Day 1 14.9km, 708m ascent, 5 hours 5 minutes The Old Nag's Head, Edale I set off from Edale at 1.10pm after a rather unpleasant baked potato with cheese and beans at the Old Nag’s Head.  I am only surprised I didn’t have a stroke whilst still eating it, given the amount of salt the cook had added. The nastiness of lunch was soon forgotten in the fabulous walking weather as I crossed the fields to Upper Booth.  Sunny spells, interrupted only by lovely white fluffy cumulus clouds which scudded across the sky.  Have you noticed that clouds always ‘scud’ a ..read more

"And in the darkest hours of urban depression, I will sometimes take out that dog's eared map, and dream awhile of more spacious days; and perhaps a dried blade of grass will fall out of it to remind me that I was once a free man on the hills." Arthur Hugh Sidgwick, Walking Essays, 1912   Edale, Derbyshire I want to tell you a story.  It is about how I set off to walk the Pennine Way but didn’t get very far.  It is the sorry tale of a man who has lost his ‘mojo’ for what has been his passion for 48 of his 62 years.  Walking in the hills.  But do not desp ..read more

Trailstar Party Time: Philbrick, Dr Fagan and Captain Grimes “I expect you’ll becoming a school master, sir. That’s what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behaviour”.   (The college porter to the naive Paul Pennyfeather as Paul departed Oxford after wrongly being sent down for running around the quad naked at night, having previously been de-bagged by the Bollinger Club following their annual dinner.) From 'Decline and Fall', by Evelyn Waugh. Wot? Why not smiling? In Glen Roy Paul Pennyfeather reflected.  Not for the first t ..read more

It is gratifying when a person who appears to be a caricature of someone straight out of the 1860s (ie Jacob Rees-Mogg) publicises something that someone straight out of the 1760s (ie Fellbound) has been moaning about for years – the use of ridiculous or imprecise language and the abuse of grammar.  I do not, incidentally, claim to be an expert on grammar.  As a child of the 1960s I was not taught grammar in any formal sense apart from in Latin and Greek lessons.  Thus, I make no claims to grammatical expertise, what with English speakers not being Romans or Ancient Greeks. Bu ..read more

(With unashamed plagiarism of the great Evelyn Waugh's first novel) Four men of revolting appearance were approaching from the glen. They were low of brow, crafty of eye and crooked of limb. They advanced with the loping tread of wolves, peering about them furtively as they came, as though in constant terror of ambush; they slavered at their mouths, which hung loosely over their receding chins, while each shouldered on his ape like back a burden of curious and unaccountable shape. On seeing the ultralight American backpacking vloggers they halted and hedged back, those behind squinting and m ..read more

Day 16 Byrness to Auchope Mountain Refuge Hut 29.6km, 1106 metres ascent, 9 hours 40 minutes The Cheviots: great walking country For those not too au fait (notice my linguistic skills there?) with the Pennine Way, the final stretch from Byrness to Kirk Yetholm can be somewhat problematic. It’s about 40km with a fair amount of climbing both up and along the Cheviots. Only very strong walkers can do it in a single day, but there is no settlement or accommodation along this high level section. If backpacking with a tent you are at an advantage here, although finding water can be an issue ..read more

Sorting my TGOC Supplies I did something very nerdy yesterday.  Whilst I was sorting the food I plan to take on the forthcoming TGO Challenge I checked on the calorific content of a typical day’s supplies.  I have never done this before and was quite shocked by what I found.  I knew that on longer backpacking trips such as the TGOC I would usually lose a bit of weight (perhaps no bad thing in my case), and so was consuming less than I was burning off, but was surprised at just how large my calorie deficit must be over several long days of carrying a pack. In ..read more

Day 13 Knarsdale to Twice Brewed 25.9 km, 740 metres ascent, 8 hours 30 minutes The Pennine Way follows the Roman vallum (ditch) after Greenhead golf course: clearly this bit isn't walked much As I write, autumn is not doing that romantic "season of mist and mellow fruitfulness" stuff. Rather, it is doing the less poetic and more typical, "season of grey cloud and occasional drizzleyness". This is not helpful when reflecting back on the leg of the Pennine Way from Knarsdale, which is thought by many to be the most dreary of the whole 270 miles.  Actually, in my opinion it wasn ..read more

Slater's Bridge, Little Langdale: A Delight The Pre-Walk Daunder (PWD) took place this week. For those not in the know this is the world’s premier backpacking event, which takes place each year a few weeks before the world’s second best backpacking event, the cross-Scotland TGO Challenge. The PWD was the brain child of two shadowy figures of the backpacking world, Lord Elpus and Alan Sloman, the latter also being known as ‘The Stringpuller’ by those whose strings have been pulled. These two worked tirelessly to ensure that this year’s event was a success. The Stringpuller telep ..read more

I gave up using Twitter in March. How’s it been?  Great.  Try it!  Even for a short break.  I’m convinced it’s been good for both my mental and physical health.  It has meant not being drawn into pointless or superficial arguments or discussions about politics, and stuff such as whether cats are cleverer than dogs (they aren’t), or whether Showaddywaddy was the classiest band in the history of Rock and Roll (it was). There are downsides to not being a Twitter user. I do wonder what my Twitter friends are up to – but then I have the mobile numbers of many of them, an ..read more