The weather forecast wasn't looking great for Saturday. Mark had planned two routes depending on the weather, one on the Clwydian Range (not great in poor weather) and another on the Peckforton Range in Cheshire (not great in poor weather - but better than being exposed on the Welsh mountains). Both walks were anticipated to be 7hours of walking (excluding breaks). We opted for the Peckofrton Range as the forecast was showing rain into mid-morning and the 34km planned route was logged into the Garmin.
Driving through persistent drizzle on the way to rendezvous at The Pheasant, did not bode well for today's walk. Mark had fully filled his 3Litre Camelbak and thrown in two bottles of Lucozade Sport for good measure, a handful of Clif Bars, a tuna and cucumber sandwich, two pairs of socks, a mid-layer fleece as well as all the usual navigational paraphinalia he carries - seldom had his pack weighed so much. In true F1 style, we agreed on a two stop strategy of not more than 10minutes to try and start preparing for being supported by our crew. The plan was to stop after 2.5 hours and 5 hours leaving us a 2 hour walk to the finish.
 |
| The Tramway from the bottom |
The vision of two parallel lines disappearing and curving upwards was enough to turn the legs to jelly even before we got started. Martin explained there was only one rule - no swearing on the way up. A few gulps of water and and a with a wry smile from Martin they set off. Mark was soon regretting tackling this early in the walk with a full backpack. The 'no swearing' rule was quickly broken and Mark was not even half way up before the burning sensation in the calves started.
Step by gruelling step we climbed, the mud in between the sleepers slippery underfoot, the distance between the sleepers making it a further to reach than climbing steps and as we got further in, it began to fell like a ladder - Jacob's ladder perhaps, we're ascending to heaven, we must be dead - Mark began to hallucinate as the sound of his heartbeat pounded in his ears and Martin decided to film it so that it could be enjoyed posthumously by others who thought to attempt the Tramway.
 |
| The drizzle keeps on coming... |
As we began to climb towards the summit, we realised we'd taken a slight wrong turn and were meant to go down to the bottom again before taking a trail up the face. Retracing our steps we were soon looking up the face of Bickerton Hill but the marked path was nowhere to be found until we spotted what looked like a trail running straight up the face.
"That must be it" we decided so started on upwards only to realise that this was probably a route cleared by badgers as the undergrowth soon closed in on us. With the Tramway only a recent memory, we found ourselves once again heading steeply upwards on not so much a trail as a stream bed carved out by rushing water. Eventually we returned to the trail at the top which took us round the top fo Bickerton Hill as the drizzle beagn to ease and we began to descend once more.
By the time we had reached the bottom of the hill we were bang on 2.5 hours and searched for a convenient perch for a pitstop. Martin managed to make a bus-stop magically appear so the opportunity was taken to take a load off, scoff a sandwich, Clif bar, down a bottle of Lucozade and change socks (well for Mark in anycase). All managed nicely in 10 minutes and we were off again pleased we could manage it in the allotted time.
 |
| Looking out from Raw Head |
 |
| The Cheshire Plain unfolds in front |
As we approached the point we would leave the Sandstone Trail, there was no sign of the footpath as the farmer had recenlty tilled the field. Nothing else for it but to plough on (pun intended) across the field gradually picking bits of it up on our trail shoes as we progressed and feeling steadily heavier with each step. Finally reaching the stile in the corner of the field we hopped over to find a field full of thigh deep (waist deep on Martin) wet grass and no desire line where the path should be. A quick glance at each other and across we went boldly going were others seemed to feared to have tread. At least the grass had cleaned the mud off the shoes and we expressed relief we had yet to remove our waterproof trousers. This was proving harder going than the hilly section.
 |
| Beeston Castle |
We soon found however that the field was perhaps more suitable for the growing of rice. With each step we found water deeper than our boots would permit and after several attempts at trying to find dryish spots, we decided to embrace our watery fate and just went for it.
Once again we broke the 'no swearing' rule as we splashed through the flood knowing not even the miracle of GoreTex would be capable of preventing the inevitable squelchy trudge that would follow.
After clearing what we hoped would be the worst of the fields and reaching the Eddisbury Way and concluding this must be better- because it has a name (though I won't share the string of expletives we called the preceeding footpath) we decided to at last have a well earned pit-stop after 5hrs and 45minutes. Again setting aside 10 minutes, Mark demolished his other sandwich, a Clif bar, downed another bottle of Lucozade Sport before changing his socks and retiring a fairly sodden pair to the backpack. It was also welcoming to ditch the waterproof coat and change the sweat-soaked T-Shirt (a big welcome relief). As Martin's change of socks were waiting at the car, the best he could do was tip the surplus water out of his boot and then we were off down the Eddisbury Way which was mildly better than the 'Footpath-now-known-as-a-string-of-expletives'.
Having damp feet and soaked boots raised the increased possiblity of blisters as the skin softened, but there was little choice than to press on. As we did so we came across several groups of DoE teams and not wishing to look like a pair of guys, who are walking this way because they've already done 25km and have soaked feet, we set about overhauling the whipper-snappers and by the time we came to climb Peckforton Hill, we had overhauled three of the teams. Feeling chuffed, we hit the hill with gusto and hit the magic 33.33km figure at 7hrs 20minutes - one-third of Trailwalker! Mulling over what time that might translate to over the 100km we hit the next obstacle, a series of stepped plateaus created with logs, each one seeming to get higher than the preceeding one. It was good to see after this length of walk we still had enough in us to climb and then we were descending through the grounds of Peckforton Castle and out of the gate.Martin then reminded Mark we still had to go up through 'that field' and it dawned on Mark the climb wasn't yet over and worse still, the field had also just been tilled, meaning another long trudge over freshly turned soil. At last coming over the final hill and descending to The Pheasant, we realised how much our feet were aching and mulled the prospect of having to do it another two times to reach Trailwalker distance. As we reached the cars and began to deposit our gear, Martin removed his socks and wrung out a trickle of water from each and after a quick change into dry socks and trainers, we walked like a pair of gunslingers into the Saloon of the The Pheasant and downed a pint of Weetwood's finest. Never has a pint tasted so good or been drunk so eagerly (well except perhaps in Ice Cold in Alex).
The walk turned out to be 36.53km with 706m of climb in 8hrs 8minutes and thankfully we were blister free.
No comments:
Post a Comment