The C2C Trial, Part 5: The Meaning of Life Is...

Portrait 1

A deluge of rain comes crashing down on Helena and I like a bad movie where the producers have opted for the cheap effects; as if set hands are dumping buckets of water on us while a fan blows somewhere from stage left. I let out a squeak of shock when the first cold wave finds its way down my neck.

We are scaling a high pass, about to descend down what is now a steady, slippery stream over slate. Through the din, we can make out what looks like a sprawling mining operation far below. One of us announces that we would happily murder someone for a latte, and the other jokes that perhaps a kindly miner will whip up a hot beverage when we get down there. It’s hard going—not as physically exhausting as hiking uphill, but a dizzying mental challenge that requires complete focus on the steep, uneven terrain.

About twenty minutes later, with only a few slips, pauses, and reiterations of how awful this is, we finally reach the bottom. I couldn’t be wetter if I had just fallen in the ocean. I can’t use my phone because I have nothing to dry my finger tip on, and I give up trying to shelter my screen from the downpour under the inadequate hood of my jacket, and stick it down my soaking shirt instead. The mining operation appears to be grey and abandoned.

But wait, is that a golden light shining through a window? And then, by God, bless this country, because the mine has a museum with an attached cafe. We break down into helpless, relieved laughter. It’s the best latte I have ever tasted in my life.

Portrait 2

I met Julie and Chris last night over dinner in Keld Lodge. If you remember from Part 3, my feet have hit an all time low. But after enjoying a day of transportation, relaxation, showering, and DIY medical attention, I feel I’m ready for another day of walking. Today, I have a companion to accompany me to Reeth—Paula, an Australian with a bad ankle. We make quite a pair. Her group has opted for the “high route”, so she and I hobble along the “low route” together—a stunning valley with amazing views of all the little hamlets that cling to the hillsides.

This is where we run into Julie and Chris again. I spoke with them briefly last night, so they understand the blister situation. They’re a couple from Devon, exploring the delights of their own country. We pause for some water, snacks, and in my case, more medication, and Julie produces some mystery, nameless painkillers she swears are magic. She was given them in Thailand when she threw her back out. “I’ll give you two, but only take one,” she says. “Only one,” she reinforces, with the expression of someone who has experienced the consequences of taking two.

Half an hour later I’m not sure if the painkiller is working, but boy has my mood improved. Everything is great. Julie dubs me “Brittany the Blister”, and I think that’s wonderfully fun. We come across a cute sign in a village and I snap a photo, thinking, isn’t that just the cleverest thing? Chris pays for my lime and soda at a pub en route, and I’m almost moved to tears at the gesture. When we are considering possible routes to take for the final stretch leading into Reeth, Chris says, in the voice of a good-natured partner, “Ok everyone, remember, this is a democracy. We all get our say, and then we do what Julie wants to do.”

I break down completely.

Portrait 3

It is a low point on a beautiful day. I’ve been eating nothing but gingerbread for the past twelve hours. My day began with a hike from Angle Tarn through fog so thick I couldn’t see more than fifteen feet in front of me. According to my map, the views must have been beautiful. It was quiet and eerie up in the peaks. The kind of place where little creatures in the fog can lure a wanderer deep into the thickets, never to be heard from again. Up in the heights, a group of hikers scared the crap out of me, and vis versa, as we suddenly crossed paths in the gloom, our shadowy figures hulking and unearthly before revealing ourselves to be simple mortals.

The trail eventually led down a steep, exhausting hill to Haweswater, releasing me at last from the fog mingling around Kidsty Pike and bringing the world back into view. I marched slowly along the lakeshore, shamelessly collapsed on the grass in a small park on the other end where a group of neighbours were sharing tea and gossip, and then carried on through pretty woods and rolling hills.

“I’m beginning to lose my sense of humour.” I hear a grim English accent from behind me, hours later. By this time I’m only 6km from Shap, my destination for the night. The voice turns out to belong to one of a pair of friends, Myles and Paul—Myles in considerably more pain. I join their death march, Myles and I straggling behind Paul, who is keeping up a reasonable pace and reminds me vaguely of John Lennon.

We stop for a brief snack, none of us with energy left to even take a photo of shambling Shap Abbey. “Is that gingerbread from Grasmere?” asks Myles, his voice lifting in hope as I unwrap the remains of my provisions. I attest that this is so. “Trade you for some Babybels,” he says, offering his ware as if we’re crouched in the corner of a schoolyard. It’s the best trade of my life. I am propelled to my destination by soft, salty cheese and join them later for pub-style lasagna, which I figure is the exact opposite of gingerbread.

Portrait 4

Brian is a chatty, wiry Californian in his 60s who recently relocated to Georgia. Like me, he is a rare creature in that he’s carrying camping gear with him. In the shelter of a bus stop, he looks me up and down with something like pity, and I can see why—everything about him is extremely efficient, and everything about me is… not.

His backpack is smaller and lighter than mine, and there’s something tough and streamlined about him as a person. During a short bus ride into Richmond (the rain is pouring down in sheets that I have never experienced before), he grills me on my gear I and learn that he has a super lightweight sleeping bag that I would freeze in, a set of small, high-tech gadgets, and a single-walled tent to save on weight and space. The tent is great in tinder-dry California, he says, but he’s discovered that it leaks horrendously in the rain, a fact that has drawn laughter from every Yorkshireman he’s shared this with. 

He has that particular American way of charging forward in a conversation, his mind and body already in a future state, a quirk that marks a difference between our cultures. He’s all talk about equipment options and pricing and strategy and what has worked and what hasn’t worked. He’s here as a foreigner, like me, but while I am firmly entrenched in the newness of this experience, he seems a somehow untouched, as if he’s passing through on the wind, unchanged. He’s a great storyteller as he gallops through lists, maps, schedules, goals, opinions, tips, and plans.

Canadians naturally have a more ponderous, casual way of conversing. We shoot the shit. We put our elbow on the table, take a sip of beer, and have a lengthy chuckle. We loop around, go on tangents, and come back to the point eventually—or not. What’s the hurry?

We say, “oh yeah” a lot, and “no kidding!” There is something earnest, honest, and patient about our communication style; something in the gaze that connects, and something in the pace that invites rambling. Brian’s gaze is flitting and quick, zapping from thought to thought. I think he’s hilarious. He accompanies me to an outdoor store where he marches around, trying and failing to find some gadget, and lamenting the lack of options in these places. I buy a new pair of boots. We throw my old ones away in a bin outside. “I feel like I should thank them for their service,” I admit. “Fuck that,” he responds. “Those boots never did a good thing for you.”

I leave him to continue his shopping, and instantly regret not asking him what his plans are. Richmond is a bigger town, and I might never see him again. My inn is amazing and features a small attached pub with a bay window, so I order a cider and watch the rain hammer down while my room is being made up. An hour later, who should enter but Brian! He joins me and we continue our conversation.

The next day, he’s gone again like a sparrow, and I have failed once more to learn what his plans are. I decide to stay another night and run into him at Richmond Castle the following day, on the ramparts. We don’t exchange any information again, but I run into him the following day on the trail.

At this point, without saying so, we seem to agree to rely on the universe to reconnect us, which it does for six days in a row—in a remote pub in the moors, on a steep trail where I’ve taken a break, breathing hard, and in an inn that neither of us booked in advance but chose last-minute, separately.

When this whole journey finishes (stay tuned), we end up on the same bus to the same town to take different trains that both eventually lead to York. The last thing Brian says to me at the station is, “With our luck, we’ll probably see each other at York train station!” Sadly, the realization that I’ll actually never see him again hits me too late, and here we are.

Maybe he’ll stumble across this blog.

And perhaps the meaning of life is to make life meaningful.

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