Trailtrekker 2015 - Llamas Not Included: Part 1

If you ask me, nothing says "it's going to be a good weekend" more than pitching a tent.  Whether it's a festival, or camping by the seaside, the excitement of being under canvas for a couple of days always makes me feel good.  This weekend however, the camping was a means to an end.  The temporary camp site at Skipton Academy had one purpose, it was to be the base, start, and finish point for the teams taking park in Oxfam's Trailtrekker 2015, a 100km walk through the stunning Yorkshire Dales.

I was the first member of team Llamas Not Included to make it to Skipton, so I set up camp and started our registration process whilst waiting for Jonathan, Dalia, and Deborah to make it over from Leeds.  We were a full team by the time the time the second of the evenings safety briefings took place.  We tucked into jacket potatoes with beans and (organic) cheese whilst we were lectured on hydration, temperature control, and the importance of walking boots over any other form of foot wear.

A lot of the safety briefing felt like common sense to us, but I don't deny it it's relevance.  I would say however that all advice from experts needs to be heavily caveated, as what is great advice for one person is potentially a bad idea for someone else.  I know this to be true of running and I can't see why "one size fits all" advice should be right for walking too.

By the time we'd registered, and had our dibbers strapped to our wrists, it was time to retire for the night.  This was when I faced my first weather related disaster of the weekend.  The tent's windows had been opened to allow some fresh air in, however it had started raining during the safety talk and my sleeping bag and ground mat were soaked.  This was not the most annoying part of the night however.  It was astounding that even though everybody in the field was about to take on a 100km treck in the morning some people thought it would be acceptable to stay up chatting and singing songs until well past 1am.  To say that the team didn't sleep well is an understatement!

We awoke at 5am, bleary eyed and bedraggled tailed.  This was not the start that we wanted but you have to play the hand you're dealt.  A full English later and we were ready to go.  At 7am our wave of starters were under-way and we were instantly stuck in a convoy walking just slower than was comfortable, along the Leeds Liverpool canal.  I had no intention in racing around the 100km route but not being able to walk at our normal pace was frustrating.

Bleary eyed and bedraggled tailed...we set off.

We soon made it to the first water-stop at Gargrave, and even though we hadn't been moving as fast as we could have we were still well within our predicted time.  We had decided only to spend 10 to 20 minutes at each checkpoint so after topping up our water bottles, using the facilities and necking a hasty cup of tea we were back on our way to Malham, and the first stop with our support crew.

The crowds of the canal tow path had dispersed and although we could see two or three teams in either direction we were now able to walk at our own pace without fear of getting in anybody's way or being hit by a flailing walking pole.  We already knew where we were going, having walked the route on our training walks, but even if we didn't it would have been very difficult to get lost as the way was marked with fluorescent orange arrows at every turn.

We were wary as we passed Airton as on our first walk this was the boggiest section, but the way was clear, even with the previous evenings rain.  Much to our surprise and that of Lyndon and Mike (our Support Crew) we made it to Malham just before 11 o'clock, and hour faster than we had anticipated.  All the way through training we had been hitting 24hour pace but we didn't think for a moment that that was achievable over the actual event.

We took the opportunity to change our socks and set off, only to be thwarted by red tape.  It turns out that what we thought was an acceptable survival bag was not what the bloke checking our kit thought one was.  Jon also came a cropper as he hadn't packed waterproof trousers.  You see Jon is a seasoned walker, his kit is robust and tested and he has never worn waterproof trousers in his life.  He has a long waterproof coat and wears gaters so the only exposed section of trouser would be 6 inches long and would dry out (or he could change trousers at the next check point).  All of this fell on deaf ears and so waterproofs and a survival bag were duly purchased.

Trouser-gate didn't lose us that much time and we were soon climbing up the 400 steps of Malham Cove.  I love that climb and its reward of one of the best views imaginable.  But we were only at the top long enough for a couple of photos before moving on towards Malham Tarn, the location of one of the low points of our training.  Last time we got to the Tarn we were welcomed by ice cold gusts of wind that went through us not around us.  This time out we got the first rain of the day, but as soon as we pulled our waterproofs (jackets only) out of our bags the rain eased off again.

Llamas Not Included on top of Malham Cove.

I'm not sure what happened next, but somewhere between Malham Tarn Field Centre and the foot of Fountains Fell Dalia's feet decided that they had already had enough of this walking lark.  Even though she had trained in her walking boots without a single blister, for some reason she was visited by a boot full of them.  The pace the we had set on the way to Malham quickly vanished and the hour in the bag was soon eroded.  Last time we had walked up Fountains Fell it had been freezing cold and blowing a gale but this time in the summer sun it seemed more painful just because of our pace.

When we made it to Horton in Ribblesdale Dalia got her feet patched up,  Debs changed out of her boots into some trail shoes and we set off again, having lost another hour.  Times for the event are some what irrelevant but we really wanted to have made it past Cam Farm before sun set as we knew how tricky it would be to cross Cam Pasture in the dark.  The podiatrist had worked miracles with Dalia's feet and we joined a stream of trekkers rejoining the Pennine Way for the long slow climb up Cam Fell.  Even though we knew where the path forked for us to join the Dales Way it felt like it was taking forever.  False summit followed false summit, but then in the distance we could see a hi-viz wearing volunteer.  It soon dawned on me that he was directing people to stay on the Pennine Way and not drop down Cam Fell.  This was met with mixed feelings.  The Fell was bound to be boggy but the road ahead was still climbing, and the path down to Cam Farm would be steep.

Eventually we reached our turning point and dropped down to Cam Farm only to appreciate that the dimming light was only partly due to the setting sun.  Ahead of us the sky was black-red and angry.  We knew that storms had been forecast but so had a day full of rain and we had only had a brief shower to contend with at Malham Tarn.  Then to our right the sky lit up.  Lightning in the direction of Horton.  Phew!  We weren't heading back so the storm could stay over the Three Peaks.  A second flash to our left, the direction of our journey confirmed that the storm was covering the whole of the Dalse to the South.  We were certain to meet bad weather after dark.

We were welcomed at Cam Farm by Terry, who I hugged after he told us there was hot Chilli con Carne on offer!  We took on food and water as the storm rumbled overhead.  The sky was soon black as the storm rained down upon the wriggly tin roof of the Game Keepers barn where we were sheltering.  We braced ourselves for what we were about to take on, donned our waterproofs (not the trousers), sorted out our head torches, snapped our glow sticks, and got our packs back on.  Dalia and Debs decided to take a final visit to the loos and promptly saved our bacon.

By the time they had come back to the barn we were on lock-down.  The event had been stopped because of the storm and nobody was allowed to leave the Barn.  We had no idea how long we were going to be stuck at Cam Fell but the volunteers and event crew kept us all fed and watered, giving us updates as and when they could.  More and more people joined us having been walking towards Cam Farm when the storm struck.  Each body was wetter than the last and space was fast becoming a premium.  At one point we were informed that there were at least 77 more people walking the Pennine Way in our direction.  A lucky few were moved into the farm house and the remaining trekkers were welcomed into the Game Keepers cottage.

How many more can we fit in this barn?

I couldn't help but try to listen into the conversations that the event crew were having but could only get a gist of what was going on.  The storm was rolling around the valleys that we needed to walk through and four days (weeks?) of rain had fallen in two hours.  The river had burst its banks, bridges were impassable and the normally boggy pasture path down from the farm to Oughtershaw was at best ankle deep.  Professional teams were being sent down the path to see if it was navigable but the wait continued.

Human fairy-lights.

Finally just before 11 o'clock we were told to get ready to leave, a two to three hour weather window meant that we needed to get back under way.  We were one of the first teams out of the barn and started the slog down the saturated path.  The idea of wearing walking boots to keep your feet dry was lost at this point, waders would have struggled to keep feet dry as we squelched between, over, and through, the swollen streams that feed Oughtershaw Beck.  Behind us the black night was punctuated like a string of fairy lights by head torches.  There were slips and falls but at least it had stopped raining.