Heather thought it was wonderful and as it was her birthday I was compelled to agree.  Of course a gentleman would never reveal his wife’s age.   She’s 70.

It was during this day we walked past a ruin called Top Withins which many people seem to think is the location of Wuthering Heights.  It’s nothing like the description in the book and after all, it’s fiction for goodness sake.  However, for some reason it is considered to be the place.  A surprise to us was that the Brontes are very popular with the Japanese !  The Bronte Way, a named path taking in the local sights even has the standard wooden finger post directions in English and Japanese.  I can just imagine those Japanese girls making their way up onto the moors to see Top Withins in their little girl party frocks and delicate shoes although with the popularity of dressing up we’ve seen with Japanese on tour and in Japan, they may well be slogging up in Bronte costume.  None today though.   Hardly anybody today.

We leave the dark Millstone Grit acid moorland with the peat, heathers and bilberries and go lower into a much more pastoral landscape with more villages and habitations.  There had been grazing sheep and cattle on the moors but there are many more at the lower heights.  This is not an area with much in the way of crops growing other than grass, we’re back with limestone and dry stone walls plus gates and stiles to slow us down.   Why is it you can slow up and also slow down, I wonder, when both phrases mean the same thing ?  The moors feel as if they are ancient, this area now just feels old and traditional.  We see narrow packhorse bridges and drove lanes.  I’d always imagined that one man led one packhorse but I’ve learned that packhorse trains might be fifty strong led by a man called a jagger, so I guess that’s what Mick’s ancestors were up to.

Our waterproofs performed throughout as they were supposed to and despite the conditions we were dry from head to ankle.  That was because our proper leather boots were leaking.  Over the six days of this adventure our feet stood up much better than the boots which is definitely better than the boots standing up better than our feet.  No blisters or rubbed skin just tepid dampness.

a little north of Gargrave

We see virtually no other walkers now and in general we overtake rather than get overtaken by others when we do see them.  A few people are heading south and we assume that some are Pennine Wayers.  Eventually it turns out to be half way through day five before we see a tea shop and so we stop for tea and Eccles cakes at Gargrave, which is pleasanter than it sounds, especially with the

that lovely River Aire

sun out.  Yes, sunshine to accompany us as we walked alongside the burbling young River Aire  as it tumbled and twisted over a rocky bed.  It was a really beautiful little thing about ten or fifteen feet wide and difficult to believe that further downstream it became a major English river.  We pitched up for the night at Malham, a big tourist spot because of the limestone scenery and the famous Malham Cove and

a nice bit of Limestone Pavement
above Malham Cove

waterfall.   

Our route out in the morning was the traditional climb, this time of 421 steps followed by half a mile of relatively level walking and then another 155 steps.  By the way, I’m not so nerdy that I’m counting them, this is what our guidebook says.

Watlowes Valley which we've just come up from - the 155 steps

After a pleasant couple of hours we began ascending Fountains Fell and the rain began in earnest again, aided and abetted by a fierce wind and we ended up having our iron rations lunch standing up sheltered by a steep slope.  Across the valley the mist cleared a bit and we could finally see the last major climb we had to face, up the steep end of Pen-y-Ghent.  

the line in front is the route up Pen-y-Ghent

It’s about 600 feet, some of it requiring the use of hands and I really would not want to be coming down that way especially with the gusting wind we had at this point.   Four girls, late teens perhaps came up just behind us, ill-equipped and not dressed for what is a very exposed bit of rock.  At the top we sat on some very nicely designed curved benches with a wall behind and positioned so that it was almost always possible to be sheltered somewhere.  Photos were taken and then one of the four said “which way is down”.  I couldn’t resist saying “we’re right on the top, every way is down” but Heather, being more humane than me said “it depends where you’re going”.   One of the four had a phone with the location of their car but they didn’t really know where it was or which direction to take.  Amazing.  They decided it was in Horton-in-Ribblesdale and we pointed out the path to them and we set off ahead of them on the four mile downhill walk to our hotel.

So we’d done what we set out to and will be returning to finish off the remaining 150 miles at some time.  The Pennine Way definitely is a challenge, as much as for getting going every day expecting bad weather as the distances or the ups and downs.   We’d walked 98 miles in 6 days, ascending and descending about 15,000 feet, all without one cream tea for sustenance.

a rest at the top of Pen-y-Ghent