Prevouisly, this weblog might have given the impression of a cavalier attitude toward preparation. This is probably the dregs of teenage suspicion against anything looking too much like ‘effort’. And, you know, the fact there are no pictures of Lou Reed, David Bowie or Kanye West in waterproofs.
Which is fine until you’re dealing with the rain. Throughout Saturday’s walk on the Pennine way we dodged the showers. Yesterday, the downpour started as we stopped for lunch and pretty much continued until the day’s end.
The rain soaked my trousers as I’d not had chance to put on waterproofs. Slowly my boots became sodden, every footstep squelchy and gross. And my poncho kept getting whipped away by the wind.
I’m more of a fan of rain in theory than practise. Take Madonna’s song, which compares rain to love; this couldn’t be further from my experience of continual showers and drizzle. Listening back to Rain, I can tell Madonna hasn’t faced a wet day on the Pennine way. She is not someone who owns waterproof trousers.
As we approached Pen-y-ghent, the mountain was invisible. We never saw more than about 50-100 metres in front of us. We had no idea how far we had to climb until we reached the path at the summit. I have no idea what this mountain looks like.
The ascent was more challenging than we’d expected, with a little scrambling over rocks while high up. As there was a break in the rain I took off the poncho to stop it blowing about. We kept going, excited about the summit, and what the guidebook described as a “sublime shelter”. This turned out to be two sets of benches, well designed so that one set would always be out of the wind. It gave us somewhere to rest and eat, but to be called sublime, a shelter really needs a roof.
The views from the top of Pen-y-ghent were disappointing.
During the first day walking the Pennine way, David and I met two women who’d done it done years back. They told us they had seen only one afternoon of rain the whole time. An enviable experience, but it gives them little to talk about when the conversation turns to the Pennine Way’s reputation for bad weather.
The experience of waterlogged boots and clothing was unpleasant. But it was never dangerous, since we had a warm place to stay at the end. The weather could well have been worse – it was warm, at least. And I found myself enjoying the challenge, knowing that I could endure everything that the rain was throwing at me. I was content, maybe even happy. There were few places I would have rather been.
Lying in bed now, a little after 6, I can hear rain lashing the windows. My car is a little way off in Hawes. I’m not looking forward to setting out, but I’ll make the best of it.