Well, it is all over and I have failed. I am desperately, desperately gutted, but I have still learned a lot from the experience. By early afternoon on Day Three I was on schedule distance-wise, having covered over a quarter of the 191 miles despite overcoming a series of difficulties. But shortly after scaling Kidsty Pike, the highest point on the walk at 780m, it became clear that there was something seriously wrong with my legs. Despite being dosed up on painkillers I could barely walk and had stabbing pains in my shins with every step, and with another ten miles or so to go and the pain becoming progressively worse, it was becoming clear that there was absolutely no way I would be able to reach the next stopover in Shap, and the priority became to get off the fell safely. Even if I had somehow managed to reach the town - impossible at the pace I had slowed to - or stopped and pitched my tent for a day en route to see if I my body could recover, I faced the prospect of another 20 miles to do the next day on top of anything additional from stopping short, so there would be no way of catching up. And in fact, two days later after abandoning the walk and catching the train back south I can still barely walk. So although it was a tough decision and one I hated making, it proved to be the right one. As I was descending Kidsty Pike, I met a group of walkers going up who could see I was in trouble and offered to give me a lift if I could reach their car. The nearest village was about seven or eight miles away, and if I had carried on, there would have been the risk that I ended up alone on a fell unable to walk. I had to face the fact that I had pushed my body beyond its limit and the responsible thing to do was to stop rather than cause a scare and end up with mountain rescue being sent out. How I managed to get down the steep decline and make it to the car park carrying my pack, given that I can now still barely walk even without one, I don’t know. I have a doctor’s appointment this evening.
Although at the moment I am feeling pretty low, my intention is to attempt the walk again taking into account what I have learned so far. That would have to include making my pack even lighter – probably by abandoning the cooking gear – and loading the route so that I do less mileage in the first few days, where the terrain in the Lake District is unquestionably the toughest on the walk; also, putting my clothes into a proper drysack rather than a carrier bag, and using a waterproof map cover.
In the end, it proved impossible to blog on the move, since I had to keep on the move most of the day and whenever there was time to write, there was never a signal. So here’s what happened:
Day One – St Bees to Black Sail Hut
I was on the beach ready to start at 6am, as the sun was rising. Walking through the village to the pebbly beach, a solitary fox slinking away was the only life I saw, and I was savouring the prospect of being alone on the beach as the sun came up and I performed the C2C rituals of wetting my feet in the Irish Sea, selecting a pebble to throw into the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay at the end of the walk, and taking a photo at the monument marking the official start point. But the walk was to have a surreal start. Just as I reached the beach, a car pulled up and a couple got out having a blazing row. From the woman’s language and her deep, growling voice as she stormed off to the beach, it was clearly not about who had left the cap off the toothpaste. The woman, a fat local, was being pursued by a thin bloke trying in vain to placate her and get her to return home. My guess is she’s just caught him with another woman, or he’d confessed to an affair. Anyway, she’d obviously gone to the beach to be alone and instead was met with a walker rather implausibly trying to ignore what was going on while trying to conjure up angles for photos of the beach and surrounding headland that did not have the warring couple in them. I thought it wise not to say “morning” as I passed them at the sea wall.
Fleswick Bay
It was already cool, but shortly after I set out, it started to rain. Within a mile or so, it became clear that my walking boots – hitherto waterproof for a decade - were letting in water. I made good progress around the coastal walk at the start of the route, though it was blustery and wet. I didn’t see another soul. After going through the desperately grim villages of Moor Row and Cleator, so mean and unwelcoming that even the kissing gates don’t give walkers enough room to squeeze through with a backpack on, I approached Dent hill – the long climb which traditionally marks the start of the Lake District. In the howling wind and rain, I made it up the slippery incline to the top. Despite the conditions, it was exhilarating to sit at the summit for five minutes, resting and watching mist billow through gullies around the hill. It was very atmospheric and a wonderful place to be alone. Normally, the views stretch past Sellafield nuclear power station to the Isle of Man in one direction, with the outlines of the Lakeland mountains laid out before you in the other. However, I could barely see more than 50ft.
I was in Ennerdale Bridge by lunchtime. This is the first stopover for most C2C-ers on a 13 or 14 night schedule, but with just ten days to complete the distance, my plan was to knock off much of the next stage by the end of the day and stop over at the end of Black Sail Pass, famous for being home to the smallest and most remote Youth Hostel in the country. So after a short rest to eat a cheese and pickle sandwich in the downpour, I headed for Ennerdale Water. By now the rain was almost horizontal and I was soaked to the bone. I traversed the south shore, which includes one particularly hairy point near Robin Hood’s Chair where you have to ease yourself precariously through some rocks with little room for error and a long drop into the water below. I often wonder if anyone has been seriously injured at the point, and tackling it alone in slippery conditions with an unwieldy 24lb backpack was rather nerve-wracking. However, I managed to make it to the end of the lake and follow the trail to Ennerdale Forest, which would lead me through the pass to my first stopping point.
By this stage, the unrelenting rain and my sodden feet were taking its toll on my spirits. I decided to stop at Low Gillerthwaite Field Centre, where there was a public phone box, to reassure my wife that I was okay. It was at this point that I learned another lesson from the walk – the true value of a small act of human kindness. The woman in charge could obviously see I was tired, dispirited and soaked. While waiting to use the phone (someone else in the lodge was having a drama with a relative phoning to say she was being followed in her car by a bloke, who stopped behind her every time she pulled over to let him pass, and the man asked me not to use the phone until she had called back), the woman made me a hot cup of tea. I was sat down in the lounge, and she told me I could have another cuppa and was free to stay as long as I want. Given that I wasn’t staying there, and had done little more than stagger in in my muddy boots and drip all over her kitchen, it was just pure kindness on her part. She would not take any money from me for the tea, so I stuck something in the mountain rescue dogs charity collection box in the lounge instead before finally making the call and setting off again. I have to say, given the welcome I was given I would love to stay there one day, and would thoroughly recommend it for anyone else planning to tackle the C2C or visit the area.
The trek through the forest in the rain was at least on a relatively flat pathway. At one point a deer hopped out in front of me before spotting me and bolting back into the trees. As I was starting to flag again, I saw the stone cabin that is Black Sail Hut youth hostel emerge from the haze and my spirits lifted again. I had made the 23-mile first stage, which I had expected to be the most demanding of the walk, in about 11 hours. The hostel is in a valley at the end of the forest, surrounded by a horseshoe of some of the highest and most spectacular mountains in the Lakes. Sopping wet, I went into the warm hostel to see if the warden would let me pitch my tent on the nice, flat patch of grass outside. Given the rainstorm and the fact there was no-one about other than the few people staying in the hostel, I didn’t anticipate a problem. But he refused. He told me that if I could find a patch of ground flat and dry enough, I could pitch somewhere else in the valley provided he couldn’t see me. It seemed a bit needless and jobsworth to me, but that’s what I did. The only patch I could find that was dry enough was on a small, flat-topped hump that was worryingly exposed, about a quarter of a mile from the hostel, but there was little alternative with darkness about to fall. I pitched the tent, and opened up my pack to find that despite having my rucksack cover on, everything inside was soaked. All my spare clothes and socks were wet through; a real blow. The wind was too high to risk cooking the vegetable curry and chocolate sponge in chocolate sauce I had brought with me for the occasion, so I ate my last cheese sandwich for tea and settled down inside the tent in a sleeping bag that was damp, on a mat that was also damp.
Looking back up Black Sail Pass from the foot of Loft Beck
That night was frankly rather terrifying. As I have said, the tent was surrounded by fearsome mountains such as Haystacks and Pillar, and a terrific storm raged through the night. I huddled inside the tent wondering if it would survive the night or be ripped to shreds, leaving me exposed to the elements at night in one of the most remote areas of the country. The tent bent and twisted in the raging wind, and loud snap of the fabric flapping constantly kept me awake all night, staring into the dark as the storm did its best to tear the tent from the ground. As dawn approached, the gale and rain subsided, and I emerged to find my heroic tent – a Hilleberg Akto – had somehow survived not just in one piece but totally unscathed and looking just as it was when I had put it up. Incredible. Given what it had protected me from, that morning I felt it was probably the best £260-odd I’ve ever spent. I was immensely grateful.
Day Two – Black Sail Hut to Patterdale
Looking up from the foot of Loft Beck
Day Two began with the challenge I had been looking ahead to with the most trepidation – scaling notorious Loft Beck to get out of the valley at a low-point between two mountains. I had tackled it twice before, each time ending in disaster. But at least on those occasions, more than a decade ago now, I was with my wife and not alone. The first time, we lost the path up on the scree and after realising it was as dangerous to go down as to go up, basically ended up rock-climbing up the rock face with no climbing equipment and backpacks on. We’d hauled ourselves over the top onto a path at the foot of two walkers who had taken the correct way up and were sat on a mountain rescue box eating sarnies. They had looked astonished as two bumbling backpackers clambered up over the precipice in front of them and casually said “morning”, hiding our relief and trying to act as if we’d intended to take that route all along. On our second C2C a year or two later, the beck that had been little more than a stream when we’d traversed it at the foot of the climb on the first occasion in relatively dry weather had become a raging torrent. It had seemed dangerous to cross, but there was little alternative. I went first, but as I tried to navigate from protruding rock to protruding rock in the gushing water, trying to use them as stepping stones, I overstretched myself and slipped, crashing face down into a rock in the water. My wife waded in and pulled me up, but my teeth had gone through my chin, leaving a large hole and blood everywhere. We’d then had to make the climb, get across the fell on top and go down the Honister Pass to the nearest civilisation with blood still pouring from the wound despite plasters being slapped on it. I should probably have had stitches, but that would have meant abandoning the walk to find a hospital, so I gargled with salty water when we reached out B&B, patched it up as best I could and continued. I still have the scars to this day.
However, now I was alone. I’d planned the itinerary so that I could tackle Loft Beck early in the day when I was still fresh. I pulled on my sodden clothes again (though I had one pair of waterproof socks which were still dry on the inside, which made a big difference) and by 7am then tent was packed up and I was off. There was no-one around as I headed for the beck that I knew would be swollen by the recent rain. It was. Mercifully, the weather had cleared, and I navigated the water without too much difficulty. The path up was arduous and draining, but I managed to stick to the path and before 8am I was at the summit. I literally punched the air with relief that I had nailed it for the first time. The view from the top is one of the most spectacular I have ever seen. It takes my breath away every time I see it. With the cloud parting for the sun to shine in blue sky for the first time on my walk, and no-one else at all on the high-level fell, I could look down into the lush green of Buttermere, with blue lake and green valley surrounded by forbidding peaks and just gaze in silent awe. It was the high point of my walk. However, after crossing the fell and following a disused slate mine tramway to reach Honister Pass, I realised that my trusty walking boots – themselves C2C veterans from a decade earlier - were actually now disintegrating around my feet in the challenging conditions. The soles were parting from the tops, and the right one was actually flapping when I walked. I changed into my wet trainers, which I had no choice but to wear for the rest of the walk.
Looking over to Ullswater (left) and Buttermere (right) with intimidating Haystacks in the middle.
I headed through the villages at the foot of the fells, each containing a cluster of beautiful grey slate cottages, feeling good about the day ahead. I called Alison to let her know I had safely negotiated Loft Beck, which I knew she had been worried about. And at a small general store in Rosthwaite, I was able to savour my first hot food of the walk. Inside, there was a hot display with pasties that ordinarily would have looked dry and overcooked to me. But wet, cold and after so long with just cereal bars and sandwiches, the lone hot cheese pastry looked utterly mouth-watering. Sat on the bench outside, I scoffed it down eagerly. As the warm, stodgy goo hit the back of my mouth it truly tasted like the best food in the world. It was a moment of sheer, simple bliss which reminded me that sometimes I should appreciate more the familiar things I take for granted every day.
Newly restocked with chocolate and cereal bars for energy, I set off on the next ten-mile stretch to Grasmere, a challenging fell route that included two more gruelling climbs – a long one along Greenup Gill and a sharp one up Lining Crag – along with the boggy and pathless Greenup Edge, notorious among fell walkers for getting lost with little more than a few cairns and abandoned fence posts to guide you. Until now, my Sealskin waterproof socks had proved a wonderful investment. However, on Greenup Edge I sunk thigh-deep in the peat bog and not even they could be expected to cope with that. Somehow I managed to drag my right leg out of the bog, which seemed to want to suck it deeper every time I pulled, and together with two other walkers I bumped into managed to navigate my way to the edge of the long, beautifully quiet and calm valley of Easedale leading to Grasmere.
The pathway is often rough and stony, however, and in trainers lacking ankle support the hard, uneven surface was taking its toll. I did briefly consider stopping off at Grasmere to buy a new pair of walking boots, and in retrospect perhaps I made the wrong decision. However, I decided that the loss of a few valuable hours walking into the village, finding a pair that would do the job, then making my way back to the correct path would put me behind schedule and add to the distance I would have to walk, so I continued in my trainers, now black from peat as well as sodden. The weather on Day Two, however, was mercifully proving far better for walking than on Day One. The sun was warm enough to dry off the damp clothes I was wearing, without being hot enough to dehydrate me and force me to carry extra water which would add to the weight.
It was at this point as I negotiated a footpath around Grasmere that I was reminded once more of one of the more infuriating laws of walking: No matter how remote your path is, no matter how far away from the marked footpath you venture, no matter how much cover you seek and no matter how carefully you check the horizon for any other walkers, when you need to go to the toilet you can guarantee that just as you reach the point of no return, two spritely walkers in their fifties – one usually a grey-haired woman carrying a walking pole – will emerge from nowhere and walk straight past you. It is inexplicable. But it does seem to be a law as unbending as it is timeless.
With the afternoon pressing, I made the long, arduous ascent past Great Tongue to Grisedale Tarn. On the way up, I bumped into another lone male walker who was planning to camp wild at the tarn. Reaching the vast, remote expanse of water provided me with another highlights. The huge, peaceful tarn in the middle of a fell was bathed in soft late afternoon light, its surface mirror-smooth, and looked absolutely spectacular. Standing gazing at this wonder of nature, surrounded by craggy peaks and inaccessible without the long and strength-sapping stony trek up to Grisedale Hause, is the sort of moment that makes the troubles of everyday life dissolve away as insignificant, and repays in a single moment all the hours of exhausting effort spent reaching it. I was sorely tempted to join the few walkers who had already set up camp on its banks, but was aware there were at least two precious hours of daylight left that should help me reach the goal I had set for day two – Patterdale. The long route down is, like Easedale, a wonderful transition from wild mountain to green pasture. All day, I had been driven on by the promise of a slap-up pub meal in Patterdale to reward me for two days that had been challenging and stretched me to the limit both mentally and physically. However, as I closed in on Patterdale I realised that I was unlikely to make the campsite I had planned on (Side Farm) before the light went, and started looking for somewhere to pitch up just short of the village. It did not concern me too much, as I could compensate by getting up early the next day and knocking off the mile or so to Patterdale before starting out for Shap. Given that I would have already completed what is traditionally four day-long stages in two days and that Day Three was a 17-mile stretch that most C2C-ers do in a day, I expected to be out of the Lakes and into Shap in plenty of time to pitch up in daylight and head off for a delayed pub meal. Three courses. With all the trimmings. It became a fantasy that spurred me oneward.
As daylight faded, I found the picture perfect spot to pitch. It was a pastoral idyll that could have come straight out of a Poussin or a Lorrain; a flat patch under an ancient tree, next to a babbling brook. Apart from a few pesky midges, it was something from a dream. I pitched the tent and cooked up a three-course meal of porridge, veg curry and chocolate sponge to refuel after a second 23-mile day. I also used a bandage to strap up my left leg, which I had noticed starting to hurt earlier in the day. The muscle on the inside of the knee was throbbing sharply, and I hoped a night of rest would help. However, as I lay down in my sleeping bag, the bottom of which was still wet from the previous day, as fell asleep to the soothing sound of the water gurgling just a few feet away, I was confident that the worst was behind me and that I could look forward to the rest of the walk. I was, of course, wrong.
Day Three - Patterdale to Shap
I still felt that optimism as I walked into Patterdale early on Day Three, even though it had been raining as I took down my tent. I got lucky at the Post Office, where the postmistress was inside and sold me a sandwich even though she was not supposed to open for another half-hour. By 8am I was heading out of the village and along yet another stony footpath up a steep hillside to Patterdale Common. The weather was closing in again, however, and the biting wind was cutting through me as I reached Angle Tarn, another stunning remote crystal-clear lake hidden away in the mountains. The water in most of the lakes is safe to drink provided you check for any problems upstream such as dead animals, so from Dent onwards I had been able to refill my bottle from the streams without having to worry about purifying tablets. After Angle Tarn, though, came the first section where I started to genuinely struggle. It involves traversing boggy fell with little for navigation other than a few tumbledown walls, and with the wind howling and my legs aching, I noticed that I was slowing up perceptibly. For the first time, I was passed by a few groups of walkers, who were also heading for Shap on the C2C, but I reminded myself that I had plenty of time to make the town. There was then a walk up to Kidsty Pike, and it was now that the nagging pain in the front of my legs started to grow worse. I was alarmed at how quickly my body was going downhill. I felt a sharp stab halfway up my shin with every footstep. Painkillers did little to help, and of course a rucksack that had weighed 24lb when I set out was now full of wet clothes and camping gear, adding considerably to the load I was carrying. Even at Kidsty Pike, I felt I would be okay and that I could regroup in Shap that evening. However, the long descent from the pike is probably one of the most punishing stretches on the walk, every step jarring my legs and exacerbating whatever problem was causing the pain in my shins. Within a mile, I could barely walk. Each step was a shuffle. I stopped repeatedly to rest, but it did nothing to lessen the pain. And the problem was that the pain was stopping me from walking at any sort of pace. I had suffered from large blisters on the soles of each foot from soon after my socks got wet on day one, and coped with the discomfort. I had also done the C2C twice before, and was familiar with the throbbing pain in your legs and feet that simply comes from the miles and miles of pounding that they undergo. But this felt different, and I was worried. The map showed me that after completing the descent, I had a four-mile walk along the side of Haweswater before I reached Burnbanks, the nearest inhabited place where I could seek any sort of help. From there it was probably another five or so miles at least to Shap, across open fields and moorland, where I could not rely on any help if I got into difficulty, especially if I was flagging and night was closing in. To cap it all, even if I managed to somehow reach Shap, I had a 20-mile trek to Kirkby Stephen the following day and I knew that in the state I was in there was absolutely no chance of completing that either.
I had agreed with my wife before setting out that I would not take any risks, since I was alone, and would ring in regularly. Also, there is little point in doing a walk where you are raising hundreds of pounds for charity, then ending up with a mountain rescue helicopter searching for you at a cost of thousands. It’s just plain irresponsible. My mobile had run out of battery first thing in the morning, so there was no way to contact my wife before Burnbanks (even if there had been a signal), and I ran the risk that if I failed to contact her again she might panic and raise the alarm. I also ran the real risk that unless I got off the fell to safety, I might actually need help to get down because I was deteriorating quickly.
After months of planning and hundreds of pounds invested in kit, after months of excited anticipation, I had a decision to make. The temptation to persevere, to at least get further and give my legs a chance to improve before being forced to abandon the walk, was great. However, I knew my own body well enough to know that a day or two of rest would not heal whatever was causing the pains in my shins. I felt guilty too, that having asked friends and relatives to donate money to charity for my walk, I would be abandoning it just a quarter of the way through. But I knew deep down that it would be futile and irresponsible to go on; that with no hope of actually finishing it could only lead to a risk of finding myself in difficulties in a remote spot, unable to raise the alarm, without anyone there to help me, and needing rescuing.
In fact, I was forced into an instant decision when a group of four locals heading up to Kidsty Pike from the other direction met me head-on. We exchanged a few words, and they asked me how I was getting on. I told them I thought I was going to have to abandon my walk, and they told me that if I could reach their car while they headed up the mountain, they would give me a lift into town to catch a train or find a hotel when they returned in a few hours. I looked again at the alternative – risking a far longer walk just to reach civilisation, never mind the extra distance to Shap - and I knew the decision I had to take. As they headed up to Kidsty Pike, I shuffled down the mountain. Struggling badly, I stopped on the way to lighten my load by pouring away some oats and some water, and eating the savoury cheese sandwich I had bought at the Post Office. At the foot of the mountain, there is a path. To my left, across a pretty little footbridge, was the continuation of the Coast to Coast path around Haweswater; to the right, a path across fields marked the way to a remote car park two miles away where I knew I had a lift to safety. It is ironic that I parted way with the C2C at a spot so idyllic and stunning, and where the lure to continue and drink in more such scenery was so great. Behind the footbridge, cold, crystal-clear water running off mountains cascaded down a spectacular waterfall surrounded by greenery to a pool feeding the lake. But I knew it was time to leave. I said a farewell to Wainwright’s Coast to Coast out loud, vowing to return. Then I turned right.
I have kept the small, grey pebble I picked up on the beach at St Bees. For now, it is a symbol of my failure. But one day I will return to complete the challenge, and toss it it jubilantly into the sea at Robin Hood’s Bay.
