At the Crossroads : Kirkby Stephen to Keld

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”
 
Edward Abbey

 

Rested, Relaxed and Continuing On

 

After two nights of decent sleep in a hotel, a rest day in Kirkby Stephen, and a little time spent out of the rain, we woke feeling restored enough to continue along Wainwright’s Coast to Coast. Our gear was dry again, our spirits had improved, and I had used the time in town to add another panel and a great many more stitches to Sean’s beleaguered backpack. It was not a perfect repair, but it offered enough peace of mind to let us load our packs and keep moving without constant worry.

 

Today’s stage was comparatively short, only about 19 kilometres, and our goal was simple: keep a decent pace, make progress, and enjoy the day. After the previous stages through the Lake District, with their steep climbs, muddy descents, and unexpected challenges, that felt like a modest and reasonable ambition.

 

Today also held a larger significance - this stage would take us toward the divide between Cumbria and Yorkshire, across the high ground near Nine Standards Rigg, over the moorlands, and onward into Swaledale. It would also bring us close to the midway point of the Coast to Coast and into Keld, where Wainwright’s route briefly meets the Pennine Way. In practical terms, it was one more day of walking.  In the larger arc of our UK hiking plans, it was a crossroads.

 

We waited for breakfast at 8 AM, along with what felt like half the hikers on the trail. There was good energy in the room, but also a slightly overwhelming sense of being part of a much larger herd. More than fifty walkers seemed to be setting out at roughly the same time, many of them moving in groups, shipping their luggage, checking maps, and preparing for the stage ahead.

 

Eventually we packed up, checked out, and stepped back onto Wainwright’s Coast to Coast.

 

Setting Out from Kirkby Stephen

 

The route rejoined the trail almost immediately outside our accommodation, weaving us through Kirkby Stephen and down toward the River Eden. We crossed the water on a beautiful stone bridge, pausing to look down into the river below. Although the water level seemed low, the waterway was alive with birds, and it was good to begin the day by looking rather than rushing.

 

On the far side of the bridge, a sign offered a satisfying reminder of our progress. Since leaving St Bees, we had walked more than eighty miles across northern England, and we had a little over one hundred still to go before Robin Hood’s Bay. By the end of the day, if all went well, we would have crossed the halfway point.  Exciting!

 

From there, the route led us through fields of sheep, all of them baaing in different tones, as though each had its own opinion about the morning. On the edge of the field, we noticed a pale brown and white hawk perched on a utility pole, watching the landscape with far more patience than we possessed.

 

Soon we were following an urban gravel path toward Hartley, a small village on the edge of Kirkby Stephen. Beyond the buildings, the path turned onto a paved road and began the slow, steady climb toward Nine Standards Rigg.

 

It was easy walking, but not especially enjoyable. There were many hikers on the road, and large groups spread themselves across the lane as we rounded the quarry and began slowly climbing. The pace was irregular, set less by the terrain than by the collective movement of other walkers. We could see the Nine Standards from a distance, standing tall on the top of the hill, and we stopped briefly to take in the moment and photograph them.  Within minutes, however, we were surrounded by dozens of hikers marching uphill shoulder to shoulder. Unable to repack and move quickly enough, we found ourselves caught behind the group. As a result, the ascent of Hartley Fell became an extraordinarily slow process.

 

We have never been especially good at walking in crowds. Part of what we love about long-distance walking is the freedom to set our own pace, to stop for birds, to photograph a flower, to notice a stone, a cloud formation, or a stunning landscape. Here, after our rest day in Kirkby Stephen, we seemed to have landed in the middle of one of the larger bubbles of Coast to Coast hikers, and there was no easy way to move within it.

 

When the group was behind us, people pushed to get past. When they were ahead of us, they seemed to slow almost immediately. It was not malicious, but it was tiring. The climb itself was by no means either challenging or difficult, but the crowds made it feel more touristy than trekking.

 

The Nine Standards

 

The hillside was covered in blooming yellow gorse and dotted with white hawthorn trees. The wind grew colder and stronger as we gained height. I found it refreshing after the warmth of the lower fields, but Sean (never one to enjoy cold breezes) was freezing, a situation not helped when the sky began to spit rain. As so often happens, the same weather that made us uncomfortable also made the landscape more beautiful.  The colours of the fields and flowers became vibrant dots of yellow amid a sea of varying shades of green, all contrasted against the darkened skies.

 

The Nine Standards themselves are a striking and mysterious sight: nine stone-built cairns, each different in height and shape, standing on the high ground above Kirkby Stephen. No one seems to know exactly who built them or why they were placed there, though they have likely stood for several centuries and have been restored in more recent years – though they have clearly been recently vandalized and carved into, which is a shame.

 

We tried to find a way to photograph them, but hikers and day visitors were using the stones as benches, lunch spots, and selfie backdrops spinning in every direction. As seems to happen in popular places, the landmark had become not only a place to notice, but a stage on which people performed their arrival. So we did what we often do in such moments: we enjoyed what we could, accepted what the place was giving us, and walked on.

 

Beyond the stones, the character of the day changed almost immediately. Near a brass compass and trig point marking the high ground, the land started to become noticeably sodden and boggy. The hope that the coming watershed would be drier evaporated, and the challenge of the moor had begun.

 

Across the Moor

 

We had read that significant effort had gone into limiting erosion across the peat bogs around Nine Standards Rigg. The guidebook described seasonal colour-coded routes designed to spread foot traffic across different areas of the moor, allowing some sections to recover while others were in use. There were also supposed to be flagstones or pavers across the worst of the wet ground, both to protect the peat and help walkers avoid sinking into it.

 

In theory, it sounded sensible. In practice, it was not so straightforward.

 

At the edge of the bog, we found a series of signs indicating which seasonal route we were meant to follow. While we stood there trying to sort out the correct direction, the rain began to fall harder, and the large group of hikers  - part of a tour group all with identical day packs streamed past us. Ahead, two short lines of stone pavers seemed to diverge across the wet ground. For a brief moment, we hoped they might carry us through the worst of it.

 

They did not.  After perhaps a dozen steps, the stones simply stopped. Regardless of which route one chose, the thirteenth step was into the marsh and what was standing ankle-deep water.

 

Beyond the pavers, the ground was mossy, saturated, and unstable. Ahead of us, other hikers were picking their way across the moor, trying and mostly failing to avoid sinking into the mud. At some point near this crossing, we left Cumbria and entered Yorkshire. It should have felt like a milestone. Instead, we were mostly focused on keeping our boots attached to our feet and not falling in any deeper.

 

The moor was unlike anything we had crossed so far on the Coast to Coast. It was open, wet, remote, and strangely featureless, with the path widening in places into a churned-up corridor of mud as hikers searched outward for firmer ground. The very act of trying not to damage the moor seemed to damage it further. Every person who stepped around one boggy patch created another line, another puddle, another widening of the route.  All of which seemed to stand as proof that this region desperately needs a fixed line of paving stones laid across it. 

 

We followed what tracks we could from stone cairn to stone cairn, periodically checking our GPX tracks, while people spread across the landscape twenty wide in search of a dry way through. Often there seemed to be only one passable line, though “passable” is a generous word in this context. The result was that we frequently felt as though we were standing in a queue while also being pursued by a swarm, each person assuming that whoever was making progress must know the safest or driest route and therefore had to be overtaken.

 

Sean was walking ahead of me when two men pushed past him, forcing him to sidestep from one patch of mud toward another. In that instant, the moor swallowed him. He sank first to his knees and then deeper,  and was soon unable to pull himself free. When he tried to move, one of his shoes was sucked from his foot into the quagmire. Thankfully, he was able to retrieve it, but the moment frightened him badly.

 

Before I could fully help him, an older couple nearby began laughing. Then, almost immediately, they stepped too close, slipped into the same boggy mess, and became stuck themselves. Their laughter turned quickly into anger, directed mostly at me as I tried to help Sean onto firmer ground. Somehow, in the chaos of the moment, I was suddenly responsible not only for my own hiking partner, but for strangers who had been mocking him seconds before and who were now in the process of calling me every rude name that a woman could be called – some of which I actually had to look up to figure out.  I helped them out as best I could. There was no thanks. Instead, there were complaints that I had not done it quickly enough.  After berating me, they shoved past and marched on.

 

It was one of those trail moments that reveals how thin the line can be between confidence and fear, humour and panic, kindness and entitlement. A few seconds earlier, they had been laughing at someone else. Once the moor had hold of them, they wanted and demanded immediate rescue.

 

We continued on, decidedly mud-covered. Not long after, another group behind us also became stuck, and we sought to help them as best as we could.  It was not long before we came to see that the muck of the moors has an odd tendency to really hold onto legs and bodies.  A few feet further, we found members of the large tour group debating whether to use the emergency button on their satellite inReach device because one woman had developed the beginnings of a blister from the wet and muddy conditions. After everything we had seen and walked through over the years, the amount of drama poured into that small situation was astonishing.  The very notion of using an emergency beacon and devoting emergency resources from a real crisis for a blister – yet for these people it was a serious debate.

 

And yet, for all of this, the moor was not without beauty. It was open and wonderful in a way that felt unlike the valleys, villages, and fells that had come before. In fog, it would have had an entirely different character and perhaps even been eerie. In clearer weather, perhaps it would have felt vast and full of colour.  At one point, a pair of Red Grouse burst from the heather ahead of Sean, scattering too quickly for a photograph. Curlews called overhead, one of them seemingly dive-bombing hikers, likely defending a nest or young nearby. Meadow Pipits moved through the grasses, and more grouse called from the moor.

 

The moors were undeniably difficult, but the land was wondrously alive.

 

Eventually, whether after a long time or simply what felt like one, we reached firmer ground beside a line of limestone. We tried to stop for a break, as did several members of the Korean hiking group who nodded their greetings as they passed by.  But another large and loud group soon arrived and pushed our gear aside as they began to sprawl across the area. Not willing to argue or stand our ground amid the constant flurry of elbow nudges, we adjusted our packs and moved on. At that point, our only real goal was to find a little space between the different herds of hikers.

 

Toward Ravenseat

 

Not long after, the landscape began to shift from watershed to open fields. A farm appeared in the valley below, bright green pastures defined by fence lines.  Stone outbuildings dotted the hillsides, some perhaps barns, others possibly connected to the lead-mining history of the area. The ground became firmer to trek on, and eventually we reached a solid gravel track.

 

After the moor, the ease of walking on felt luxurious. The route passed small huts and a shooting lodge before entering the agricultural landscape divided by drystone walls, and while sheep and horses dotted the hills.

 

Ravenseat Farm sat in a beautiful location, with a stone bridge, open picnic space, and a sense of welcome even though the usual café was closed. A sign out front explained that there would be no service that day.  Regardless, we sat at the picnic tables in the farmyard and ate granola bars that we had on us instead.  It was heavenly to take a break and remove our sodden shoes.

 

Beyond ourselves, there were Lapwings in the yard, and Barn Swallows wheeling overhead. After the tension of the moor, sitting still among birds, stone buildings, and green fields felt restorative, even without tea or cake to nibble on.

 

Onward to Keld

 

Leaving Ravenseat, the trail followed a long ridge above the river. Many hikers gave up the path and took to the road, but we stayed on the higher route, partly out of commitment and because we wanted to remain true to the line we had chosen to walk.

 

The trail climbed gently past abandoned stone buildings and into a landscape very different from the boggy moorland behind us. Here, the hills were green and flowered, the fields continued to be divided by long walls, and the pastures were full of sheep. Black-headed Gulls moved up and down the waterway, and on one section of wall we spotted a black-and-white Oystercatcher, looking oddly at home so far from the coastal shores I would have expected him to be.

 

In places, the landscape appeared scraped or managed – we wondered if its condition was perhaps connected to local heather management for grouse. As we slowly descended from the higher ground, the land continued to become firmer and more pasture-like. We crossed narrow paths beside walls, skirted more sheep fields, and eventually dropped toward the River Swale.

 

We thought we were descending into Keld. We were, eventually. But first, of course, the trail required another climb before the day’s end.  After passing a glamping site, we followed the paved road into the village. Keld sits high in Swaledale, surrounded by beautiful hills and layered history. Once a 19th-century mining centre, it is said to contain a remarkable number of historic buildings, though by the time we arrived, most places of interest were, naturally, closed.  Such is often the nature of long-distance hiking – to leave before things open and arrive after they have closed.

 

We climbed the road to Keld Lodge, also known as Black Sheep Lodge and Hotel, where the large tour group had already been transported back from the moors and had taken over the tables along the side of the building. The patio was full, so we sat out front instead and met a friendly couple with a dog who were walking the Pennine Way.

 

This made sense. Keld is where Wainwright’s Coast to Coast and the Pennine Way meet, and because of that, it was noticeably busy. We would be back here in a few weeks, if all went according to plan, walking northward from Edale on the Pennine Way. For now, though, we were still moving east across England, and Keld marked both an arrival and a future return.

 

We took off our shoes, warmed our soaked socks and wrinkled feet in the sun, and enjoyed a couple of cold pints. After the moor, the simple pleasure of drying off in the sun with a stout in hand felt terrific.

 

Evening at Park Lodge Farm

 

From Keld Lodge, we continued a short distance down to Park Lodge Farm, where we planned to camp for the night. The welcome was indifferent, and the setup was a little confusing at first, but the facilities turned out to be excellent. There were clean bathrooms and showers, a small shop, a café area, picnic tables, and a grassy courtyard where we later ate cheese toasties for dinner.

 

We pitched our tent in a lovely field with views over the surrounding pastures. Better still, no one else seemed to be camping, which meant we had space to wash, reorganize, and dry out much of our gear. After the mud of Nine Standards, this was a blessing.

 

From the tent and throughout the surrounding field, we saw a Pheasant, Curlews, a Great Grey Heron, Barn Swallows, Blackbirds, House Sparrows, and a Kestrel wheeling overhead. The proprietor seemed fiercely protective of a nearby Curlew nest, and throughout the area, we had seen signs asking walkers and dog owners to respect nesting birds, especially during the breeding season. After watching Curlews defend their space on the moor, those signs felt appropriate.

 

I took a shower while Sean simply lay down, too tired to do much else beyond lying in the sun.  By day’s end, it felt wonderful to be clean, in dry clothes, and stretched out in the gradually cooling evening air, free at last from wet shoes, wet socks, and muddy pants.

 

At the Crossroads

 

That evening we caught up on our travel journals and read through the guidebook for the next day.

 

For Coast to Coast walkers, Keld is a village in Swaledale, a place to sleep, eat, dry out, and prepare for the next stage. For Pennine Way walkers, it is another point along the long northward line from Edale toward the Scottish border and Kirk Yetholm. For us, it was both. We had arrived here walking west to east across England, but in less than three weeks we hoped to return from a different direction, following another national trail through the same hills.

 

We also discovered that we were moving along part of the International Appalachian Trail. Unlike a single continuous footpath, the International Appalachian Trail is more conceptual than linear. It follows the ancient geological story of the Appalachian mountain system, beginning in the eastern United States, extending through Atlantic Canada, and then continuing across the Atlantic into parts of the United Kingdom, Europe, and beyond. Its purpose is not only to offer a route on the ground, but to highlight landscapes once joined before continents separated. What connects the trail is not always continuity underfoot, but continuity beneath it.

 

That idea resonated with us. In Newfoundland, we had followed the old rail bed of the T’Railway Trail. In Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, we had crossed related landscapes along the Celtic Shores Trail and sections of the Trans Canada Trail. In Prince Edward Island, we had walked the Confederation Trail, and in New Brunswick, the Sentier Trans Canadien. Now, here in northern England, we were again walking within that larger geological story.

 

It was a strange and wonderful thought: that in moving across England, we were also touching a line that formed a connection to Atlantic Canada, not by border, nation, or modern route, but through geology.

 

What the Moor Left Behind

 

In many ways, today had been a good day’s hike. We had crossed a significant divide, reached the halfway point of the Coast to Coast, entered Yorkshire, seen Red Grouse, Oystercatchers, and Curlews, passed through moorland, pastures, farms, and arrived in one of the great crossroad communities of northern England’s walking routes.

 

And yet not every day on the trail leaves only clean memories. The moor left Sean with something darker. Being sucked knee-deep and then nearly thigh-deep into the bog frightened him in a way I had rarely seen and did not fully recognize at the time. He has crossed mountains, highways, forests, winter roads, and thousands of kilometres of difficult terrain, but that moment (I would later discover) unnerved him deeply. In the weeks that followed, he would periodically wake from nightmares about being trapped in the moor.

 

It is strange what stays with us. One person laughs. Another panics. Another walks away unchanged. Another carries the moment onward. Such is the nature of experience. We do not always know what will mark us until afterward.

 

That evening in Keld was warm and sunny, with a stunning sunset over the fields. It was hard to reconcile the beauty of the campsite with the mud and damp of the moor only hours earlier, but long walks often ask us to hold each aspect of the trail together at once. A day can be difficult and still beautiful. A stage can be worthwhile and still leave a scar.

 

Rain is forecast again for tomorrow, which, after even our short time walking in the UK, does not surprise me in the least.  Regardless, for the moment, I am dry.

 

See you on the Trail!