Here's your intrepid team, Grumbler's Stumblers, just before the seven thirty start for Trailtrekker on Saturday 26th May 2012.
It's been quite a journey to get this far, to the start of the Challenge. We signed up back in January when I weighed 113 kg, and had a 38 inch waist. What wasn't clear from the blog when I started it was that I'd already lost 11kg during 2011, and a couple of inches off the waistline. There was more to be done - we all needed to train for this. We travelled up to Yorkshire as a team to walk the section of course we thought we'd end up doing in the dark, we had a night walk in the wilds(!) of Oxfordshire and we al had our personal plans too. I'd completed the 200 mile Coast to Coast, Lancy had climbed Kilimanjaro, and both Martins were getting mileage under their belts.
We were all fitter - I don't have numbers for the others, but what I'd managed meant that by the time this picture was taken I'd lost another 10kg and another 2 inches off the waistline.
Finally, it all came down to this and, as the man with the megaphone delivered the last of his profound starting speech "remember, keep yer hats on..." (it was a hot and sunny day) we were off. In the wrong direction. Not just us, obviously, we're daft, not stupid. There was a bit of 'elf 'n safety which meant a last minute change of route at the start, and an attendant extra 1.5 km as we all made our way to the canal side avoiding the flyover that the department of transport had decided to start repairing. The bunch of a couple of hundred walkers gradually thinned out into a long two-by-two snake which must have stretched for the best part of a kilometer by the time we got to the tow path - much to the discomfort of anyone trying to proceed in the opposite direction. We settled in, somewhere amongst the back third, and made our way through the 9km or so to the first water stop at Gargrave.
In hindsight, we probably spent too long there, as we were to do at each of the planned (and unplanned) stops along the way. In part, this may have been due to Martin B's need to remove his boots at every stop and count his toes to make sure none had fallen off yet. Its hardly fair to spatter him with the blame though, since I was personally delayed considerably by an encounter with an entirely unexpected cake. The long lines for the portaloos meant that many intrepid fellows, as well as one or two brave lasses, headed off to water the local trees. (Note to self, if not walking next years course, should be able to make a huge, if slightly cruel, profit retailing shewees...) I remembered an occasion when my sainted mother-in-law mistook a portaloo for a Tardis, to the amusement of the entire family - much later on I was to fervently hope that someone had indeed planted Dr Who's time travelling device in the middle of a line of plastic crappers, it would have solved a few problems.
Suitably refreshed and rested, we hit the trail again for another ten k's and checkpoint one at Malham. You have to hand it to Oxfam, they had arranged at each stop for groups of enthusiastic people to yell congratulations and encouragement as people turned up. Some of these folk were truly dedicated yodellers, though with lungs like that its a mystery to me why they weren't walking! Our bags were waiting for us at Malham, but this was where the "full support package" which we'd taken up was a bit lacking - the tent provided was packed and hotter than the surface of the sun, so we sat outside and shared our sandwiches with the gnats. A swift change of footware and we were off again on the longest stage to the next waterstop at Fountains Fell. But what's this? An unscheduled 'pop-up' luxury stop, complete with chocolate, fizzy drinks and a selection of fine English cheeses. Fatally unable to resist, we parked for another twenty minutes or so before finally plodding on. Fountains Fell is officially in the middle of bloody nowhere. So much so that we couldn't "check-in" with our little electronic dog-tags until a mile further down the road, because there was absolutely no mobile phone signal, which the tracking devices needed to make sure we werent going AWOL.
After checking in with the delightful lady at the turn off to the next hill, we turned and contemplated Pen-Y-Ghent seriously for the first time. Its a great measure of how well we were operating as a team that all of us had the same thought at the same time... "Bloody hell, we haven't got to go all the way up that have we?". Fortunately, we remembered that we had a map(!) and reassured ourselves that no, we didn't have to do much more than kiss the hill's boots! Once over the shoulder of the hill we had a steep trek down to Horton in Ribblesdale - during which we could see the next checkpoint all the way. Talking to teams afterwards we found this descent claimed a few scalps - or at least grazed a few knees - for the unwary there were a few six foot drops and we came close to terminally testing our knees a couple of times, but made it eventually to the checkpoint for soup and succour.
For the first time now, we were on really familiar ground, having walked Horton to Kettlewell as part of our training in March, and we knew that it was downhill for most of the rest of the way. We carried on up the Penine Way and turned off onto the Dales way where our previous outing had led us through boot sucking peat bogs and an area of forest that was completely blocked by storm felled trees. The bogs werent half as bad as we remembered, and the chainsaw squad had evidently been having great fun in the woods, so we made great time. The waterstop at Cam Farm was really well organised - the usual horde of friendly people handing out some very tasty choccy biccies, tea, coffee and soup. And what's more, this was well over halfway through the gold challenge. By the time we left here, we were in full dark. The route marked by eerie green glow-sticks, and walkers decked with blue ones, little groups of four head torches bobbing up and down as we all tracked over the remaining bogs and on to the road section.
It was actually quite nice walking along the roads. A lot of the teams had split up by this point, and some were accompanied by their support crews. Despite Oxfam's insistence on a 100m separation rule for teams, there wasn't much (any) evidence of this being enforced that we could see., but what this meant we that teams mixed and matched, chatting, and moving on, adding a real social aspect to the trek. I liked it, though I wish I'd got some of the names of folks we talked with. Down through the little village of Oughtershaw and on to Beckermonds where we joined the side of a stream for the next 2k to waterstop 4.
Sadly, this was where we started to feel the rot setting in. somehow a couple of us had managed to convince ourselves that the waterstop was closer, and the last couple of K took their toll on Depth Gauge. When we got to the waterstop it was fairly apparent that he had given everything he had and couldn't go on. We got him "retired", made sure he had transport to the next checkpoint, and then set off towards Buckden. It was at this point that Tardis I mentioned earlier would have come in handy! In a bizarre twist of fate, the "pump-flush" in these loos sounds almost exactly like a dematerializing Time-Lord's telephone box. Unfortunately, opening the door showed the same queue of people that was there when I went in - though one of them did look a little bit like an Ood.
By this time we'd pretty much decided that if another of us had to drop out, then this was it for the team, the others would retire too - looking around we all seemed tired. In the event, it was my feet which decided the matter for me. By the time we were about 2k from Buckden I was wising I'd learned to walk on my hands. The last kilometer to the checkpoint felt like five, and by the time we got there, at about three am on Sunday, I'd had it, and we handed our tags in to be exchanged for silver medals. Officially, we'd covered 65k in just under twenty hours, though my GPS tells me it was closer to 70k (and I know which one I'm gonna quote).
Despite not getting to the Gold 100k finish, none of us, nor any of our sponsors feel this was a failure. As many have pointed out. Walking about 70k (43.5 miles) in one hit isn't something that everyone would, or could, do, and we'd managed to raise over three grand for Oxfam between us.
Afterwards...
On Sunday, we stayed at a pub in Kettlewell where we were lucky to meet up with team "Phyl's little soldiers" Who not only finished, but actually "won" the challenge, completing it in 14 hours. This kind of put our efforts a little to shame, but as a genuinely nice bunch of people they were having none of that - insisting that our efforts were just as praiseworthy as anyone else's. Still, I'm sure they wont mind if I remain a little in awe of their achievements.
Monday morning saw us facing the five hour drive home, but stiff legged, I realised there was no way that was going to happen unless we first, you guessed it, went for a walk and, more importantly, an ice cream. So, we bravely headed off in the wrong direction (again) and took ourselves to Aysgarth, where a gentle stroll downriver rewarded us with some of the nicest waterfalls Ive seen for a while.
Despite, or maybe beacuse of, this, we all have a sense of unfinished business with this course. At the very least, I can see us going back up to finish the section we didn't walk, but I reckon its more likely that Grumbler's Stumblers will walk again next year, but with a dedicated support team in place, for sure. We've learned a lot about about the event, about planning, walking, stopping and food and drink. More, I think we (well, I know *I*) have learned a lot about ourselves. This distance walking is a bug, and there's no doubt that its bitten me.
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