The first landmark on the days's walk, the Nine Standards, is way up on a ridge where the wind howls, but at least it wasn't raining. Someone, at some unrecorded point in time, built nine tall and expertly crafted cairns up there, visible on (rare) clear days from miles away. The mystery is why they're called "Standards". There's no standardization at all; they're all different sizes and shapes.
It's an area with a long history of anarchy and warfare (those barbarous Scots, you know) and a man at the top said the cairns once marked a tribal border. However, since there's no authoritative explanation, I'm free to make up my own story: they are memorials to nine brothers, all killed in battle, whose names are long forgotten. But there stand the rocks.
From the ridge, one then heads into the dreaded peat bog. The community of walkers to which we temporarily belong, meets up in pubs and B&Bs and tells stories about the bog, about the woman who sank in up to her knees, and another who was sucked into the muck up to her waist! Our landlady laughed at this talk, assuring us boots and gaitors would suffice, no wet suits needed.
Peat is mysterious stuff. How do you dry out the wet muck so that you can burn it? Who dreamed that up? Is it like pre-coal? Is coal well-aged peat?
The bog calls to mind the Everglades, which is often called the "Sea of Grass". It's tricky walking, trying to find the driest way around and guessing each time you put a foot down how firm the ground will be.
The trail is marked here and there with posts. As long as the fog doesn't come down and you can see the posts, (some of which are well sunken into the bog themselves) there's a way out.
At one point there's even a bridge (of limited utility.)
Leaping over muck and stepping on reeds and heather, we got through the bog with our toes dry inside our boots.
That wasn't so bad, I said to some British walkers gathered 'round a table. "Oh," they said, "It's the bogs near Darby, on the Pennine Trail that are really bad. Took two men to pull poor Thomas out! If we 'adn't a been there, he might not a made it. Panickin' he was."
We tromped on into Keld, the halfway point of the trail, for the night. We've walked (well over) 100 miles. That's thousands of sheep, millions of rocks, every shade of green perceptible to the human eye, a half pint every night and no blisters! (knock on wood.) My boots are my friends. They've got Cumbrian sheep shit and peat bog muck in the seams now, but I love'em.
We've traversed the Lake District, so herewith are today's "Welcome to Yorkshire" photos:
Cheers!
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