Il Falcone

Today is our planned hiking day out of Bellagio. We catch the ferry over to Menaggio, get a taxi up to Breglia, and away we go. Our goal is Mt. Grona, 1736 meters. And there’s a rifugio about 30-60 minutes from the top. It’s a nice hike up, but hot. On our path we cross the hair-pinned road a few times. We pass by the upper houses of Breglia, we see lots of cool mushrooms along the way. We all lick the bright red mushrooms and start to hallucinate and Danny turns into a bird. Just kidding.

We pound the water and then finally hit the hut, which has no water. We have a great lunch of cheese, bread, olives, salami, some candy, some PBJ. Then we make our decision for the top. We’re slightly worried about the water situation. Supposedly the top is 60 minutes away. Figure 2 hours for round trip, we have about 1/3 of our total water left. Jayne decides to chill at the hut, and Dan/April/peter decide to go anyway. After 5 minutes there’s a fork. There’s a Via Direttissima route (direct route, straight up) and the sign indicates it’s only 30 minutes. And there’s a Via Normala route that’s longer, one hour, it curves to the right to a saddle then ascends Grona from the north. Dan’s excited about the Direttissima, April prefers the saddle route. We split up, Dan goes alone, and I accompany April up the normal route. The other factor was the clouds had rolled in and we were uncertain of the view.

Away we go.

April and I make the saddle in about 20 minutes, slightly ahead of schedule. A few minutes later we see Dan at the top. And we hear him talking to the camera as he’s decided to film himself at the top. He seemed to be enjoying himself up there, as he filmed us sitting down at the saddle. At the top, Dan meets two Italian climbers who asked him about the Direttissima route down. Dan explained it to them and told them it was only 30 minutes. Dan loves to give trail information. I know the feeling. Now the other thing is when Dan’s hiking alone, he really pushes it. You can hear his little hiking poles going click, click, click with each step. He averages around 4/mph which is really really fast.

Anyway we had no views because of the clouds so we sat there and waited for Dan to come down to us, we could see him descending our way. So we all head down, it goes quickly. We get back to Jayne in about 20 minutes, she had taken a little nap. About 5 minutes later the two Italians pull in to the rifugio. They don’t speak any English, but they’re very surprised that Dan made it down the longer way faster than they did on the Direttissima.

Now here comes what turns out to be a key moment in Dan’s life. I mean super important.

The Italian waves his wings and declares Dan must be like Il Falcone.

Dan gives a little smile, then it really starts to sink in. He’s not “smoky pants” anymore, he’s a freaking Falcon!

So a little history is necessary to understand this incident and all that follows. When people hike the Appalachian Trail the whole way, they’re called “through-hikers”. And many of the though-hikers get trail names; examples half-gallon, rainman, the coyote, cascades girl, whatever. So when Dan and his kids did the NH portion of the AT, his kids gave him then trail name of “smoky pants”. That’s because he was pouring lots of Gold Bond down his pants to prevent jock rash, and when he walked, little clouds of talc powder would sometimes puff out of his pants. Nice.

Ok, so here he is in the Alps, soaring over the mountains, and now he’s become Il Falcone.

And just so you know, Dan decides he’s not just Il Falconi. He’s IIIIIIIL FAAAALLCCOOOOONNEEEE!!!!!! He takes to pronouncing it with a low guttural drawn out snarl. It takes him about 5 seconds to get it all out. It sounds like he’s being introduced as a professional wrestler. Now weighing at in 147 pounds from Manchester, NH,, IIIILL FAALLCCOOOONNEEE!

Often it’s followed up with a low villainous smirky ripple of HE-HE-HE. So just a new trail name would be fine. In fact we’re all happy for him. Who wants to be known as smoky pants?

Furthermore in a moment of deep Buddhist insight I had given myself an occasional nickname of PEM for his trip. The E standing for equanimous. The M for Mark. None of us can quite figure out what happened to the S. But anyway in moments of stress when we need pure unadulterated equanimity, I become PEM, the level-headed one without any cravings or aversions.

Well now Dan had a really cool name, Il Falcone. Like I said, that’s good.

But then he proceeded to ride that thing like there was no tomorrow! Dan had disappeared. Il Falcone was everywhere, in every sentence, as only Dan or maybe POC can hammer home when they get locked on to a phrase.

Il falcone is soaring over the mountains.

Il Falcone doesn’t need stairs he’ll fly up them.

Il falcone will scratch your eyes out with his talons.

Il Falcone’s people will take care of the connections in Milan.

Il Falcone doesn’t need food.

Are you talking to Il Falcone?

Il Falcone will swoop down on you if you don’t watch out.

Il Falcone is talking to some people about the movie rights.

Il Facone will be getting a new Falcon tattoo.

We’re eating breakfast on the piazza and there’s Il Falcone outside the glass wall waving his wings. I’m not making this up.

Of course he’s now referring to himself in the third person.

And it doesn’t just end there, it seem he’s adopting this persona in more dimensions. Perhaps by night he becomes a stiletto specialista who works night jobs out of Marseille? Maybe it’s the Europe thing, he’s hanging around the train station with his dark glasses on looking every inch a spymaster from a John le Carre novel.

Sigh.

We all threaten to pound him if he keeps it up but of course there’s no stopping him, he’s past being on a roll, he’s a new man.

I expect you’ll be seeing big changes in the man previously known as Dan O’Connor when he returns to his old life in Manchester.

Dan O’Connor is long gone.

Il Falcone will be returning.

Perhaps he won’t even use the plane for his return journey?

PS – It is a pretty cool name.

PEM.

Varenna, Lake Como

Time to head to Varenna and Bellagio to hang out with the Beautiful People for some R+R on Lake Como. We board the train in venice, we bought first class tickets for the large seats, it was only a few bucks more. We see we’re on compartment #2, it’s the first train section we see, so we jump on, find our seats, there’s a guy in one of them, we think about kicking him out but instead we all sit in a 4-pack of seats, we figure if we get kicked out then we’ll kick him out. But for now we’ll cut him some slack. Some more people board and also sit in our reserved seats. Hmm. Finally it dawns on us, maybe we’re in the wrong compartment. Then we realize that big #2 on the outside was not the compartment number, but an indicator for second-class. Wangsters! We haul off our luggage and rush down to the first class compartments just in time before the train leaves.

We get to Milan. The Milan train station is awesome, it’s huge and imposing; I think it was built by the Fascists, it certainly looks that way. Then we board the train to Varenna. Jayne has this monstrous green suitcase that takes two people to get it into the overhead rack, and then it sticks out about 1/3 of its width. So we man-handle it up there and take a nice ride along Lake Como up to Varenna. The train stops and Dan and I engage in hand-hand combat to get Big Green down, and some old buck is signaling us to hurry up. April pushes past me and leads the way off, and as she’s getting off, the doors start to close. Dan sneaks out with Big Green, I grab the doors before they close, push them open again and fight my way out, and then they close and there’s Jayne stuck on the train. She has no money, no ID, no idea where she is or where the train might be going. She’s got this dumb ass, hopeless and stunned look on her face as she realizes if this train pulls out, she might never see us again! Ha-ha. So I grab the door again and she and I pull them open a small amount. She struggles through and jumps off right as the train pulls out. We all get a good laugh and Jayne realizes she better start carrying some money at least.

We taxi to our hotel; it used to be an old monastery ½ way up the hillside slightly out of town. April made sure we got the highest rooms, and we have to take two funiculars and an elevator just to get up to our rooms. I use my room chit, even though we just stay in my assigned room. These are fantastic rooms. It’s like we’re in an Falcon’s nest (a little foreshadowing here) overlooking the lake/town.

Varenna is very small. Not much to do. But the area is so beautiful and peaceful and romantic, you easily fall into a pattern of just chilling. Katie and Adam spent a week of their honeymoon here; and from what I understand they didn’t go on any hikes or anything, they probably focused on the “romantic” aspect of the area! We were hoping that AMORE pixie dust settled on us too!!!

The next day we took a ferry a few miles north to Belluno and had a hike planned back to our village on the Sentiere Vendante, an ancient walking path that stays about 100-200 meters above the water. Since it’s Varenna we got off to a late start, we hit Belluno about 12:30 to start the hike, but as Dan scouted for the start of the walk, April and Jayne found a small hidden Trattoria in a back alley that was filled with Italians having their Sunday lunch. No Americans in there. No Rick Steves books in sight. Of course we had to try it. At first an old lady indicated we needed reservations, but we weren’t buying it since there were open tables. So we just stood there and when she realized we weren’t leaving she decided to set us a table. Dan seems a little anxious but the rest of us were psyched. We sat there for awhile as the staff figured out who was going to deal with the Americanos, but finally one women took up the challenge. There was no written menu, the waitress just described items to us. She brought us a sample of the darker pasta. It was fantastic, April, Jane and I all ordered pasta dishes as Primis, I had some red wine, we had salads, then we got a shared fish platter. All superb. Dan didn’t even eat as he felt we had been eating about 2X the amount of food we needed over the past few days. He was probably only slightly off in his observation.

So we finally close down the Trattoria and hit the trail about 3:00. Sort of a late start. The waitress’s little girl walks us a few blocks to show us the start of the trail, we go uphill for about 10 minutes the realize we’re walking right into a Pumpkin festival at the top of the village. Sweet! They’re weighing huge pumpkins. It’s like a mini-Glendi. April smells some pumpkin doughnuts, of course we have to have some. I buy some tickets, April waits in the food line, and we sit and enjoy the noise, music, the people, the view. Dan is sort of like a bird with his wings clipped (again some foreshadowing), he thought he was going on a hiking vacation in Europe, and it seems to have transformed into a food tour. Did he forget he was traveling with the Jayne and Peter?

We briefly discuss heading down to catch the boat back to Varenna, but no, we stick to the hike. It was really nice. A beautiful old path winding through the hills along the coastline. We get to the castle above Varenna, it’s 5:45 PM and only have 15 minutes to tour the site, but we get a discount on the tickets. As we rush in, we turn a corner, I was in the lead, I figure there’s no one behind us, so I let out a gigantic fart. I mean this was a real world-class explosion; loud, resonant, impactful. The kind that seems to project a slight shock-wave. Unbeknownst to me some prim, nicely dressed, middle-aged Italian women had forgotten her kid’s jackets in the castle so she had rushed up behind us and settled into our little line of travelers. Well I guess that was a bit of a shock for that poor women, instantly she split off the path to the right, D/J/A all fell onto a stone wall squealing like kids in school where you have to laugh and the teacher’s pissed and you’re trying to hold it in but you can’t. Ha-ha!

Author’s comment here: it may seem like there’s a surprising amount of commentary on food and farts in this Blog, but what did you expect from the son of Nick Spiro?

That night we got back so late and had eaten so much we cancelled our reservations we had at a nice restaurant and the boys went for pizza to-go while the girls slept. We woke them up, fed them some pizza, then tucked them again for a good night’s sleep! Pretty much true.

Our last day in Varenna we just chilled, walked around, Dan took a few work calls, we napped, did some internet and thought about our dinner meal. If we’re not hiking we’re mostly eating or planning our next meal. We had reservations at La Vista, supposed to be very nice; in fact as we sat down Dan felt he had to give a little lecture to the group about how nice the setting was and this certainly was not the kind of place where we could be gassing up. It was on a beautiful terrace, superb meal, more creative and sophisticated than the regular Trattorias. We had a delicious goose pate and arugula salad, minestrone soup, some pesto/cottage cheese raviolis, and I had a brilliant osso bucco with risotto, best risotto of the trip so far. Then we had desserts/tea; about ½ of the people still remained, it was just a magical evening and setting, the lights were twinkling, everyone was immensely pleased with their meal, their company, the chef, the waiters; the quintessential romantic, serene after-dinner glow. Then RIIIIP, sure enough someone at our table blows a huge fart. The entire terrazzo halts their conversation, there’s that nervous quiet pause, the magic is shattered.

Ok so who’s the culprit? I’m sure if the readers had to place money on this question, 90% would place it on either Peter or Jayne. But no, they’d be wrong, the Spiros were clean. April? Sure she’s had some problems controlling all her body functions. But demure little April at such a wonderful spot? Nope, not a chance. She knows to wait for the walk home. Yup, you guessed it, Mr. Let-Me-Warn-Everyone himself, Dan O’C, for some reason thought he was letting out a little puffer, when out came a dragon’s roar. Dan seemed thoroughly surprised, then tried to argue that no one heard it; many of the patrons began to leave at that point. Sigh. Anyway it was right then that we taught Dan, and the entire group, the usually reliable cough and fart trick. When it’s well executed the simultaneous cough will usually mask almost any fart. Of course there’s always the danger of a swing and a miss, the cough coming too early or late for the retort. Beginners sometimes have this problem. Anyway we instituted the new cough rules that evening. So far it’s been working pretty well. Although sometimes Jayne seems to go into a coughing fit as she tried to cover up a prolonged sequence.

Well enough of that. The next day we headed out to Bellagio, the Pearl of Lake Como.

Up next Il Falcone.

Lost again!

So we have a few days in Cortina. We’re all happy to be in the quintessential Alp-style village. There are patisseries, cafes, little shops; it’s sweet.

As we walk around the town we find a few fashion-oriented outdoor stores. You know the places that focus more on snazzy outfits than real mountaineering gear. Dan buys a “North Face Cortina” shirt. So now he’s got a couple of Dolomiti hikes under his belt, he’s got his new North Face t-shirt, so he’s feeling more and more like The Man. Then we find the real deal, the Italian Guiding Association headquarters, where all the tough alpine guys hangout for discussing weather, routes, etc. You need a guide for a 5.10 grade pitch directly up Tre Cime? This is where you come. Soon we find Dan lingering out front giving advice to tourists and newbies who come walking into the shop. April thought I was obnoxious giving advice on the Coast-Coast but Dan quickly moves beyond that stage of “know-it-all”. He sees the people later in the town and he’s still giving them advice! Ha-ha!

Next day we head out after a late start (some great bakeries) to hike around the Tre Cime (3 awesome spires right in a row).

As before Dan is the Pilot, I’m the co-pilot, Navigator. Now before I get to the full story here, let it be known we had squat for maps. We had one of the hand-drawn ski area type of maps, nothing to scale, no detail. It turns out April had the right map but it was in her pack in the trunk, why? I have no idea. We manage to find the right road out of town and head to Misurina. We get to Misurina, perfect. We’re feeling pretty good about the driving and the navigating. Now we’re looking for Rifugio Arunzo, after which there should be a toll road right to the Tre Cime. We come to a fork, it’s not a stop sign, we’re still moving, we see a sign in front of us, the top two entries pointing left are Austria and Dobbiaco. Certainly we didn’t want to go there. The bottom sign says Arunzo. I say, “go right”. Dan has already started turning that way. Hmm, complicit in the key moment? Now we’re feeling good.

So I start to tell a story from the book Outliers. And this story is about plane crashes, how they’re a series of small errors, and how in certain cultures which don’t speak up and question authority (eg Korean) the small errors can add up, and then the accident happens. Then the story morphs into listening and leadership and how you need good training, and of course we’re having a grand old time. Well it turns out we were doing exactly what I was describing in my story. We had a series of small indicators that would clearly show we’re on the wrong path but we never even noticed! Our road had started to go downhill, but we should have been going uphill to some high peaks. The road straightened out when we should have hit hairpin turns. We hit a lake and a stream heading downhill our way. Our little excursion seemed to be going much further than we had anticipated. So who knows, maybe the story was so great, maybe we were enjoying the ride so much, maybe we were relying on the Pilot or the Navigator too much, maybe we liked the scenery too much. Whatever. We finally hit a fairly large town, Arunzo, this is good, right? We merrily drive thru looking for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We even saw a street called Tre Cime, but that wouldn’t be the turnoff, too small, we weren’t going to be fooled into taking that turn. Finally we’re almost out of town and we decide to stop. Dan, being the linguist, jumps out and asks some old guy for the turnoff to Tre Cime. We see the guy gesturing, pointing, lots of words and body and face movements (the Italians can’t just talk with their mouths). Dan comes back and informs us we’re 30 Kilometers past our turnoff. The mountains are back there, we’re down in the valley. What!! A 30KM mistake. Yikes. At first it seemed like the old guy must be wrong, but he was very certain.

We think a bit, study the maps again, and feeling foolish, yet enjoying our mistake immensely, we head back. And as we head back we notice all the hints and indicators that we were way off track. No skillz. Now dear readers, as you can imagine, as the Navigator I took a ton of shit on that 30KM ride back to the fateful intersection. And yes once again, I could literally feel the LOOK boring into my head from my darling wife who sat directly behind me. And as you might imagine, lots of it I reflected back on the Pilot, because after all when a plane crashes nobody mentions the co-pilot. The buck has to stop somewhere. And then there was the Overall Tour Leader, April, who hadn’t really supplied us with the right tools (maps) for the job. Jayne for the most part came out unscathed, after all she hadn’t directed us to a bad bakery had she?

We finally make it back, head towards Austria (who knew!), find the toll road and 15 minutes from the key sign we’re up at Tre Cime. Nice. It’s about a 12:00 start.

There are some clouds and the peaks are in and out. We head out on our circuit. Lots of people but they thin out. We eat our lunches of PBJ, chips, snickers. All delicious. After about another hour we hit a refugio for some tea and cake. The crowds really thin because it’s so late and we have the last section all to ourselves. Wonderful. Good thing we got lost earlier in the day. The Tre Cime are stunning. So cool. And as usual we see all sorts of war remnants. And we even see a German army patrol out for some cave work. This is the second time we’ve seen them. It’s weird. At least we think they’re Germans as they have the German flag on their arm/uniform. Hey maybe they’re still pissed they lost this area.

We get back to Cortina. Have our best meal of the trip so far at Beppe Sello, a small, quaint, expensive, Tyrolean restaurant. I was sort of going vegetarian, but managed to eat lamb, prosciutto, and even beef. Sigh. It was all delicious. Dan’s prosciutto and melon was superb. We walk back to our hotel and as has become our custom after a meal, we immediately start farting like madmen. We can’t quite figure out what the story is here. The altitude (Dan’s claim), the rich food, the cream, who knows? All I know is we leave this classy place and it’s like an oompah band marching down the street blasting away. April has to fall to her knees to stop from peeing her pants while laughing. Jayne and April then jump into the bushes as they have to pee. Is this really what it’s supposed to be like for successful, mature, sophisticated 50-something couples after a grand meal? Do other people do this?

Ok, back to hiking. Next day we do another great day hike. Here we drive north, we don’t get lost, we head uphill thru the woods and streams and start our hike at a small rifugio. The waiter has an Alta t-shirt on, so we chat him up. Last winter he spent 6 months in the western USA skiing at Baker, Whistler, Red Mtn, Tahoe, Alta/Snowbird and Mammoth. I impress him with my magnificent fall down Hangman’s Hollow at Mammoth. The hike is great and different since we’re walking thru the woods up to a grassy high meadow. Beautiful larch and pine trees. Dan takes a swim in the tarn. We head down into rain. But it stops as we finish the last few miles. Another fantastic hike. As the Tour Guide April has been hitting homeruns. Both in hikes and hotels.

We go to a smaller Trattoria, Ariston Pizzeria, for dinner. It’s fantastic. Awesome pizza, spaghetti.

This is our last night in the Dolomiti. We all agree this is a world-class place. A must see destination. Worthy of a return trip even. We’re happy we did the Cortina side rather than Bolzano. Rick Steves plays up Bolzano and we’re starting to realize all the Americans are following Rick Steves books.

We drive to Venice, return the car, get the train to Milan and Varenna. We’re hitting the Lakes district for some R+R.

The Dolomiti

It’s hard to imagine two places so close, so distinct, and so different from each other as Venice and the Dolomites. In the course of ~2 hours you’re transported to a totally different world.

Details….

We needed a rental car in Venice, as we were going to drive to the Dolomiti. This was Dan’s one assignment for the Euro trip. April pretty much planned and reserved the whole trip, I painted the big picture then did a lot of second guessing (often times after something was booked), Jayne thought about food, cheese, gelato and bathrooms. And Dan was supposed to get the rental car. So Dan and Jane head off to NY to start their journey and realize they have no idea about anything they’re supposed to be doing, their dates, their reservations, their confirmations, nothing. And Dan has the car rental thing hanging over his head. He remembered reserving something but hadn’t forward the info to April. So he had no confirmation number or anything. And as they look thru their Rick Steve’s Italy book on their flight to NY, Dan reads he’ll need an International Driver’s License. So their whole trip started with a good bit of fear, uncertainty and doubt. Nice way to start your Euro vacation.

But as luck would have it, of course they had his reservation. And this being Italy they didn’t need no stinkin International drivers license. Heck they didn’t even ask for any driver’s license. The Italians don’t seem that focused on efficiency or details. Venice has a huge number of people pouring in via the train station, and there’s one window to buy tickets. Life’s good, why worry.

Dan got his nice little smart BMW, all our gear fit, Dan was the Pilot/driver, I was the Navigator. Away we go, we find our way out of Venice get on the Toll highway and head towards the mountains. We hit the toll booth, it’s not manned, there were some signs about TelePasses, the car in front of us seemed to drive right thru the toll gate, so Dan decides it must be fine for him to drive right through also. Who knows, perhaps he thought he had that EZ Pass that worked in NH, so maybe that should have him covered here? Maybe he thought the BMW had some hidden transceiver that would automatically get billed? Maybe he thought, this in Italy, they don’t care about tolls? Now the rest of us all yelled, “hey there’s the ticket in the machine - take it!” The Pilot slowed slightly about 20 feet past the toll gate, but Pilots need to have confidence, be cocky; backing up on the highway back to the toll gate didn’t seem to be in character with the Pilot and his snazzy little BMW, so after the slightest hesitation, away we sped. Ticketless.

Of course we all had a good laugh, then settled down to worry about our impending fate 100 KM distant. Actually Dan worried; the rest of us continued to have a good laugh.

The plains gave way to hills and then very quickly huge mountains. A really quick transition.

And then we come to the toll booth. What’s it going to be? A German/Austrian shakedown, or the Italian “Ciao”, why worry?

As we were still in the Italian part of Italy, of course we got the Italian response. Dan meekly tried to describe in his butchered 4-language technique (german, Italian, French, English) that he came from Venice but didn’t have a pass; the Italian didn’t even blink, took his money, gave him the change, gave him a Ciao and away we go. Who really cares about the rules?

Well it turns out, in about 30 more minutes every cares about the rules, as the Dolomites are more like Germany and Austria rather than Italy.

The Dolomiti (Italian spelling) are sort of a slightly separate mtn range from the rest of the Alps. There’s more sun and better weather. And they’re made up of a unique sedimentary rock called Dolomite (hence the name), Dolomite is similar to Limestone, but it has a reddish color in there, and they are shaped and weather slightly differently than the traditional Alps. Hence the wonderful glow in the morning/evening, and the amazing shapes. Whatever, the scenery is freaking crazy. Really fantastic. Amazing spires and towers everywhere you look.

And as for history, the area is way more German/Austrian than Italian. German seems to be the first language. The region was in the Hapsburg Austrian Empire for ~300 years, but in WW1, the Austrians lost the area to the Italians. Mussolini tried to culturally convert the locals, but they all wanted to stay German. In 1939 the locals were given a choice, they had a 6 month window where they could move north into Germany or they could stay Italian in the Dolomiti in Italy. 85% (212,000 people) made the decision to move! But WWII broke out and only 75000 had made the move and the rest were stuck in Italy. After the war the Allies kept the prewar land ownership so the area stayed Italian.

That being said, you think you’re in Austria/Switzerland. Beautiful alpine meadows, the same mtn huts, the same alpine house architecture, flower boxes on all the houses, food is wurst, sauerkraut, dumplings, speck, lot of meat dishes, strudel, beer. People hiking in leather hiking shorts and jaunty hats with a feather poking out. Pure Austrian.

We get to our first Mtn Hotel. It’s gorgeous, decorated in a mountain fashion (goat heads here, cukoo clock there, some pretty alpine prints and paintings, etc, etc). And the place is stunningly clean. I mean not a speck of dust on anything, and there’s all sorts of knick-knacks everywhere. I didn’t even know how a place could even get so clean. All four of us agree this is the cleanest place we’ve ever seen. I felt I had to take a shower just to get myself up to the standard of the hotel!

So who checks us in? Igor. Yes that’s right Igor. I ask for Wifi and Igor firmly states, “ THERE IS NO INTERNET HERE”. I’m reminded of the Terminator. Since Wifi was advertised on their web site and just for fun I ask on the second day for Internet again, maybe it works in the front café area? Igor gets pissed and says “I told you yesterday, THERE IS NO INTERNET HERE”. When we leave a few days later Dan says to Igor, we’ll be back with our kids, and since I‘m Greek and always like a little argument here and there, I suggest to Igor that he get Internet for the Hotel by the time I return. Dan seems a little embarrassed.

Ok - the hiking. Just amazing. From our hotel, we see this refugio (mountain hut) way up high, sitting impossibly on the edge of this cliff. Who the hell would build something up there? The crazy Germans/Austrians, that’s who. But these huts are great, they’re in the most ridiculous, wonderful, gorgeous places. Fantastic mtn and hiking culture. We hiked up to the refugio for lunch. It turned out to be closing but they still had tea/snacks. Jane felt good as she got her first real hiking of the trip under her belt and saw that all her Mt. Uncanoonic training was paying off. The scenery was mind-blowing. None of us had ever seen such outrageous shapes. Everywhere we looked it seemed like were in the Lord of the Rings staring at Mordor.

The next day we drove down the valley and up another pass to take a tram up to our Refugio Lagazuoi. April closed her eyes the whole ride up. It reminded me of the tram at Big Sky. This was a real mtn hut, great big deck out front for awesome coffee/beer and sitting. We hiked along a large escarpment and cliff edge. This whole area was the scene of lots of fighting between the Austrians and the Italians in WWI. The remnants are insane. Seriously. First of all there are these tunnels and paths going all through and over the mtns. You can go into the tunnels. You need a head lamp and a helmet. The walls, barbed wire, trenches, fortifications, are all over the place. It’s essentially an open-air museum where you can go and do/touch everything. In the States all the access would be scrupulously managed and monitored. Here you can hike thru the tunnels. In this particular mountain top, the Austrians held the peaks and the Italians held the lower portion of the mountain. And the Italians essentially carved out all these tunnels directly up to the Austrian fortifications. Then they took turns firing and throwing bombs at each other. And neither side could oust the other side. Freaking crazy. It’s out in the middle of nowhere. It probably didn’t matter to anyone strategically. It must have been miserable in the winter especially. Just freaking crazy. This was the kind of thing that made you question the human race.

So it must have been hell fighting a war in here, but the hiking is fantastic.

We hike out the next day. To make the day longer, we decide to try a longer route, the 20b, that goes thru a steep looking pass. Not really a pass but somehow a passage thru these spires and cliffs. We couldn’t quite see how the trail was going to succeed but we headed that way anyway. And we made a planning mistake; that is we didn’t have a plan. Remember from the C-C the old adage: “plan the hike, hike the plan.” Well we had no real plan. We head down a valley to the cliffs, staring at the seemingly impossible route. We get to the base of the cliff. The girls are getting nervous. The trail markers fade away, and the trail seems to go both left and right. Dan scouts left, I scout right. My route has a bushwhack up a scree slope or looks like it’s the old trail back to the rifugio. Dan’s is the right trail, he disappears after crossing a steep scree slope. The girls decide they’re too anxious to even cross the steep scree slope. Dan comes back and say it’s steep, slightly tricky but overall looks ok but by that time the girls had psyched themselves out. Wanksters. Then there was the big long discussion of should we split up, how much food did we have, etc, etc. We all decided to stick together and return the easy way and head down. Sigh.

Now if we had created a plan of: ‘just keep hiking until the next 10 steps look impossible, then we all turn back’, then we probably could have done it. The problem was the girls thought it might get too hard even though they never actually saw it get too hard. Whatever.

So we hiked down to our car and headed down to Cortina which was to be our base for the next 3 days. Cortina is where they had the 1956 Olympics. It’s a gorgeous setting. Beautiful alpine meadow, small little village center, some high-end shopping, nice restaurants, beautiful houses/fields/gardens spreading out from the town center. Vast mountain groups everywhere we look. Great place for a few days. And not too many American tourists around. Nice.

Venice

We’re on the train from Venice to Milan, and Jayne just ate about a freaking pound of gorgonzola. Based on past experience this will make for an interesting day.

But to catch up….

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ll have fewer blog entries from here on out. When we were doing the C-C hike, it was really easy to get into a routine, hike, arrive, shower, eat, blog, sleep. So blog/day. But now there’s more going on. More traveling, surprising - but less internet access, more wild and crazy nights as we hit the Euro dance clubs, yea baby!

After the hike we had a few days in London. We walked thru Boroughs market, it was fantastic. Wide variety of products including many different meats. And a lot of the natural organic and wild products came from the Lakes district where we had just been. Great looking meat pies, seafood, breads, cheese, veggies, etc. There was an awesome prosciutto shop; they had whole legs from hip to hoof (still on) displayed and being cut from. It was like an anatomy display! I had just gotten sick from prosciutto so I couldn’t partake but I really wanted to. It’s a must stop for all London trips. We visited the Imperial War Museum. This also was fantastic. They had this incredible exhibit on the Holocaust. Very powerful, you need about 1-2 hours just to see this exhibit.

And we met up with Mimi, who’s spending the semester in London. We were all so excited to see each other. Mimi seemed especially excited as we were loaning her cash since she had lost her debit card (hmm, I wonder how that happened). We went to a high-end Indian/English fusion restaurant, the Cinnamon Club. We walk in, there are all these posh, stuffy Londoners there, Mimi had a sweatshirt on, we had backpacks, and April had a fleece on. They inquired if we needed to use the coat check room. We said no, but they gave us a look. We looked back. They let us in. The food was brilliant! Mimi had the lamb, I had the quail, and April can’t remember what she ate. Sad. The food was spicy and I was trying to stay away from meat but couldn’t resist.

Ok so we head out to Gatwick for the flight to Venice, we’re super excited to meet up with Dan and Jayne, we get to the airport and discover there’s a one-day handlers strike in Venice so our flight has been diverted to Verona. After which they’ll bus us (2 hrs) to the Venice airport. What a pain. But that’s life, bend with the wind.

We were supposed to arrive at 4:00. Instead we finally get to the Venice airport at 7:00. We try to catch a water bus to our hotel stop, but there’s not the right one for 2 more hours, so we lug our stuff to the road bus area, jump on a bus and finally get to Venice at about 8:00 at night. It’s dark, it’s mobbed, we can’t see shit, and we have no idea where to go. April had directions to our hotel only from the airport water bus/stop. April wants to head off walking in the dark cause she sees a new bridge; why that would be appropriate I have no idea. Anyway we stumble over to some lights/people and find a line/booth for something, we’re not quite sure what though. We get to the counter and ask where we go to buy tickets for the water bus and lo and behold this is the right booth. Skillz! We buy tickets for water bus 52 and get off at the Guglia stop, walk 200 meters down a dark and unpopulated area and sure enough there’s our B+B. April yells up to the second floor window (as she made sure to reserve the front room) and sure enough Dan yells back; they had arrived earlier and waited for us for dinner, nice! It was a great night, we had all been traveling, we were all finally there, Venice is magical and very different from anything else in the whole world. We just went to a nearby restaurant; quite average food for Italy. But we didn’t care. We were all exhausted so we hit the sack. D and J had snagged the good bed (rightly so since they had traveled longer and been there first) , we got the foldout couch, the foot area of the couch sagged, so while I lay there trying to sleep with my feet sticking straight out into the air a few inches above the mattress, I determined the new room/bed selection algorithm for the two couples. We would alternate the choice of rooms or beds, but you didn’t have to use your chit, unless you really wanted to. So D+J got the first choice, now we owned first choice at the next hotel (if necessary). But so far all the subsequent rooms have been identical, and we haven’t shared a room, so I still have that chit in my pocket. It’s a comforting feeling!

Venice. We had a great 2 days here. It’s very small, you can walk around the whole island in a couple of days. They have water bus routes that go thru all the large canals. But the roads/paths/alleys are incredibly intricate. You can walk down all sorts of dead ends. It might end at a wall, or the water, or just loop back to where you started. We wanted to walk to a vegetable/fish market, and we started out but weren’t making any progress so I had to take over the formal role as the Navigator. This turned out to be a significant choice, as you’ll see when we got up to the Dolomites.

So now that we had a Navigator, we subsequently made great time walking thru Venice. After a few hours of walking success, April and Dan seemed to think they could just follow the signs pointing to the major squares. Not a bad plan for general direction, but clearly not good enough for pinpoint directions/shopping.

We sat in San Marco’s square for awhile, had coffee/snacks and just watched the people. At first we sat in the restaurant with blue chairs but they had a band playing and it would have cost 6 Euros each just to sit there (in addition to the coffee order). So we moved 20 yards to the yellow chairs, and of course paid an arm and a leg for coffee/sweets but we could still hear the music for free!

During the walking day we noticed there was going to be a string ensemble concert behind the church. We had a little discussion about whether we should attend the concert or go eat. I was pushing that a nice dinner would be more time/place appropriate since you can listen to a concert anywhere. The other three pushed for the concert. Normally I would have been thrilled to pursue a 1 vs 3 argument but since I’m starting to mature slightly more as a result of meditation, I let it go. Just so you know the food hadn’t been great in Venice either which probably contributed to my out-of-character acquiesce.

Anyway we attended the concert and it was fantastic! It wasn’t really a concert; there were only about 30 people attending, it was in a small beautiful room attached to a church, acoustics were nice, we were in the front row, wonderful intimacy. There were two violins, a cello, and a harpsichord. They played a ~6 pieces from composers who lived around 1650-1700 in that area. So it turned out to be VERY time and place appropriate. The setting, the pieces, the instruments, the audience. Magical.

The only problem was we all kept falling asleep. And since we were in the front row there was the impending danger of falling forward right at the musicians. Jayne and I like to listen with our eyes closed so our heads kept bobbing, then we’d wake up. And Dan claimed to have fallen asleep with his eyes open as he dreamed of geese flying overhead in NH, which by the way would have been really weird if he fell forward with his eyes open. But fear not, we all kept our seats, and the concert ended wonderfully with a beautiful rendition of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Of course Dan cried a few times during the concert. I wonder if that happened while he was dreaming of those geese?

Ok so that’s about it for Venice. Great little city to visit (but not live there). Very unique. Very crowded. Very expensive. Average food. Mardi Gras was invented here. They still celebrate it and it looks like a wild and crazy time. Everyone gets dressed up and masked so the baroness might end up dancing with the fish monger. At least for one night everyone gets to be someone else. Certainly one of the world’s great parties.

That being said it’s also a weird place. There are very few real people there. And they’re all old. And it’d probably suck to live there cause it’s all tourists. And there aren’t that many real amenities like food stores, pharmacies, local meeting places, parks. The houses are all old/crumbling and will almost certainly lose the battle with global warming (more flooding). There are 60,000 living there (1/2 of what it was 30 years ago), the population is aging, they’re losing 1000 people/year. Maybe Disney will buy it. It can be just like Epcot

Last day of the C2C

Ethan and Chris Dubois have been looking for the shorter blog version to go with their shorter attention span, here it is: woke up, hiked 14 miles, finished the C2C. Done.

For the real fans:

Awoke to a gorgeous day, clear blue sky, cools temps, you could tell it was Fall. Had the standard bfast, chatted with an older guy (60s) who was doing the C2C with his 5 buddies. He had done it 15 years ago with his son. He claimed this is the second most popular hike in world after the Appalachian Trail. He also gave us the great tip which was to not throw our pebble into the Irish Sea (tradition), but save it as a memento. Good idea. We had to go to the next hotel to get our lunches, they screwed them up, and then it turned out the sandwiches were lame anyway.

So away we went on the last day. We’re always fresh in the morning, and today was no different. It seems like in the morning we achieve 3 hrs of progress (as described in our book) in 3 hrs. But then in the afternoon it takes us like 5 hrs to complete the last 3 hrs. Headed up a path next to the road. Birds are singing, geese overhead, empty trail. Perfect. Then we dropped into a little river valley, followed the stream for about an hour. Slightly missed our turnoff up a hill to a super steep section, but we backtracked and found it. We’re pretty good on the uphills as our aerobics are kickass now. It’s our feet that are hurting.

We finally got to the top of Dent Hill and had great views of the Irish Sea. If the feet were good we might have even done a little Irish Jig. We could see the rest of the route to St. Bees (our last town). As this was about 12:00 we passed all the folks heading the other way. Of course they were in awe of us for finishing and they were in their first day. I tried not to give too much advice.

Went thru a few towns. April couldn’t resist a fresh potato/onion/cheese pasty (like a turnover). Stopped for lunch which was bad so we threw our sandwiches away, just ate the banana/juice/muffin/candy.

Got minorly lost again as we crossed a field but we caught ourselves at the end of it as the maps didn’t line up. It turns out we really liked the whole navigation thing. It was like a puzzle we had to solve each day. It took both of us and our 2 books and our map. They say the C2C is the hardest route to follow in England because it’s not an official trail so there very little signage. We helped an older couple who were out for a day walk with their directions.

Ok finally we got to the coast. But the damn trail curves way around north of the target town, and then curves south to follow the coastline hills down to St. Bees. It adds about 3 miles to the route.

I was hoping the exhilaration of the end and the ocean and the wind would carry us those last few miles, but it turns out it didn’t. We were exhausted. Yesterday and today, both 14 miles, were fairly difficult. Especially in the afternoons as our bodies were screaming to get off our feet. So we slogged along.

The my stomach started gurgling again. Serious problem. There were people following about 100 yards behind us. But I had to really go. So as we passed a stone wall I jumped to the left and took what was probably the quickest crap in the history of the C2C. Start to finish took about 15 seconds. Maybe less. Boom went the explosion, and I was working the toilet paper before everything had hit the ground. A few quick wipes, pulled up the shorts, covered the whole thing with grass, Purelled, and away we went. They have these plaques you can get carved/engraved as you finish, they read “Peter and April Spiro hiked 192 miles on the C2C”. Maybe I should get one stating “Quickest crap on the C2C.” It’d be a Spiro legacy I could hand down to my kids. Ha-ha.

Ok so we finally drop down to the water. We put our feet in. But we save our pebbles we had carried from the North Sea.

Then we realized we still had about an hour left much of it up the headlands. Shit. So away we slog. By this time we’re really knackered. Not really excited to finish, just happy to get off our feet. We finally hit bluffs just above the wide sandy beach below St. Bees. Rested on a bench. Then dropped down to the beach, and surprise the older couple we had helped earlier today came out to greet us. They were staying in a camper right on the beach and had been looking for us. They shook our hands and the guy gave April a kiss. Very nice. If we weren’t so tired we would have stayed and chatted with them but we had to get to our B+B.

Absolutely great B+B called the Abbey Farmhouse. Building is from the 1500s. The owners were really gracious and welcoming. They usually get people leaving their B+B to start the trip so they liked us ending it there. They offered us a bottle of wine but we couldn’t drink it cause of my stomach and April is off of wine. They have wireless. It sounds like a great bfast (they get their pork products from the same organic farm that supplies the Queen). Free range organic eggs, baked in the Aga. Our room is huge, bed/sheet awesome, shower is good, robes in the room. And they did a wash for us. Brilliant!

Once April got that robe on it took a ton of convincing to get her out for dinner. But we did go, I had salmon and rice, April had fish and chips. Again I must say I totally underestimated the quality of the food. It has been quite good.

Limped back to the B+B, April tried to read and fell asleep with her book in her hands in about 2 minutes. I finished this, now I’m hitting the sack.

Training to London tomorrow. Will see Mimi probably Thursday. Heading to Italy on Friday.

Lost Again

Pete here. I had a bit of a rough nite still. Not as bad as the previous night, just had to get up a couple of times, and then midway thru the nite I awoke and my stomach had stopped bubbling. I could sense that the worst was over. It still takes a few days to recover but the “shart” danger was past for the most part.

Our B+B last nite was run by an older couple, maybe in their early 80s. The guy, Henry, was the classic British guy, very droll sense of humor. They were extremely nice, bfast was very tasty, standard E bfast. We chatted about bike touring in France, and his visit to New England. There was also a snooty English woman as the other guest. She said she had a friend who lived in Boston and this person referred to the North Woods of NH, Maine, and the “green desert”.

So away we went at about 9:00. Got lunch made at the local store. Turkey sandwiches for the first time on the trip. Today would be 14 miles and we were thinking it’d be pretty easy after all we had been thru. Turns out we kind of got our asses kicked. Sigh.

This was like the reverse of the super-hard 16 mile day we had done a few days back. That is, today we had the hard uphill to start, then a long woods and lake walk. And we were right this pattern sucked. You’re beat from the hill and the flats seem to take forever and kill your feet.

So we start off, my stomach is bubbling again after the bfast. So I gotta go but there are two guys walking towards us. Damn! I do the tight-butt-cheeks hobble past them then sprint behind a stone wall. Whew! Now the problem was for some reason there were lots of people around this morning. Usually we see no one, hence the quick crap off the trail is easily done. But now that we’re in the Lakes district there are lots of day walkers. Then after we climbed our first hill and we on a long flat section in the Moors, I get my second attack. People in front and people behind. The hell with it, I throw off my pack and dash behind a small rock up cropping, this blocks the view for the people coming our way unless they turn around. But they saw me rush off the trail so they know the program. April who was waiting by the trail gave them a nice hello as they passed by. Ha-ha.

I’m feeling worn out so April is doing the navigating, and everything seems to line up, but then we see this tarn (small lake). That’s not on our map, What the hell?! So April asks this old guy and he whips out a map and starts explaining the tarn, and the next tarn, and all the peaks, and he says you’re climbing Haystack. At first I didn’t believe him, but he was certain. So we were really off the planned route. But then as we looked at his map and ours we realized we could turn this into a shortcut with just some slight bushwhacking.

We stop for a snack. Then drop down off the mountain. Mistake number two. We’re sliding down this unused shale trail. It was really bad; it turns out this was the wrong trail off the mtn. Then we could see the correct trail off to our right, so we cut over toward it. And we had to hop a wire fence, which was the first fence we’ve seen that wasn’t barbed wire. Not so bad we think. We drop down some and April scouts out a route thru a grassy knoll. We can see the track below us that we’re supposed to be on. So we decide we can get there from here and away we go. And I just want to remind you April is the lead navigator today, as I’m leaning over intermittently with stomach cramps. Mistake #3. This wasn’t really a trail. The ground was very uneven, lots of grass and wood (as this has been cut in the past), no sheep had cleared it. Then we hit a fence. And we’ve never seen such a fence here. It’s a 5 foot high fence of chicken wire. We couldn’t really climb over it. The road was wanted to be on was about 100 yards below us. So we’re walking along the fence boundary for about ¼ mile, no rocks or logs to help us get over it, the terrain ois terrible, we almost had a couple of ankle sprains. And finally we realize the fence turns left and goes down to the road. So all we had to do was walk to the end and then drop to the road. Nice. And we also realized that if we somehow had managed to climb over it, there was a lower fence about 50 yards further so we would have climbed into a squared off pen. Idiots.

Now we had about 3 hours of flats 1/2 on a dirt road and 1/2 on a beautiful lake side trail. The road sucked, we had been on our feet enough so the consistent road pounding really hurts. Then the lake trail was all wet roots and slippery angled rocks. I was really knackered by now. It turned into an 8 hour day. We didn’t get to our town, Ennerdale Bridge until 5:30.

Tiny little town, but nice large room in the hotel, large bathroom with a great shower and tub. Nice sheets, large towels. We limped down for dinner, and it turned out it was sort of gourmet pub food. I had risotto, April had pork roulade stuffed with blue cheese and spinach with figs/asparagus and the standard boiled veggies on the side. Then we crashed.

Minor notes: had our first view of Scotland today. Tomorrow is our last day. We’re looking forward to a few days off our feet before flying to Italy.

Shouldn't have eaten that prosciutto

We were in a celebratory mood last nite. We had just completed a gorgeous stage, easy (since when is 10 miles up and over a pass - easy?), rewarding, wonderful in all regards. We got to this beautiful town of Grasmere that had lots of nice restaurants. And as I noted we had our best meal of the trip.



We'll I paid for it later.



It seems I have a bit of a knack for making food choices that give me food poisoning. Last big trip to India I got food poisoning, in business class no less, from this cute little pork pate.



And last night I couldn't resist the prosciutto with melon and feta and some nice oil drizzled on it as an appetizer. Now here's the kicker, April said hey that prosciutto looks kind of green and it has a funny sheen to it. Well I ignored her and dove right in. Delicious. Real farmyard type of taste. I didn't realize April was just eating the melon and cheese served with it.



So right at the end of dinner my stomach was feeling kind of funny. Jayne O'C called and my stomach was bubbling and she was wondering if I'm taking lactaid pills when eating rich buttery desserts. No.



Anyway suffice to say it was a rough night. The funny thing is our room was really small with the bathroom attached, so our whole room ended up stinking like a barnyard. April claims to have been kept awake all night by the smell. Ha-ha.



Ok to the hike. We had bfast, I ate really light, and we had about a 10 mile day. Up a valley, over a pass, down another valley, up another pass and down a valley into the village. I was a hurting unit. In a nice turn of events from yesterday's race, April offered to take my pack a few times.



Note the local names, we passed Stonethwaite Beck (a stream), passed Greenup Gill (another tributary), we climbed up Lining Crag (rocky promontory), and we skirted around Greenup Edge (high meadow).



Mountains were beautiful. Again waterfalls and streams all around. We think we caught our first glimpse of the ocean.



Physically we now seem to be past our aches and pains. Even April's foot seems better. The walking see......"peter just ran to the bathroom - april here to finish the blog!" looks like he was going to say "seems like it cured her plantar faciatis - which it did! Now with only 2 days left - I feel great! Peter wants everyone to know he is in a real dilemma - if he eats he'll spend his time running behind rocks and bushes along the trail tomorrow and if he doesn't eat he won't have the energy to hike at all. I say "Please sign in everyone with you're vote on what he should do" haha.....what fun this blog is!

“I’m gonna kick your ass”

Ok dear readers, so you know how I said we like going the opposite way because there’s no one in front of or behind us. And how we don’t have to compete with them. Now let’s add on the fact that we completed what is generally considered the hardest 2-day stretch of the 192 mile journey.

And furthermore let me add that it seems like we’re finally in shape, and April’s feet seems to be significantly better.

So how do you think this will all play out for a really competitive person, who’s feeling kind of cocky and frisky?

As we’re hiking along on a beautiful Fall morning, up a gorgeous valley, spectacular mountains all around us, April turns to me and says “I’m gonna kick your ass!”

Ah-ha, the gauntlet is thrown down! She’s slapped my cheek. She’s challenging my manhood.

Should be an interesting day.

Ok, back to the beginning…

Finally a much more relaxed morning, we had an easy day in front of us, about 10 miles. Maybe 4 hours. We ate late, strolled thru town, stopped at the grocery store and post office and got a nice tuna sandwich on a baguette, some candy bars. Found the path out of town, and start out on a fantastic wide track up this beautiful valley. The valley was maybe ½ mile wide, rising up to a col (pass) in front of us. Huge peaks/ridges on either said. Babbling brook down the middle. Waterfalls cascading down both side. Mixed fields with sheep, and small forested tracks. And we knew it was going to be easy and pleasant.

Husband and wife strolling lovingly thru the valley. The conversation turns over to how we’re feeling, are we finally in shape, what hurts? And then April comes out with her killer quote, “I’m going kick your ass”.

Ha!

So we didn’t just go charging up the trail, we really did enjoy the hike up. We stopped and chatted with two older gentlemen. We stopped for a break on a bridge over the little stream. It was kind of like the lull before the storm. No need to rush anything, we could both see the steep part at the end and we knew that’s where the battle would be fought!

As we near the steeps, April takes off in the lead and she’s breathing kind of hard. And she’s really sweating. It was hot but not that hot. And she’s thinking she’s the hunter and going to grind me up.

But little does she know, the hunter will become the prey!

So I’m following her, and it’s pretty clear to me this game is mine. I’m only breathing thru my nose while she’s really pushing and breathing hard. In fact I’m so confident I’m trying to figure out how to win, not IF I’m going to win. Should I just pull away and try to create as much distance between us? Should I wait until the end and really blow past her and tell her she’s running a good race? I’m even thinking about how I should explain this all on the blog? Obviously the thoughts of a confident man.

Ok finally we’re nearing the end. Now a gentleman wouldn’t really go into all the detail about the end so…

I’ll tell you exactly what happened. Ha!

We’re near the end, and I finally come up with the best solution. With maybe 100 yards to go, I ask her if she wants me to carry her pack. How elegant, how beautiful. How satisfying. How sweet it is!

Of course I got the LOOK.

Ok, with that silliness over we get to the col and sit on a hill by a gorgeous tarn (small lake). We had a great lunch, tuna, chips, some locally made date bar kind of thing. Fantastic. It’s early. We beat the books suggested time to the top. The sun is out, I have my shirt off. The downhill is supposed to be fairly easy. This is a highlite of the trip.

April decides to get moving so she can take a picture of me behind her. No skillz.

Then we have a nice leisurely downhill. We step over maybe 15 little steams n the way down. A lot of water flowing to the Irish Sea. We stop and talk with an illustrator/photographer who is doing a book on the Coast-Coast due out in 2011.

We hit the town of Grasmere, it’s got more action than most of the towns we’ve seen. Nice outdoor cafés. April gets a locally famous gingerbread cookie from a tiny shop that used to be the school and Wordsworth taught here. In fact, this is where Wordsworth lived when he had some of his most prolific writing years hiking thru these hills. I wonder if he raced his wife thru the hills?

We stopped for beer. Then found our B+B. had our best meal of the trip at a nice café; April had baked halibut and I had Pork Marsala.

Then headed back to the B+B for some catch up on the blog.

Hardest day of the trip

So today we had a 16 mile day and everyone says it’s the hardest hike of the whole trip. And we’re leaving the Dales and entering the Lakes District National Park. Last nite we went thru all our books/maps and created the plan.

The idea was we’d divide the day into 4 stages each being two hours. First section would be thru fields as we exited the Dales, then we had a long trek beside a lake, then a killer uphill, and then a worse downhill. And we wanted to get thru the first three before lunch, ie, get the steep uphill out of the way before eating.

We both had the big English breakfast, we figured we’d need the energy for the uphill. These big breakfasts carry us until about 1-2:00. We had a nice chat with some locals at bfast, they were farmers and trained sheepdogs, and they were in Shap for a big sheepdog competition. And they had to cut their hay soon, so they were really watching the weather and assured us it was going to be good for 4-5 more days. Good sign.

We headed out about 8:15, and right away April wanted to take a slightly different route at the beginning. What happened to hike the plan? The books said it might be muddy but it was an ancient beautiful old path. I scowled yet followed along. What a nice husband. Turns out it was good and shorter and not too boggy.

We passed an old Abbey, which was also torn down by Henry VIII, but we didn’t have time to explore. Almost got slightly misdirected there, but April found the right path there. Hmm. Hmm, maybe she was getting over cracking under the leadership pressure from a few days ago. Ha-ha.

So we’re moving along at good clip, over hill/dale, thru a few pastures, past a field that has a “beware of bull” sign. Then follow a beautiful stream down to the beginning of the lake. And as usual, we’re slightly behind on time. The guy who wrote our book is very fast. We’re always slightly off his time. Talked to a couple who were heading to Stowe Vermont in a few weeks. I told them it looked just like this.

Then we had the lake stretch, and we really pounded out the miles here. It was mostly flat, a pretty nice track, so we could keep up the magical 3/mph. Then we rested and snacked a little before the uphill. It looked very steep. About 2000 feet straight up. And they don’t do switchbacks here. Just straight up the grass and rocks. We passed some dayhikers going up. This is new to us too. Now that we’re in the Lakes we’re seeing more dayhikers. At the top it got really steep. We were bending our knees and raising them almost as much as possible to take each step. The poles come in really handy here.

Finally we climbed over the steepest portion and then had a more normal uphill. And I have to say April was moving along pretty good here. When it’s super steep and I have to lift all of my ~200 pounds it’s really tiring. So I can tell she’s feeling good and getting kind of cocky, and we’ll see how that plays out tonite and tomorrow.

Anyway both of us are breathing at one breath per step. I have three different breathing patterns that I track when I’m hiking: one breath per 3 steps, then breath per two, then for the most difficult is one breath per step. Kind of like gears on a bike. We did most of the uphill on first gear, one breath per step. Now we’re seeing lots of people coming down, remember that’s when we know it’s about halfway. In keeping with my new role as trail steward, I suggested a few turns for the fortunate ones.

We have to rest every 100 yards or so near the top but finally we make it. It was a huge barrier. We now knew we were going to nail this thing. We had conquered it! Sure we had the long downhill but you can always do those even tho it kills your feet by the end of the day. And not only that but we had made pretty good time. We were even ahead of our plan. For both the lake portion and the uphill we beat our estimates. Skillz!

Had a nice lunch at the top. Talked to a few folks, gave some advice, as we were wise veterans now. These other folks are only about 4-5 days going west to east, whereas we’re 10 days in going the opposite way. They kind of look at us in awe. We handle it well.

The mountains here are all bare, just grass, ferns, some low shrubs, no trees. So you can see all the trails around you. There aren’t many signs, instead you need to use your map to make sure you’re on the right trail. But there are still stone walls and sheep. WTF? And there was an old Roman road along the top section. As one Brit said, those Romans were even more daft than we are!

So we finished our lunch and headed down. Sure enough it was a very long slog. It must have been killer for the folks who were going the opposite way as they would have had to slog up first thing. We decided the reason this day was considered so hard is everyone must be beat after their first slog. So we think we had it better going our direction.

Towards the end of the we met a guy camping and he said I looked like an AT hiker. At first I didn’t know what he meant but sure enough he meant the Appalachian Trial. Ha-ha.

We arrived in town and had to walk one more kilometer south to an old farmhouse that was our B+B for the nite. What a pain. And they had a million dogs there and tons of flies. I was standing out front calling Em/chels on the phone and there were nine dogs standing around me.

Had a nice dinner there, chatted with an older Brit couple about health care in the USA and other various topics. I ate ½ of April’s meal too. I’m eating like a horse. Then off to bed.

Now here’s the funny part. We laying in bed, lights out and April says: “I’m faster than you on the uphills.”

We’ll see about that tomorrow.

Peter starts acting like the C-to-C expert

Got up and had our best bfast of the trip, April had porridge plus scrambled eggs on toast and beans and bacon. Also fresh fruit. I had the standard full English. It turned out this was our favorite B+B. Owners were great, our room was their regular bedroom (they had moved out), so nice bed and shower, food was great, it was quiet and cold at night. Huge winner.

We talked to the other couple at the B+B, who were heading west-east (opposite us), and our upcoming stage wasn’t supposed to be too wet/boggy so I changed into my low hiking shoes. The nice thing about going the opposite way from almost everyone else is we get good intel about the coming route. It turns out we really like going the opposite way because the mornings and evenings are very quiet. That is, we meet all the other hikers about noon as we pass each other on the trail, but before and after that we have the trails to ourselves. And they have these hoards of people because they are all going the same way. Plus if we were going their way April and I would always be trying to pass everyone. Whenever they ask why we’re going the wrong way, we correct them and tell them we’re going the hard way. Aren’t we smug!

So off we went at 8:30. It was cold enough that we could see our breath. Yet it was a clear blue sunny sky. This was to be a 20 plus mile day. Second longest of the trip. And the following day was going to be 16 miles yet really hard. So in fact this was to be the crux of the trip. We could crash and burn or we could kick ass.

Found the path out of town and headed up thru a bunch of different pastures. Of course the fields were very wet with dew so my shoes were getting sort of wet. Irritating. Then April was leading and I was following her, and she took a left around this boggy section, and sure enough I slipped in deeply and my feet got totally soaked and muddy. I was pissed. Especially since she was leading. April laughed and as you might imagine that didn’t help my mood. But then as Chelsea commented, I need to put some of that Vipassana meditation training into action; so I chilled.

Then we passed thru a field and the bull was mounting all the cows. We took a long way around that action! Didn’t want to get that bull mad!

We were heading south along these stone walls and it seemed like we were lost. We thought we should have hit a turnoff before this. The map seemed to indicate the turnoff sooner. Nothing worse than feeling you’re off track. The fear is not really that you’re lost but that you have to backtrack, hence lost time and more miles on the feet. And it really easy to get lost in these fields cause they all have access gates/stiles/ladders. So you could go for a long time sort of mapping the written directions to your current fields. In fact, during this semi-unsure phase April wanted to head in the exact opposite direction, and it wasn’t really as insane as it sounds. Kind of like the time at the doctor’s office when I convinced Ethan he was 19 when he was really 18 (but that’s another story we don’t quite have time for). Anyway I almost bought her arguments; but we carried on for about 20 minutes more and finally saw the house/bridge we were supposed to cross.

We proceeded for about another hour thru fields then came to a road. One route went north then south on the tarmac for 3 miles, but the maps indicated a route directly across on the moors. Shorter, better on your feet; we were feeling frisky (maybe it was that bull we saw earlier!) so we went for it. It turned out to be a big savings, great route. Right after that we stopped for lunch and started encountering all the people going in the opposite direction. Being the Know-it-all that I become on very rare occasions, I began doling out the short-cut info to worthy people. Some people charged pass us and they didn’t get the tip, others we might have a nice “hello” exchange, and then they got the scoop. What power! April had to tell me to leave the hikers alone, they could figure out what they wanted to do.

So we continued on staying to the timing plan, and got to the last couple of hours (25%), and then we kind of conked. We had to go way around these walled in fields in the middle of some bleak moors (not much heather). We could see this gravel plant way in the distance. It took forever. There were ancient stone circles and other archeological attractions just a few minutes off our path, but we said the hell with it. Too tired to look at any more rocks. We crossed a major highway via a pedestrian bridge then limped into town.

Got to the forgotten town of Shap at about 5:30. We calculated that we walked 8 hours at 2.5 mph., then we had stops for food and map-reading.

We were booked at the local pub/hotel. Large room, great shower but it was too noisy. Usually we would have moved rooms but we were too tired. The menu at our pub didn’t look great so we tried to walk thru the town to find another restaurant/pub. Walked about 50 feet to the next building. Their sign advertised Mexican, Italian, Caribbean, and Turkish food. That didn’t sound quite right, and we were too tired to explore anymore so we turned around and went back to our pub for standard English pub fare. Yet surprisingly they also had some Indian food on the menu. April couldn’t resist the peas/gravy thing so she had a mince-meat pie and I ordered chicken tikka masala with rice and nan. Wasn’t bad. Had a pint of cold Fosters too. Score.

Anyway went right to bed after dinner because tomorrow was supposedly the hardest day of the trip. We would be leaving the Dales and entering the Lakes District, mountain trails.

But don’t worry we have a plan. Plan the hike, hike the plan.

The Bog that ate April

We awoke to a beautiful sunny sky. All the hikers were amazed, we gathered outside before bfast and soaked up the sun. Pounded the big bfast then away we went.

As usual, we're the only folks going our way. Everyone else goes west-to-east. But the good thing is we get to ask everyone about the trail, what's tricky, durations, etc.

Today is considered the wettest, boggiest stage. It's a 12 miles day with about 1/2 being deep wet bogs. There are three routes over this stage depending on the weather/conditions/date. We decided to take the Blue route which is the standard for this time of year even tho we had been warned off of it by hikers we saw a few days back. This is the hardest yet truest route. We didn't fly all the way over to wimp out! Hoo-aah!

First part of the hike traversed a hillside, this wasn't even the bog bit even this was muddy and wet. Hmm what would the bog be like? We cut around a farm, a beautiful english sheep dog got out and followed us for awhile. Then we headed up the river valley and it started to get really wet. Sinking in 3-4 inches regularly. It was slow hiking because we were always trying to step around or on the side of the really wet muddy spots. And the grass is very tussocky (is that a word?) Dan is that a gerund? There were these super brilliant green mounds that were good for stepping on too. Kind of like a sponge. Stopped for a snack before heading up the hillside.

And then headed up the hillside to the nine standards (ancient rock mounds, like cairns). the slope wasn't too bad caused the water had somewhat drained, maybe we'd occasionally sink in 6" if we weren't careful.

But there were these muddy stream-like crossings. And these were killer! It wasn't actually running water, it was more like a mud stream. Remember where we used to rake golf balls out of the bogs at the golf course behind the Statires' house ? It was like that. I guess maybe not too many readers remember that stuff.

The problem was it looked like mud and grass and some green sedge like stuff, but you couldn't tell how deep you might sink. So we get to one and April steps to what she thinks is a good spot and gets sucked down to the top of her gaitors. And she's leaning forward but her poles don't help cause they don't hit anything solid. Then she starts to panic because she flashes back to the marshes at Drakes Island, where her mother told her to watch out for the quicksand! ha-ha. Anyway I was right behind her so I grabbed her pack and yanked her back. Saved!

Then a little while later I lean forward to plant my poles and they both sink in right to their handles, literally just 2-3 inches from their tops. And I'm leaning forward at this point and almost fell in face first. But the poles stopped sinking so I caught myself and then fell backward. They sunk in over 3 feet!

Then I got stuck in some mud again to the tops of my gaitors (which go right up to below our knees). And April got stuck in the mud trying to climb out of one. Took her a few minuets to work out of that one. Anyway we were slipping and sliding and sinking all over the place. Boots and socks got soaked. But finally we made it to the top. Now we were over the might Pennines, the spine of England. All water from here on flows west to the Irish Sea. This is the English version of the Rockies. Mostly just bare boggy hills tho.

had a quick lunch at the nine standards. Talked to a few locals who were out on a day hike. then headed down. The west side was mostly dry. I changed socks so as to avoid blisters. And we made it down to Kirkby Stephen, our town for the night. It was nice and sunny by now, April got an ice cream cone. Found the B+B, they served us tea and cakes/snackcs. So nice!

Our bathroom had a tub plus shower. best shower of the trip so far. April took a bath. They might do world-class mushy peas but the showers have usually been lame.

We chilled and semi-napped then went out to the pub for dinner, I had a lamb steak with boiled potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and cabbage. April had fish and chips and the ubiquitous mushy peas. So gross. I had a pint, she had a half. And then I had my first sticky toffee pudding. It was awesome. Kind of like the cake version of caramel popcorn. Yum.

Talked with Chels and POC on skype, now we need to get some sleep. I think the hardest portion of the trip will be the next two days. Tomorrow we have a 20 mile day. And then we follow it with a 16 mile day which everyone says is the hardest of the trip. Piece of cake!

Another delightful day in the Dales

Had a great sleep nice bed/sheets, had a nice bfast, cooked to order, April got the porridge (oatmeal) and I had the standard english bfast. We chatted with the other folks at the B+B, they were from Vashon island in Washington. We've biked there a few times. Had a discussion with one of the women about Tunisia, she had lived there and we had visited while we were in the peace corps. Anyway enough with the chitchat and away we went at 9:00.

Remember yesterday I got the smirky look from April so we decided she was in charge today. Let's see how she handles the pressure of team leadership!

Here's where the "delightful" in the blog title comes from (at least for me). Right away April takes the wrong turn from the B+B. We headed up the street for about 50 yards before I suggested we should be down in the village. At that point I couldn't have been happier! I tried to mimic her look from yesterday, but clearly I wasn't as practised as she was.

Our route followed the river thru a beautiful dale. We had 14 miles to do today, and it was pretty easy walking except for the freaking gates and stiles. I'll bet we passed thru at least 60-80 gates/stiles. We started out really admiring all the beautiful stones walls but by gate 50 we were rather tired of the whole thing.

On these gates....

They built narrow passages into the stone walls (you had to turn sideways to get thru), and they have a little wooden door usually on a spring that you have to open to get thru the narrow passage.Then there are the "step-overs", two boards/steps straddling the fence, supported on both ends (like the letter n), one higher than the other, so step up, up again, then down twice. And there are gates small and large. Overall it gets tiring and slows you down.

So the route connected with the road for a short bit, and we're walking along, and boom April twists her foot in a tiny depression and falls right down in the road. It looked like she really twisted her ankle, I immediately thought it was going to be sprained but it turns out she was no worse for the wear. Probably another big bruise on her ass. Readers you needn't feel too sorry for her as she has a habit of falling on flat stretches on many of our previous hikes. Once we realized she was ok I broached the topic of her cracking under the pressure of the leadership mantle. You can imagine she wasn't too happy with that.

Anyway we're walking along in a nice grassy section and boom she falls again. What the hell! Cracking under pressure! Again we had a good laugh.

Then as we walked thru the next village and she tried to go down a wrong road. Sigh, I gently steered her back on track. Like I said, it was a delighful day. And btw - I expect we'll have a comment from April towards the end of the day.

So we crossed a bridge and had to backtrack to a quant litte town called Muker for lunch. Supposedly this is one of James Herriots favorite towns. This is the English veterinarian who authored a bunch of cute little books about the english and animals.

Had a nice one hour lunch, April had the steak pie and I had venison stew, chips with both, awesome in the gravy. I also had a beer. Then as you might expect we both wanted to sleep. But we had about 3 miles left. So we slogged our way up over a hill and down to Keld by 3:30.

There's nothing in these little towns but again we got a great B+B, with a bar and a dining room. Showered, then we tried to nap to let our bodies recover. Got woken up by the oil delivery guy outside our window. Just got back from dinner, April had banana curry soup, and I had poached haddock with vegies. Both quite nice. Chatted up some hikers about the route tomorrow, which goes up on some moors.

We have a choice of three routes, they're so boggy they try to rotate the hikers during different seasons. Earlier folks had told us to take the winter route (less bogs). But today's batch of hikers seem to have come over the blue route, which is the standard for Aug-Nov. One women said her hiking pole sunk up to the handle at one point. Now that's a wet bog.

No matter what we're going to get wet boots. And we'll pass a set of rocks called the "nine standard". These mark the divide betwene the North Sea and the Irish sea. After the nine standards all the water flows west to the Irish sea. We also will overlap with the Pennine way for a short bit.

I gotta go. I think I'll massage April's feet, as well as ego!

April says she too sore to comment.

Over hill over dale...

Today was the quintessential English hiking experience in the Yorkshire Dales. Beautiful day, lovely paths along the hills/dales, rivers/streams, thru a few farms, tea breaks, a wonderful bakery, then a sweet B+B. Life is good.

We awoke at 7:45 still groggy and sore from the marathon yesterday. I wasn't sure how April would be feeling, when she got up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night it took her like 15 seconds to limp into the bathroom.

Anyway like the trooper she is, she seemed to have recovered after tea and the big English bfast. I had scrambled eggs with salmon on an english muffin. Nice for a change.

We set off about 9:00, stopped at the pharmacy to get some advil to replace the Aleve (which seemed to be causing stomach issues). Then as we sat on some stairs in the sun and studied the books it really felt like we were in the swing of traveling. It always takes a few days to get over the jet lag, get with the program, stop making rookie mistakes, get a feel for the food/shops/people/accents/traffic. We felt totally comfortable and at ease. Except for April's feet that is.

Today would be a short day, Richmon to Reeth, ~11 miles.

Headed out of town up a long hill. We could tell we were getting in pretty good shape too because we moved pretty well up the hill. Great views down to the Dale. BTW - Dale means a "valley", and alot of the places here take their names from the (river name)+dale, eg Airedale, Wharfedale. Past some great gardens, then exited the town and pssed into some mixed woods and farmlands. Beautiful drystone walls. These are built with two walls lined up back-back. The whole countryside is divied up with these gorgeous walls. And then the pastures are just loaded with sheep. And you know it's getting a little weird cause we're starting to notice all the different breeds, some have longer faces, the wool is different, some have broader haunches.

In fact when we were having a tea/scone break at this one farm, and naturally we started some sheep talk with the woman, she was describing her two different breeds which they were selling at an auction tomorrow, and she said look at those large "tiskels". We couldn't really understand what she meant, but I jumped right in and was commenting on the different tiskels between the two sheep. A few minutes later we realized she had said "testicles". She was really proud of those big balls. I would have been proud too!

At the tea break April had apple pie with hot custard and tea, and I had an egg sandwich and a scone with tea. April loves the desserts here. In fact since bfast this morning she's had apple pie, fruitcake and chocolates. Great hiking diet. Ha!

Ok so after tea we head down into the lttle town of Marske. We pass the public telephone booth and April says do we go down this road, and I say, no we turn right here. She follows, and sure enough we go about 1/4 mile before we realize we're off course again. Sigh. the good news is we didn't really get lost. The bad news is I have to endure April's smug and condescending looks. This is different from the LOOK, referenced in an earlier blog entry. This is a look that says: how can you keep screwing up, what a wankster, I've never pointed us in the wrong way, just follow me and we'll be all right. Its quite amazing, all this and more contained in a slight glance and head shake that takes about a second or two.

Ah women, can't live with them and can't live without them.

Ok so I give up navigating. My confidence is shaken. We now have the books and maps in the back pocket of my pack so it's April that pulls them out and looks at them. Soon I'll be massaging her feet every night. Wait, I just did that!

Ok, back to reality. The day goes smoothly. Over hills and dales. We drop down a delightful stone path built by nuns thru a beautiful woods. We pass a Benedictine Priory from the 1200s and hit the road that leads into town. This Priory was occupied by the nuns from 1154 until Henry the VIII closed it. We finally hit the road into town and start down it. But then we spy a path next to the river, and one of our books describes it so we take that into town instead of the dreaded road walk.

We hit the town and head straight for a noted organic bakery. April gets a fruitcake and I get some lemon cake thing. We go 300 more yards up a hill and find our B+B. We take off our shoes. The owner brings us a beer and water and we sit outside and have our desserts. April was about as excited as she's been on this trip as she bit into that fruitcake. I'm talking the hieght of sensual pleasure! Immediately she regretted not buying more fruitcake. And she tried to convince me to run back down the hill and get her some more. Shoes off, beer in hand, miles of enduring the sting of that look, no freaking way! Ha-ha!

So we get our room, the shower is finally pretty good. A little rest before dinner.Forget the diet, I'm looking for a nice steak pie and beer tonite.

Whoops two entries are out of order.

the 46000 steps entry is supposed to be the latest.

Normal day in the Moors comes before it.

Normal Day in the Moors

Finally we had a normal day! Some sun, not much rain, didn’t get lost, no screwups.

Had a great sleep last nite. When we complemented Jenny (owner) she was so excited because she hand-irons the sheets and no one has ever commented how good they felt. Her husband got a big kick out it.

We headed out at 9:20 and right away started up a steep moor. This was to be our last day in the North York Moors National Park. It’s been gorgeous and today was no exception. With the sun+rain we had some great lighting and really pretty vistas. Almost the whole route today overlapped with an official path called the Cleveland Way so it was well-signed Also most of today’s route has been laid with large paver stones. It’s amazing that they bothered to haul those stones way up on the moors to create these paths. Must have been done over 100s of years.

Anyway after the steep uphill, the route proceeded along the top of a moor, again purple heather everywhere, but then we dropped down again. And it turned out today we had much more up and down. The uphills aren’t that long/high but they’ve steep. They don’t do switch backs here, just straight up and down, using steps/stones.

Stopped at a small café to pick up some sandwiches/chips/candy then headed out again. Up/down. Passed some Americans who we were looking for, as jenny told us they were staying with her tonite. We spied them by their Go-lite jackets, and other American gear/stuff. Chatted them up a bit. This was their third time doing this walk!

We had lunch on a nice bench right past a sheep pasture. April picked up some wool off the ground to put in her boot. Jenny had told us that’s what the locals do for sore feet/blisters. Peter switched his boots for some day-hikers as the rain seemed to have passed and the track looked more like a woods walk. Had a classic English sandwich, turkey on white bread with no condiments.

The paths thru the woods have been really cool, some beautiful trees, including some large Chestnut trees (which all (yes, really all) got killed in the USA by the Chestnut blight). Hey Rock/Katie/Diane I suppose I was supposed to say, “all of which”, huh?

Finally hit the town around 4:00, it was a 12 mile day. Half of what is planned for tomorrow. Found the B+B and again the owner laid out a killer tea/snack. Today we had homemade scones/jam with clotted cream. Man that stuff is good! Big 1/2 inch thick clump sitting right on top of the jam. Hot showers, then we almost feel asleep again, I had to convince April to walk down to the pub for beers/dinner. Finally she got the old bones going and we had chicken and a parsnip bake plus the ubiquitous chips. April ate my peas as well as hers; she can really pound the peas!

Our feet are hurting a little. And tomorrow is the long day! Yikes. Today was Saturday so lots of people were out hiking. Remember in London I wondered how this country ever conquered the world, well now that we’re away from London you can see/sense more spirit and saltiness amongst the population. Jolly good show chaps!

46000 steps and now we can't move.

Today was our longest day, 23 miles. We had been worrying about it since the start of the trip. It's not that there was much elevation gain, just that it takes so damn long that your feet take a pounding. Plus there was road walking which is really a killer.

On these kind of days you need a plan and then you get your mind adapted to the plan, and then you do it. Plan the hike, hike the plan. So we had a plan. We would leave early, 8:00, take a big lunch so we wouldn't need to do a long pub stop, and we would attack the day in three 3-hour stages with a 30 minute break after the first stage, and a 60 minute lunch break after the second stage. We each brought a second pair of shoes to switch into after lunch. Maybe a tea in the middle of the last stage depending on how we felt. And make sure we don't get lost cause we can't afford the time loss.

Plan the hike, hike the plan; just like flights, dives and software schedules.

Anyway we woke up early, had the bags packed before breakfast, started eating at 7:30. had the big English bfast as we figured we'd need the energy. Ready to go at 8:00 but then April couldn't find her hiking shirt. She thought she had it in her day pack, but couldn't find it. I check the room, not there. She had her hiking boots on so couldn;t get into the room and she's tearing her duffle apart, can't find it. The owner checks the room, can't find it. Aprils steaming now, "I know it's in the room!", she's taking her boots off and I think, hey, maybe it's in my duffle. We had some clothes washed last night and maybe it somehow ended up in my duffle. Sure enough, we looked and there it was. I suggested she put it there. I got the "LOOK". All married men know the look.

So off we go at 8:20 and we're booking. Goal is to hike about 3/mph, but we were going faster than that. But then we had to stop and read the guide book, and check out our two maps. The thing is there are tons of options/turns/paths/stiles/fences/fields/etc. Sometimes you step over a fence and then have 2-3 paths as options. So you have to read the directions very carefully. Everyone on the trail hikes with their map and books around their necks or in their hands.

The route today went thru all the farmland, lots of crossing fields and edges of field, along hedgerows. This was rural working England, not natl park stuff. Paul Flessner, you would have been happy, it was just like Illinois.

Here's a real example from our book on the route today:

"Now follow a field-edge path to a hedge gap, and through this walk around the end of a field to a stile giving onto a concrete slab bridge. Cross the next two fields, often cropped over, and eventually deal with a couple of stiles either side of a sleeper bridge just before the Moor House Farm. head for a stile just before a gate. Go thru the gate, and around the farm perimeter to reach another gate. Thru this, go left to a track junction, and left again past Red House farm, and walk along a broad track to reach the B6271."

Huh!??? Now you know how crazy this shit is. And we have pages of this for every day.

But anyway back to the hike. First part goes smoothly, we pay attention like crazy, walk like fiends and make our snack spot at Danby Wiske, by 11:30. Skills. Had our snacks, air out our socks/feet, review the next stage.

At this point April reads it more carefully and suggests we follow an alternate route, which has less road walking but it's about 1 KM longer. The trick will be it won't be signed well, but we have those wonderful directions. We decide to go for it, many miles on roads is pure punishment. Your feet/brain do better when they have variety on the path, as you hike along you scan the path, your brain adjusts, your feet adjust and it's interesting and rewarding. It's kind of like tetris but with your feet. I'll write a more detailed analysis of the actual movement in some future entry. Betcha can't wait!

Remember the adage "plan the hike, hike the plan; throw that out the window, down we go on the new route. First set of directions: go 600 meters down a road then turn right on a path. I counted off my steps. I take smaller steps cause I have this hip clicking thing going on. I take 500 steps for 400 meters. So I count off my 750 steps and there on the right is a corn field. No path. We're fucked.

But wait, about 50 meters ahead is a path next to the next corn field. We take it. It was super important to get this started correctly. After about half a mile we hit a section that was perfectly described in the book so we knew we were good. And then we met some hikers going the other way, more confirmation. Yea baby!

It turns out this alternate route was awesome. Very pretty. Beautiful field walking. Birds all over. Some wheat, oats, corn, clover, stubble, grass, some pea like thing that they had burned, some hedgerows, gorgeous trees, little streams. Sweet. Plus this map thing is getting really fun. It's like a little puzzle and we're getting better at understanding what the authors/maps really mean. Anyway the whole stage goes according to plan.

We get to Bolton-on-Swale (gotta love the names) even early at 2:30. Sit and had our lunch. Now we switched shoes. Left for the last stage at 3;20.
We figured the middle stage would be the hardest cause the last stage we thought we would feel the pull of the end, kind of like cows going to water, for those Louis Lamour fans.

Again we started booking, going at least 4 mph. We were swinging and planting our poles with every step. This is sort of unnatural on the flats, you kind of feel like a machine, but you really get going. I bought these new poles that have a grip on the top that fits your hand rather than the standrd strap. they're called Pacer Poles. Look 'em up on the internet. April laughed at me when I bought them but it turns out they're very good. I think it's a good advance, and of course April wants to use them when she really needs the poles/arms to contribute. Wankster.

About an hour in on this last 3 hr stage, we conked. Too freaking tired. feet hurt. Scenery got shitty. Too industrial with lost of roads nearby. It was getting late. Directions sucked. April starts wimpering with every step. Not really, but she was hurting. We slog thru the second hour.

Then we hit a section where the dirctions weren't clear at all, and we hit a trail with a big red sign: "TRAIL CLOSED", it was heading down this muddy path in deep dark woods. It was late, about 5:00. Fuck it. We're taking it. We slide down it, it was the right trail, but it was terrible, super muddy, but we made it down and out to the road. Then we had a sidewalk and headed about 1 more mile into town, Richmond. To get to our B+B we had to head up the killer steep hill, insult to injury, but finally we made it at 6:10. Right on plan.

Success! "How sweet it is!" My father used to love that from Jackie Gleason.

Beautiful B+B. Nice room. Wifi. Tiny shitty shower like all English places.

Now unfortunately part of the plan was to skip dinner. We've been eating too much and realize we don't need the three big meals/day. the big English breakfast carries us to about 2-3:00 PM. Yet when we've gone to dinner we can still eat a ton, but as part of the plan we were going to skip tonite.

So we make some tea, eat my extra sandwich, processed corned beef that tasted like Spam, munch a bunch of butter cookies. I really wanted to go to an Indian restaurant that they had here (it's a large town), but April was having a hard time just getting to the shower.

Minor notes.

In one cemetery we passed they claimed there was a guy, Henry Jenkins, buried there that had lived to 169.

Also passed a building that had been a Hospital for 800 years!

Tonmorrow we have an easy stage, 10.5 miles.