Day 39: Pennine Way

Distance walked: 16.8 miles
Distance driven: 2.0 miles
Today dawned dreary and grey. A bit disappointing after the brilliant blue sky of yesterday, but at least it wasn't raining. We spent an enjoyable breakfast chatting with our host, Anthony, the master of The Saddleworth Hotel. He was strongly encouraging us to accept his offer of a ride up to the Pennine Way trailhead. The first two miles of our walk would be along a very busy A road that has very little walking space at the best of times and less than none when there's snow piled up along its sides. Having walked along quite a few A roads, we knew he had a very good point. We debated it, but ultimately opted to stay alive and take the lift rather than attempt the A road and face certain death. Even Al said if he were by himself, he'd have taken the ride. But I have to admit there was another factor at play because taking the lift meant getting to ride in Anthony's car.




Yay, that's a Rolls Royce. How could we pass up the chance to ride in a Rolls Royce? And, on the way to the trailhead, it got progressively foggier until we were sure we'd made the right choice. Walking on the edge of an A road in the fog was way too dangerous for us!
We said goodbye to Anthony (I swear that V12 engine was nearly silent as he pulled away!) and headed out for our first day on the Pennine Way.




The fog was thick as we began to climb.




We enjoyed the scenic vistas, like this one from Marsden Moor.




As we continued, the fog got thicker and the trail got trickier. There was still a fair amount of snow, so it was slow going as we picked our way along. We were very conscious of the fact that straying too far off the path could result in us sinking into the mire.




It was surreal walking across the moors in the dense fog. We could only see for about an eighth of a mile in any direction. The areas of black peat seemed to go on forever. And all along the way we could hear this dull roar. It might have been a mountain river in the Rockies, but here it was the M-62. Eventually we got to the footbridge that spanned the abyss that is the M-62 connecting Manchester and Leeds.








Beyond this point, the trail climbed into a more rocky terrain. Big rocks and little rocks, all making for more slow trail finding. At least the visibility was improving, but it did start to drizzle.




As we started to descend to our lunch stop, a pub right on the trail called the White House, we met another walker. Paul is a seasoned long distance walker from Worcester who is walking the Pennine Way as a 50th birthday celebration. He offered to buy us a pint at the pub, so we had our lunch and chatted about our plans and the differences between walking in the UK vs North America.
We headed out again, only to find that the wind had really picked up. The first 3 miles were along a series of reservoirs, so the trail was flat and fast. A nice change from the first half of the day. Eventually, the path hit a stretch of boggy moorland. Since the Pennine Way is so well traveled, they started taking measures to protect the fragile moorlands back in the late 90s. Some parts of the path were moved to firmer ground, while other parts were built up and had slab stones laid.




This section of the trail leads you right by a huge black stone structure called the Stoodley Pike Monument. It was built in 1856 to mark the end of the Crimean War. There had been another monument built on this site to mark the end of the Napoleanic Wars, but it collapsed. I guess they didn't want to run the same risk, so they made this one gigantic. 121 feet tall!








Sorry about the water drops. The wind was howling up there and it was still drizzly.
We parted ways with Paul just after the tower as he continued on the Pennine Way and we headed towards Hebden Bridge and our hotel. On the map this looked very straight forward. We started descending, passing some very new lambs along the way.




As we got closer to town, we started to notice that we were still quite high. Then we came to a point where we could look down to the town. It was probably 400 feet below us and we seemed to be right on top of it.




The climb down was crazy, but we ended up in the heart of Hebden Bridge. It looks like a cool town with a hopping downtown.
It was a long day, but it was great seeing so many facets of the Pennine Way. Tomorrow, we are looking forward to getting to Haworth. It was the first place we booked, since it's over Easter weekend, and it seemed so far away at the time. I can't believe we're in West Yorkshire!