After overnighting in Sheffield with old University friend Peter and his wife Lynn, I took the late morning local train to Edale, start of the Pennine Way.
It was strange standing again on the platform of Sheffield Railway Station - I'd last let from there almost 40 years ago.
Pete had found it amusing that my boots were already causing me tendon problems just walking from the bus stop to his house. Not a good omen.
WARNING PARTS OF THIS BLOG CAN BE VERY GLOOMY!
(Thats what 14 out of 17 days mostly walking in the rain does)
After a quick tour of the Edale Visitor Centre I set off on the PW in good spirits, but wondering if anyone else was on the Pennine Way today, expecting it to be if not crowded, certainly not deserted. As I left I only just remembered to fill my water bottles but forgot to sign or even look at the Visitors Book at the Old Nags Head, the acknowledged start of the PW.
In reasonably good weather I fell into step with a Nick and Emma and their young labrador. Nick, a vet, and Emma were doing a circular day walk from Edale and so I had interesting company for the first few hours that included climbing the famous 'Kinder Scout.' Given the knowledgeable company and the clear route made obvious by the flagstones, navigation was not a problem.
At the top of Kinder Nick and Emma took the circular route back to Edale and I pushed on to Kinder Downfall. It was then the weather began to close in.
Half an hour later and now walking alone I reached a cairn with two ambiguous Public Footpath symbols I took to be National Trail symbols (one pointing northwest the other northeast) set into a rock. Then the rain hit. Since the northwest path was paved and the northeast path apparently not I chose the northwest path.
Half an hour later I sensed I was off course, in spite of the well-defined paved path. In the driving rain I searched in my backpack for my compass and guide book and cursed not having prepared better earlier. My hands were now so cold I could barely use them and I was saturated. My Goretex waterproof was not standing up to the task. I cursed the rain and cursed not having figured out earlier how to interpret the GPS display of OS map coordinates or even re-honed my compass and map reading skills.
I returned to the cairn in low spirits wondering how I could have been so ill prepared, and hoping someone else would come along to confirm the correct route and just keep me company.
After discarding the thought of erecting my tent to shelter from the storm I decided to press on along the northwest path, to find it too stone paved from just over the brow of the hill. Once back on track my sprits lifted, although my tendons were now really starting to hurt where the boots cut across them.
I spent the remainder of the day trudging alone across a soulless peat bog landscape and finally arrived at Crowden at 6pm.
I expected Crowden to be a village with a pub, but it only offered a Youth Hostel - YHA (full with a school party) and campsite. So I set up my tent in the rain and amused myself as best I could and chatted to a couple of men cycling the Trans Pennine Cycle Way. Two hours after I arrived the two lads who'd set off before me from Edale arrived. They'd made a similar mistake to me but it had taken them much longer to realise. I felt some sense of vindication. Bot older, wiser and better equipped I should have known better.
