The Facts

We had planned to wild camp most of the route, although we new that this may not be possible in places, so we will use official camping sites. we needed to average 14 miles a day to complete this challenge in 14 days. Some days were going to be longer, anything up to 22 miles so that we can either finish Early or have a rest day mid walk. This has been a lifetime wish of mine, ever since i read " A walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson. We had no idea if we could complete this as so many factors come into play, my fitness being one but the weather can also play a big part in dashing our hopes of finishing. All i know is that I believe this will be my only chance to attempt this (not getting any younger), also it would not be fair on my lovely wife Michelle to expect her to put up with me gallivanting out for weeks on end in the countryside, while she is stuck at home. Sadly due to a Fall i had and a suspected Cracked rib, we had to end our attempt at Richmond. we do plan to finish it off though.

Saturday 11 May 2013

Day 7


Day 7

Kirkby Stephen to Keld

via the Nine Standards

The weather could have been better








Yet another Grey wet day and our journey although not long in length today, was going to be full of surprises
Don't be fooled, it may look ok now

The Ground became very boggy

The climb to the nine standard was 2000 feet and pretty well easy to follow going up from the west.










Surrounded in low cloud, we made the best of a diminishing photo opportunity.














On leaving the Nine standards we quickly realised that the lack of view and path made navigating a bit tricky. I was using a Satmap Active 10 gps, (with back up Map& compass), with our route loaded on, but with most gps's if not all, it needs you to be moving  to get your correct bearings and point you in the right direction. This has never been a problem for me before, until now. The lack of any resemblance to a path had us trudging over boggy wet marshland, the gps was saying one direction and the 10 secs later pointing in the opposite  direction, this got very confusing and  frustrating. We tried hard to negotiate the really wet sections but it was pointless and both of us had wet soggy feet, so we decided to just go straight as we could not get any wetter!, Wrong. I stepped into what I thought was a small boggy patch and sank right up to my butt, the water was cold and took my breath away, I tried to get out but was stuck, the more i tried the harder it felt to move, I started panicking. It was the complete shock of being stuck in the middle of nowhere not being able to move and the cold freaked me out. James came to my rescue and with a bit of tugging and me crawling on my belly, he managed to get me free. 


This is how deep it was


We continued with care and made our way to a solid track which we tried to keep to for as long as possible. When we did finally get to some civilisation, nearly every one we spoke to said "That Route to Nine Standards is a nightmare in the best of weathers", I wished we had known that before, oh well you live and learn. 

We were both happy to get to Keld and set up camp. It had been a hard day mentally and I just wanted to have a shower, speak to Michelle my wife and then go to sleep, hoping tomorrow will be easier?.


Video of Day 7




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