Day 46: Teesdale

Distance: 13.7 miles
Forces: 2 (low and high)

Today's walk was way way better than yesterday's epic journey through the bogs of Dale Head Common. Way way way better. There was one point yesterday, where we'd been struggling one step at a time, from one reed grass tuft to another, trying to stay mostly above the water, where we just stopped and looked around. It was insane. For fifty feet in all directions was nothing but more of the same. We could see the water all around, but couldn't really tell how deep it was, or how deep the mud was under the water, and we didn't want to find out. Here and there you could make out running water; those sections you really wanted to avoid, though often they had to be crossed. Farther out was tempting looking green, but sometimes that color green meant solid ground, and sometimes it meant a thin layer of grass like stuff over god knows how much mud and water. And the GPS was telling me that we had another mile to go before getting out of the moor. It was in that place, at that moment, where I hit my low. I felt this intense feeling of "what are we doing here?", "why did I bring Dawn out to this place?". Not to mention "how are we going to get out of here?". I'm generally a pretty up and optimistic guy, but this was a vivid low point. It's etched deeply into my memory; I dreamt about that exact spot in the bog last night. Fortunately, at this same moment Dawn found some kind of reserve and took over the front position and picked our way through that boggy bit, where we had a few hundred feet of merely wet spongy land till the next really boggy bit. It didn't exactly fix things, but it was enough to get us moving again.

Today's walk was better. One of the reasons why is that today the lines on the map actually corresponded to paths on the ground. It wasn't just the missing path through the bog. Up here north of Yorkshire, we see examples all over the place where there are footpaths on the map, and even signs on the road - but nothing on the ground. The next picture shows an example. The sign says "Public Footpath", and there may be a legal right of way, but I sure can't see anything that looks like a navigable path. Can you see the water around the base of the sign? I can pretty much guarantee that the same water is out there in all directions. I'd like to meet the Ordnance Survey people who decided that this was a footpath and challenge them to make their way through.




These are my least favorite footpaths: pretty lines on the map, and nothing but undifferentiated bog on the ground. By contrast, our first few miles this morning were on my favorite kind of footpath: a rails to trails conversion. The Tees Valley Railroad was built in 1868, and carried passengers and mining products for nearly 100 years before being decommissioned in 1964. Sometime after that, it became a very pleasant walking path. Railroads are mostly straight, and mostly level, and have a nice wide surface, all of which make them great trails. The best is when the trail goes over a river, and you get a big beautiful viaduct, affording nice views and saving you from going down and back up. See Dawn waving happily?




The Tees Valley Rail walk ends at Middleton in Teesdale, where we picked up the Pennine Way for a particularly beautiful stretch along the river. The whole day was terrific views and great walking. Well, except for the high winds for the last hour of walking, and the accompanying hail drumming on my hat and stinging our cheeks. But really, mostly, it was a very nice walk.




We would like to thank these sheep for giving us an honor guard as we passed by.




A highlight of the walk was the waterfalls on the river. The first one is called Low Force. Thanks to the layers of peat in the god forsaken bogs here, the churning water is a rich brown, the color of tea.




A mile farther on, we took a branch off of the main trail to find a spot to sit down and eat the apples we'd been carrying. We emerged at the edge of a cliff with a spectacular view of High Force, a 70 foot waterfall roaring into the pool beneath us. It struck us that in the USA, which prides itself as the land of individual responsibility, there would be barriers to prevent the stupid from going right to the edge and falling in. Here there was just a sign saying something like "Enjoy High Force, but be careful or you will die".




Here's a shot taken from above the falls where you can really see the color of the water.




As we moved north from here, the countryside became more remote looking, with more high hills, and fewer farms.




But there were still lambs. I had a chunk of one for dinner tonight - mmm!




It was snowing when I started this post, but it is stopped now. They're predicting a cold (below freezing) and sunny morning tomorrow for our walk to Alston, and another sunny cold day the next day, when we reach the frontier of the civilized world: Hadrian's Wall.

Location:Langdon Beck Hotel