Day three… day three, day three, day three (smh). What a doozy.
We woke to a dreary day of low hanging clouds and a steady, light rain. Sitting in the dining room, toasty warm, we looked across the river at the path we would be taking to Patterdale. The path was empty. Having enjoyed the solitude of the day before, we hurried to get on the trail before the other C2C’ers started down it.
Taking a bridge over the river out of Stonethwaite, we joined the path. To our left was flat, rocky pasture that led to a quick incline in elevation. To our right, the River Derwent roared by. The path consisted mostly of small, well-packed stones.
Rainjackets on, hiking sticks in hand, we were ready for this. The rain wasn’t going to dampen our spirits! It was romantic. It was England! How can you walk from one coast of England to the other and not experience rainy weather? NO. BIG. DEAL…. Right? Hmm. So we thought.
As we started down the path, there were spots of flooding that forced us onto the grass. We rolled with it. Again, to be expected.
Then we approached the first gate separating pastures, and there was a mini river. Fortunately there were stepping stones for us to traverse over it without getting our feet wet.
We laughed. Isn’t this quite the adventure, huh, hon? Won’t this be a fun story to tell when we get home, right hon? Hahaha.
Then we got to the second gate, and the river was a little bigger.
Oh my! How much of the path is going to be like this??… and then we got to the first “stream” that cut over the path toward the River Derwent. And we stopped, and we studied it, and we mused on the best way to get across where A. we don’t get out feet wet, and B. we don’t fall and make our way down to the river.
This one turned out to be the easy one. I don’t remember how many of these we encountered. Five maybe? More?
At one point, as the terrain started to rise, we figured this had to be the last one. So, convinced we were done forging through rivers, we sat down to change our socks and to try and wring as much water from our boots. Ha!
So much for that. We encountered yet another river, and our feet were soaked again. These first two to three miles took us forever to navigate because we wanted to minimize how wet we got and we wanted to cross these rivers cautiously. In hindsight, after the rest of the day played out, we would have said screw it from the start and just bulldozed into each puddle, stream, or river. We should have traversed this section of trail within an hour, but we probably took closer to two, or maybe a bit more.
When the rocky pathway ended, we paused and looked back down the valley, with Stonethwaite far off in the distance. Not far behind us, we saw a hiker bounding up the path, much faster than the pace we had taken!
As we continued to walk along the trail, we got to a point where we couldn’t tell if we should keep going straight or turn to the left. As we studied the map, the hiker, a middle age woman, and her dog came bounding up. She joined us, deciphering the map to determine which way to go. As we were looking at the map, she dropped the leash of her dog. I bent to pick it up, and the poor little wire terrier was shaking from the cold.
Although we thought we should turn left, the path wasn’t well defined, yet we were pretty sure the path we saw in front of us was not the correct one.
We agreed to detour to the left, where a slight hint of a path climbed up the mountain. As we climbed, there were parts where a path was very clear, and other parts where we just stuck to the river that flowed down the mountain. This was literally climbing, the incline was so steep.
As we neared the top, we could finally see a cairn. A cairn is a manmade rock formation. Basically, a pile of rocks built to form almost an igloo shape or teepee shape, if you can imagine. Regardless, you’ll know it when you see it, and they’re used to mark the path. Think of it as your lighthouse in foggy weather.
So, we see the first cairn and start making our way toward it. Again, there is no path we’re following as no path is visible. As we’re walking toward the cairn, squelch, my right foot landed in a bog, which rose up past my knee. If my socks weren’t already wet, they would be now. Actually, by this point, my socks and boots were sopping wet, my pants were pulling down from the weight of the water soaked up past my knee.
As we followed the cairns, we reached a split in the path. Left would bring us along an alternate high road, right would bring us down into the valley. We stopped to pour over the map again. The woman was only walking to Grasmere, which meant she had to take the path through the valley. She said good bye, as her dog was cold and miserable, and she just wanted to keep moving.
As our final destination was Patterdale, we contemplated taking the high route because there was a path that turned off at the top that would let us pick up the path to Patterdale further up the trail. It would have probably saved us a mile or two. But, after everything we had just gone through, we did not have the energy to climb another 1600 feet. Down was the way to go.
As we looked down into and across the valley, the Lake District sprawled before us. The mountain range stretched across the horizon, topped with the mist of low hanging clouds. It was such a tremendous feeling. We had overcome rivers, climbed a mountain, were sopping wet, it was still gray and foggy out, with a steady rain, but we felt alive! Our hearts were full and we wouldn’t have asked for the day to be any different. This was fun!
As we made our way down into the valley, we saw how long it stretched out, with no village or building visible in the distance. We encountered a couple of streams draining down off of the mountains as we descended, but by this point, we were veterans and didn’t flinch.
We eventually caught back up with the woman, and she joined back up with us as we navigated down the mountain. The valley was filled with sheep, grazing amongst the fauna. The woman introduced herself as Anne Marie, as she replaced the leash on her dog to a long rope. She told us that she had just adopted her dog a few weeks prior. She had planned this trip prior to adopting him, so she decided to keep her plans. She told us she was miserable. While Ron and I were flying high on the magnificence of the beauty we were experiencing, she hated it. She couldn’t see past her aches and pains. She told us she was thinking about quitting the hike.
When we were about halfway down the valley, we neared a group of sheep. The dog tugged on the rope leash, and Anne Marie fell to her butt. The dog bolted after the sheep, chasing them up the mountain, and poof, the dog was out of sight. We all stopped, staring, horror struck. Hell, that dog could be over the mountain at this point. We started shouting for it, “MAAAAXXXX!!! MAAAXXXXXX!!!” That dog was gone.
Anne Marie told us she was going to wait where she was in case the dog came back. I didn’t want to negate her, but I was thinking A. you just adopted this dog; it’s not going to come looking for his owner, and B. that dog could be over five miles away at this point, chasing one group of sheep to the next. We wished her luck and continued down the path, occasionally calling for the dog.
About ten minutes later, I heard whimpering. I stopped Ron for us to listen, and about thirty feet off the path, I saw a sheep on the ground, laying on top of the rope leash. I rushed into the fauna, which was tall, rising above my waist.
I couldn’t tell if the sheep was dead or just shocked. Using my hiking stick, I moved the sheep to free the rope. As I was freeing the rope, the dog grabbed onto the sheep’s leg and started shaking it. I took my hiking stick and gave the dog a solid whack to the head, “leave the bloody thing alone!” I freed the dog and picked him up. I noted the color spray on the sheep before turning back. When I got back to the path, we tried calling to Anne Marie, who was out of sight at this point. I asked Ron to go and fetch her, while I sat with the dog, shaking on my lap.
Anne Marie was horrified. As we finished walking through the valley, she went from assuring us that she would contact the police to notify them about the sheep to convincing herself that the sheep wasn’t dead, it was only stunned. I told her that even if the sheep was alive, her dog had downed it; it wouldn’t be able to walk and would die from its injuries. We followed up with her a week later, and she informed us that she had notified the police and she had quit the trek.
When we reached the bottom of the valley, Ron and I were trying to figure out which way we needed to go to pick up the path to Patterdale. Anne Marie parted ways with us, thanking us for our help. Ron was feeling like he was developing a blister, so he wanted to skip the last six miles and just walk into Grasmere and call a taxi. Not wanting to jeopardize the rest of the trip because of a bad blister, we made our way into town.
Oh how we thought the day couldn’t hold anymore adventures! As we crossed a field and continued down the path, the river had breached and the path was totally flooded. A Canadian couple came up behind us, claiming they had just completed the same path we did… even though we hadn’t seen anybody else in either direction and they were bone dry, so I silently said bullshit. Furthermore, when they saw the water, they backtracked and found a different route. Whereas we, the river veterans of hell, plowed through. Screw it! We were already sopping wet, this wasn’t going to make a hell of beans difference.
When we got to Grasmere, we grabbed a pint from a hotel while we waited for our taxi. Grasmere is such a picturesque town, but very trendy. We can see ourselves returning to the Lake District and staying here for a few nights. The hotels were very nice looking. The hotel we grabbed pints at didn’t bat an eye at our appearance when we asked the front desk to phone a taxi for us.
We felt a bit bummed cheating on only the third day. But, it was our vacation, we had the right to enjoy it in any way we deemed fit. And, it wasn’t worth pushing on if it meant Ron being unable to complete the rest of the hike. So, six miles less than we had planned, but another eleven days ahead.
Day 3, day 3, day 3, woo boy, you tested us. But, this was probably the best day we had out of the entire two weeks. One hell of an adventure we overcame on day 3.
Missed any days? Check out my Coast to Coast blog for the rest of our two week adventure across England.
Til tomorrow! 👋🏻
It looks like it was an amazing adventure!