August 7, 1978: Langdon Beck to Dufton
Cauldron Snout
Sometime during the night the rain stopped. When I went downstairs in the morning I discovered that Mrs. Bainbridge had done an excellent job of drying my clothes and especially my boots. Tony and Chris, always ravenous, were right on time for breakfast at 8:30, but after this meal Tony decided to soak a badly blistered foot in mineral spirits and we were not ready to depart until 10:00 – my latest departure yet for a full day of Pennine walking. Photography was a little easier this morning, and I took some shots of my new companions as they emerged from the Langdon Beck Hotel.
They followed my route finding suggestions, derived from a close study of the OS map, as we walked along a road in search of a shortcut to Widdeybank Farm. A rabbit careened across the road as we headed toward the Tees, with the encouragement of some bright patches in the east. The view towards the west was less cheering, however – as low hanging clouds blocked part of the route through which we had to pass. I was in a condition of high excitement – about to see so many interesting places I had only read about – and this to be combined with the opportunity for some real communication with fellow walkers. Chris and I talked about coin collecting during this stretch, if I recall correctly. The first hour was still pastoral: a huge bellowing bull was penned up in a field neared Widdeybank Farm, where we rejoined the PW, and sheep were bleating loudly. Whenever one of the creatures was particularly noisy Chris would respond with an admonitory “Mint Sauce!” The farmyard was muddy and I was glad I was wearing rain pants (actually the same pair both Dorothy and Jay had used) but at this stage I was able to store the rain cape, with Chris’ help, behind the straps of my pack.
We kept to the river around Cronkley Scar and I took the lead, anxious to establish my walking credentials, as we scrambled up and down the two boulder patches that followed. We passed the juncture of the Tees and Maize Beck and pulled up to the roaring Cauldron Snout – where we had a brief rest for picture taking. Then it was up the wet rocks for the bridge and farm road to Birkdale. The boys seemed pleased by the pace we were keeping and I was not having too many difficulties – my calf muscles were getting a bit sore – but my summer jogging had obviously been very useful preparation for this trip. Fortunately, to this point, things had been pretty level as well, but after Birkdale (described by Wainwright as “the loneliest inhabited place in Westmorland”) a section of uphill ensued as we headed for Moss Shop and another brief rest.
Maize Beck
The Way was now mucky underfoot and the water began to trickle over the tops of the boots. In addition we had now reached an elevation where mist was dominant so the rain cape had to come back on; mist and rain continued for the rest of the afternoon. We rejoined Maize Beck and looked in vain for a good crossing point. Walkers coming in the opposite direction had warned us that the rainy summer would make this difficult, and they were right. So we decided to continue along the flood route – it added only about half a mile to the total distance, though it too was very marshy underfoot.
Someone had driven posts into the muck at intervals of two to three hundred yards and this made it hard to get lost. Tony, however, was finding the going most difficult and in the last hour he had been bringing up the rear. Finally he announced that he had to rest for an hour and urged us to continue and get out of the rain. I gave him a shot of brandy as a parting gesture and Chris and I continued without him toward the footbridge at Maizebeck Scar. Tony had begun in Edale with Chris, had lasted only a couple of days, and had returned to the walk only in Middleton. It was obvious now that, like the chap with bad knees at Mrs. Tallentyre’s and me at Mrs. Beech’s, this walk was now over for him. Indeed Chris reported a high rate of casualties among the walkers who had started the trek with him in Edale.
In the pitted limestone beneath the footbridge we had a little lunch. I ate a cheese sandwich but the smell of the cold lamb sandwich that followed was revolting and I abandoned it on the spot. Chris and I disagreed on the direction needed to get to High Cup Gill Head – he moving too far to the west as we crossed High Cup Plain and I preferring a more southerly line. I was right, because we emerged at the brow of High Cup Nick several hundred yards to the west – and so I missed the opportunity of staring straight down the chasm from its point of inception. We paused for some photo taking nevertheless. I was trying to keep up with a schedule of picture taking that would end each roll with the last step of the day but my first two days had been so rainy that it was only with perseverance that I succeeded. Anyway, I was no longer trying to record what I was shooting. My memory, the unique terrain, and the regular pace of photo taking enabled me to reconstruct all these details later on.
High Cup
We had a little more than four miles to go now, most of it downhill. My anxieties over our late start had all been washed away and we were well ahead of schedule as we passed the pinnacle of the Nichol Chair, then Hannah’s Well, and the cascades and boulders on the track to Dufton. I do not like steep descents, especially at the pace set by the long-legged Chris, but I didn’t want to lag now because I felt I needed a hiking companion even more on the morrow – Cross Fell day. Chris was going so fast that he slipped in the mud and had to ski a few yards down the slope – while I kept more cautiously to the off-route grass verge. I was able to catch up when we reached the gates above Dufton because Chris held these open for me. Rain pelted us all the way down and obscured views of the welcoming village below.
At last we were back on tarmac and completing the long winding sections into the hamlet itself. Chris was planning to set up camp in a field near the village green but first we went into the post office-general store – where I bought some snacks and two oranges. Mr. Pickles was proud of the postcards of Dufton on display, for he had taken the photos himself. I was at last able to send messages back to the U.S. indicating that I had survived two days of walking. We had arrived at 4:20 – fourteen miles in six hours and twenty minutes, a pace rivaling that of the third day of my first trip. Jay had told me that Norfolk House was right next door to the post office and there it was.
I rang the bell. Mrs. Lightburn answered. “Mr. Linick?” she asked. There was evidently no confusion in her mind since I was to be the only guest that night. It was agreed that this summer’s weather had cut into the bookings hereabouts, but Mrs. Lightburn indicated that there had been one fine week – in May! I gave her my wet suit and boots – the sweatshirt and the trousers were much dryer than on the previous day. Chris was sitting in front of the post office talking with an Australian who had earlier chided me for being the first American he had ever met who wasn’t always smiling. I leaned out of my first floor window and let Chris know about the vacancies at Mrs. Lightburn’s, but he seemed determined to save money and set up camp. I went to take a nice bath. Yesterday I had problems with tape that wouldn’t come off. Now I noticed that the moisture on today’s trek had loosened the tape from one heel and that I was getting a blister there. My early arrival gave me plenty of time to sort my pack and change film and, with my Adidas on, to have a stroll through the village.
Dufton town hall seemed to have been turned into a farm so that even in the center of the village visitors were greeted by a cacophony of bleats, oinks, and cock-a-doodledoos. At six o’clock the Stag Inn opened and I was there for a pint of lager. None of the other walkers were about yet but some locals were chatting with the lady publican and one was complaining because some outsider had refused to take his word or his hand as surety. At 6:30 I returned to Norfolk House for a most solitary meal in the dining room. Mrs. Lightburn evidently didn’t want to waste electricity on one guest and it was very dark in that room. Dinner was lamb again, though Mrs. L. forgot the mint sauce on the sideboard. I got to cut into a newly baked pie at dessert time – gooseberries and raspberries, and this was excellent. The Lightburns had a great garden behind their house and grew all of their own vegetables.
Mrs. L. asked me to let her know when I came in or went out of the house and I promised I wouldn’t be too late as I headed back to the Stag (better than staggering back to the head) at about 8:00. Chris, Tony, Lawrence, and Stephen were all there by this time, playing darts. I had a second pint and smoked a victory cigar. The place was filling up with young people of both sexes – many of whom were part of some organized tour that made progress by way of a van and, for their troubles, these adventurers earned only the deepest contempt from a purist like Lawrence. Of one shapely traveler on her way to the jukebox he did agree – “Well, if you couldn’t find any other comfortable place to sleep you could always use her as a mattress.” Lawrence seemed to be interested in studying medicine, and Stephen was soon to begin scientific studies at Sheffield University. They invited me to try my hand at the dartboard and this was fun. I bought a round of bitter for everyone and four of us agreed to walk together over Cross Fell the next day – that is all of these chaps save Tony, who was taking the bus to Penrith in the morning. I urged a slightly earlier start for us and at 10:00 or so I made my way back across the green to Mrs. Lightburn, still busy at her ironing, and went to bed.
To continue with the next stage of the walk you need: