Shall we go?

The forecast was for hailstones the size of cricket balls and lightning storms. It was sunny to the east, but getting darker by the second to the west.  I know what'll happen.  Just as we get to the top of Whelp Stone Crag, I'll become a lightning conductor.  It's almost bound to be.

Walking is as much about what goes on in your head as it is about strenuous excercise, fresh air and views.  First you picture yourself astride the globe, perambulating effortlessly, smiling at all you meet.  Then you plan and pack.  You start, slightly nervous.  Will you be OK?  Can you get that far? Will you get lost?  After a short while the physical effort gives you a great sense of ease and you warm up. You get involved with the dust, the sights, the smells.  You become one with the earth. Your eyes become precision instruments handling all those steps in exactly the right place to stay upright whilst watching the route and the conditions.  Now you're the perfect walking machine.  Even the bag on your back feels lighter.  Watching those clouds blacken reminds you that people die doing this sometimes.  You look after yourself, keep warm, keep dry, take on water and food, testing your equipment and experience to the limit.  Danger is a thing you face.  Decisions are life and death.  What will you do if one of us breaks their ankle here?  Then you win your prize.  You get where you're going.  Downhill always less stressful than breaking new higher contours, but never complacent as to where you put your feet.  The last mile. You relish the challenge and the finish. You did it.  Success..... and relief.  What a feeling.  What an adventure.  Every single walk you take is like that.  It writes a story in the earth itself.

So we have to go. Waterproofs and flask packed. A short ride in the car to Tosside. Got the all important camera. Feels like we're storm chasing. 

As we drive it gets darker and darker.  The wind picks up and blows hawthorn blossom in centrifugal swirls into the air.  Is this madness or just a little local walk.  Why am I scared?  Just because nobody else it out this early doesn't mean it's dangerous, does it?  Park the car near the cafe.  It's early, but the owner is getting ready.  He looks at us, then looks up at the sky, then shakes his head and disappears back inside.  Madness!
It's warm and cold at the same time.  The east wind is cool. I'll keep my jumper on.  But the temperature says 14 degrees C.  What's going on?  The clouds are forming strange twisted horizontal cheese straws.  Most of the sky can't be brought in focus, but clearly there are elemental changes going on up there.  Darker still as we set off.

 Bailey Lane is a private track, but a water works van passes.  The guy calls out, "don't get struck by lightning"........Is that an omen?  How does he know what we're thinking.  Now here comes the rain.

We're out in the open.  Cannon fodder really.  Do rubber boots stop you getting struck by lighning? Let's make for the trees and walk along the edge of the plantation.  It's a bit wet, but good to have the boots on and someone has laid a tarmac track here where the path is.

Only three straight miles from home, but I've never been here before.  Feels like a new country.  No sign of lightning.

 Oh dear we got lost.  OK I got lost.  Just after Heath Farm. Took the easy signposted forest gravel path, but soon realised it was heading in the wrong direction.  Retraced our steps and found the way which was hardly used, boggy, overgrown and tough to follow.  Livingstone must have come this way.  No one else has in ages.  Got to be careful.  The ground is rutted with broken branches across, and more water than path.  You could break you leg, die here and no one would know for months. Soaked now, in just over half an hour, feet included.  The ground is a sponge, as is the sky, but I can see the crag now.  We're out of the forest. Two boggy fields to cross and we're there.  It's only just over 1,000 feet high on the edge of the Forest of Bowland (AONB), but the view even today is extensive.  I can see some Yorkshire Dales, our local Catlow Fell and Bowland Knots and even the fells behind the Salter Track roman road.

No lightning conductoring required.  If anything it's brightened up a bit, although the wind has strengthened.  A few brave mountain bikers are battling through the forest on twisty tracks, but they don't even look up to see us.  We are falcons.  We sit high on the crag.  All seeing.  Just waiting.  If one of them comes off his bike, I'm going to eat his leg!

So now to find a way off here, but the path on the map is barely visible on the ground.  It's a popular saying these days.  "You've got to get out more", but they aren't getting out around here.  I  know some paths are getting eroded but here they are disappearing fast, which is even more worrying.

Some old paths are marked by being consumed by reeds.  That's the case here.  It is a level route on the side of a slope, so it catches all the water as it runs off the fell and the reeds find it the perfect environment.  If it wasn't for the line of reeds though we might have had to battle our own route across the bouldery sloping surface.

2.5 inches to the mile is the scale of our map.  It shows walls and fences.  A great guide when you're not quite sure.  Finding the way off the fell would not have been easy if it wasn't for the lines of the walls showing exactly where to drop down to the end of the single track road.

Here's a summer meadow.  Brilliant colours with a background of bright spring green.  The grass and flowers are a billowing carpet 4 feet thick, bulking up the landscape.  Why do we find this spring growth so attractive?  It's so bold, enticing, colourful and cheerful and it smells fantastic. It's a feel good field! I guess we were all insects once.

Further down, yes we're dropping away from the fells, there's some horses galloping madly about.  They're over the wall from our lane, so not going to do us any harm, but mad about the rain, or the spring, or us or something.  It must be brilliant to run about in your dinner before you eat it!

Civilisation, T-junctions, bridges and finally a little shelter so the flask can be broken open.  Hungrier that we thought.  Cake dismantled.  Twix and biscuits. So good.  And good to sit and watch shimmering leaves, bright droplets and the occasional vehicle.  Walkers always feel superior to people doing everyday things, like driving, going somewhere for no apparent reason.  It's another of those special pleasures of getting out in the open.  You cannot be contained by car, house, job or duty.

Finally,  real hard rain for the last couple of miles.  Some people think we're not enjoying this.  Just letting the soaked hedgerow brush past and adding extra water brings the body and the walk to a crescendo.  Just about everything in life happens in a hedgerow and this exquisite country has  millions of miles of it.  You'll never be bored next to a hedge.

There's the car.  Well done!  Wet....just a bit.  Picture that little route in your mind as you look up the track you followed a few hours before.  It had everything. Nothing will ever be quite the same now you've done that. Pleased you came?  You bet.