Day 11, Monday Aug. 26, Cambridge House, Reeth

Hiked 11 miles, 107 miles down, 85 miles to go

Today was a lovely day for hiking. The morning started out with low fog in the moorlands but it burned off by 10 am. After hiking about 5 miles to the small village of Gunnerside

we stopped for lunch. We had a packed lunch that our B&B has provided for us and we actually sat at a picnic table and ate. The Stedman guide book that we are using had us take a high route over the moorlands. Two other hiking groups, both Brits, stopped at the same place for lunch and said they were going to take a path along the river. We decided to be brave and try a path that we had no waypoint for and no description.

It turned out to be a fairly good choice. It was a longer route which meant that we ended up walking 14 miles today. Most of the way the trail today was much easier on the feet. We walked on a lot of grass in pastures and soft dirt along the river.

There were two times I didn't like the trail. The first was when it went on top of a rock wall. The wall was about six feet off the ground. It was wide enough but it sure seemed like a ways up if one were to fall. The second place was when the path by the river just ended and that was a very steep scramble up a 30 to 40 ft. cliff to the road above the river. Kathy went up first. About half way up I said to Kathy, "I can't do this." She calmly replied, "Nancy, you can do this." I made it to the top but my legs were shaking. Our guide book said the hike today would take 4&1/2 hours. We took 8 hours. We know we are slow hikers but the guide book seems to think hikers go lots faster than we do. We followed the Swaledale Valley (pix above) all day and the views were wonderful. There were many tight squeezes through rock walls and many stiles to step over on all paths we have taken.

Today we talked with several hikers who had gone over the bogs yesterday and all said it was challenging. Their reports confirmed that we made a wise decision to hike the road. Here's a British to American translation of map terms: Beck = Stream, Dale = Valley, Fell = Mountain, Force/Foss = Waterfall, Garth = Enclosure, Ghyll/Gill = Ravine, Hause = Narrow neck of land, Ness = Headland, Pike = Peak, Rigg = Ridge, Scar = Bare Rocky cliff or crag, Tarn = Lake, and Thwaite = Clearing or meadow. Each day I am thankful for such a good hiking partner. We have an agreement that there are no apologies for going slow, stopping to adjust packs, tend to feet, or to eat, drink and rest. We just keep plugging along the way. - Nancy