Fog, Rain and Moors : Blakely Ridge to Egton Bridge

“I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” 

Rosalia de Castro

Morning at the Lion Inn

We woke on Blakey Ridge inside a world of fog. 

After a night of wind and rain, everything outside the tent was drenched. The grass was wet, the tent fly was wet, our little patch of pasture was wet, and the moor beyond had vanished almost entirely into shifting grey. Yet the whole place (or what we could see of it) was stunning. The fog had altered everything: the drystone walls, the few scattered trees, the road, the sheep, and the faint outline of the inn behind us. What might have been ordinary in clear light became mysterious and beautiful.

Sheep wandered through the pasture around the tents, utterly unconcerned by the presence of either tents or hikers. When I unzipped the tent and poked my head out, one large horned sheep was standing close by, staring back at me almost at eye level. It was one of those unexpected trail moments that is difficult to explain, but easy to love and was instantly memorable.

Having paid for breakfast at the Lion Inn, we were in no rush to pack before the pub opened. There was no point in hurrying just to stand outside in the fog with wet gear and an empty stomach. So we waited until the inn opened, then stepped inside, freshened up in the washroom, straightened ourselves as best we could, and found a table. 

Inside, the low, dark rooms were just as lovely as they had been the night before. The beams, flagstone floors, fireplaces, and old walls gave the place a feeling of being somehow removed from the present. Voices filled the room, and it quickly became clear that the inn had been full of hikers overnight. Only three of us had camped outside.  If only every evening and morning could be like it is here.

The staff were wonderful. After one of the bartenders brought us two truly massive cups of strong coffee - which remains my definitive way to begin any day, let alone a trail day - we were presented with a huge breakfast.  While I am still not fully converted to the size and deep-fried nature of the Full English Breakfast, I will admit that as trail fuel, it is difficult to deny its effectiveness. The fact that they offered a vegetarian version was especially welcome.

So before we left, a huge thank you was definitely due to the Lion Inn and its staff. They had given us warmth, food, great beer, a flat pitch, kindness, and one of the most memorable overnight stops of the Coast to Coast.

Setting Off into the Fog

Eventually, we had to return outside and pack up our drenched tent. But even that could not detract from the moment. It was what it was. There are mornings on trail when nothing dries, nothing folds neatly, and everything must simply be stuffed away wet with the hope that later in the day there will be sun, wind, time, or some combination of the three to address the issue. Even so, we were both sad to leave. The Lion Inn had felt like a place apart.

We set off with a group of other hikers back onto Wainwright’s Coast to Coast, all chatting as we walked down the road. For a while, the road was busy with people who had stayed in rooms the night before, their figures moving ahead of us before gradually fading into the mist. Luckily, most soon pulled ahead and disappeared, leaving us to the quiet of walking the trail across the moors in fog.

Even though this first stretch followed a road with more traffic than I would have liked, the atmosphere was eerie and beautiful. Waves of mist rolled across the landscape. Hikers appeared and disappeared ahead of us, becoming silhouettes one moment and vanishing the next. The moorland itself seemed to shift and recede as we walked, revealing only pieces of itself at a time.

The weather was exactly what we had come to expect from the Coast to Coast: a combination of fog, rain, wind, and the perpetual dilemma of whether to wear rain gear and sweat inside it or go without and be soaked and chilled directly by the weather. The grass along the verge was wet enough to drench our legs, the wind came hard across the exposed road, and the rain returned in bands.  Amid it all the fog remained.

On paper, this section descended overall. In practice, the road and trail rolled over shallow hills, enough to remind us that “downhill” does not mean a stretch is necessarily easy.

Across the North York Moors

The North York Moors are open, exposed, atmospheric, and often defined by the absence of es, buildings, and predominating features.   Much of the higher ground is covered in heather moorland, while the wider National Park also includes forests, rivers, dales, villages, and a striking coastline. Walking through it in fog made that landscape feel less like scenery and more like an experience in which everything emerged or disappeared slowly.

Following Blakey Ridge Road, we chose to stay on the road rather than immediately cross a short section of sodden moor. This had the added benefit of bringing us to Young Ralph Cross, one of the old wayside crosses of the moors and now a symbol of the North York Moors National Park. In the fog, it looked exactly as such a marker should: dark, solitary, weathered, and as though it had stood witness to history.

With little visible beyond the road, the moor, and the figures of hikers ahead of us appearing and disappearing in the mist, we continued onward.

Not long afterwards, we reached the cross known as Fat Betty, or the White Cross. It is one of those trail markers where history, folklore, practicality, and tradition all seem to overlap. These crosses once helped travellers find their way across the moors, particularly in poor weather, and there is a long-standing tradition of leaving a small offering of food at Fat Betty for the next traveller in need, while taking something if you require it yourself.

One story links the cross to a nun named Elizabeth, or Betty, from Rosedale Abbey, who was lost in thick fog on the moor with her attendant. Whether legend or myth, it felt especially evocative to encounter such a marker on a morning when the fog was thick enough to make disorientation seem very possible.

Farther along, we came to the Millennium Stone, which at first glance looked ancient and as though it had stood there for centuries. In fact, it is a modern monument, erected to mark the millennium and carved to echo the form of a prehistoric standing stone. In the fog, however, the distinction between ancient and modern felt less important than the way the stone seemed to belong to the landscape.

From there, we turned north along another branch of road before eventually joining a broad track that looked built for both ATVs and walkers. We were grateful not to be navigating open moorland directly. In weather like this, an established trail felt like a gift.

Birds and Conservation on the Moor

As had been a joy yesterday, we continued to experience the fact that the moors were full of birds.  We saw more Red Grouse, the red eyebrows of the males glowing brightly through the damp grey air. Birds moved just a few feet off the trail, often invisible until they exploded from the heather with an indignant burst of wings and rabble. Often scaring the complete crap out of us as we walked by.

As we progressed down the track, views of the green valleys began to appear more regularly below us again as the fog moved and started to burn off. England has so many shades of green that I am not sure I will ever find language for all of them. Even in rain, even through mist, the valleys seemed layered, lush, and both improbably varied and bright.

Then the rain returned hard.  We continued along Glaisdale Rigg through reds, yellows, greens, wet heather, wet grass, and waves of fog. It should have been miserable, and in some ways it was. But it was also beautiful, and that combination has defined so much of the Coast to Coast for us.

In the middle of a particularly hard shower, two people came up onto the track ahead of us with their dog. For a while, they wandered along in front, letting the dog run loose across the moor. It chased birds repeatedly, tearing back and forth through the nesting habitat before eventually returning to its owner with a dead chick. Then a still screaming plover.  The dog’s owner grabbed from his muzzle and quickly snapped the creature’s neck and tossed in a few feet away.  Given the entire situation, little thought.

When we finally passed the couple, they asked where we had come from. They did not recognize the Lion Inn, had not heard of the Coast to Coast, and seemed unfamiliar with the countryside codes around them. Perhaps they were simply new to the area. Perhaps they had moved from the city. Perhaps they had never had reason to think about ground-nesting birds before. Whatever the explanation, the moment stayed with us.

It was upsetting to witness, especially after seeing so many signs asking people to keep dogs under close control during bird nesting season. Moorland birds already face enough pressures without loose dogs flushing adults from nests or killing chicks. There was nothing we could do in the moment and certainly such an individual was not going to listen to a small woman with a backpack on.  And so we keep walking, frustrated by the carelessness and waste of it all.

Continuing onward, the heather gradually gave way to taller grasses as we began to make our way out of the moor.

Glaisdale

Eventually, the moors gave way to fields, and the fields gave way to a small village. 

By the time we reached Glaisdale, we were soaked to the skin and hoping for a warm coffee, a chair to sit in, perhaps the opportunity to remove our shoes or a few minutes indoors. Local signs indicated that the hillsides around Glaisdale had once been connected to the 19th-century iron industry, another reminder that these landscapes have long histories of labour beneath their present beauty.

Entering the village, we turned onto High Street, passing the Robinson Institute and Esk Valley Theatre – both indicators that the community had once been more prosperous.   Glaisdale seemed to exist in separate parts. The first section offered mostly homes, then the road dropped steeply through the village along mossy, slippery lanes with names like Underhill, which sounded wonderfully like something out of The Lord of the Rings.

We descended, then climbed again toward the second part of the village, where we found the Arncliffe Arms.  Unfortunately for us, it was lunchtime on a busy bank holiday weekend, and the place was full of well-dressed diners. We had heard that the inn was welcoming to hikers, and perhaps on another day, or at another hour, that would have been our experience. But when we asked if we could sit at the bar and have a coffee, the landlady was brusque and demanded to know whether we had a reservation.

We did not.  She explained that if we stayed, we would need to have a full meal and that she would have to fit us around those who had reserved. The table she indicated was at the far end of the dining room, almost impossible to reach with our packs on in such a crowded space. When we reiterated that we only wanted coffee, we were told that a cup would cost the same as a full meal.  With little to be done about it we said our no thank yous and stepped back outside.

Perhaps everyone was understaffed and overworked. Perhaps we had arrived at precisely the wrong moment. Perhaps we simply looked too wet, muddy, and bedraggled for the room. Whatever the reason, the stop we had hoped for did not happen.

Instead, we took a break at the picnic tables outside, flipped quickly through the guidebook, and tried to figure out where we might stay that night. Our original hope had been to continue to or beyond Grosmont, but we had no firm plan, no reservation, and no obvious camping option in the next stretch. 

Whether from tiredness, weather, or the sustained effort of walking day after day without a break, the day was not clicking for us.  The roads and villages – nice as they were – had shifted to being long stretches that we simply had to cross. The moors in the fog had been stunning, and the Lion Inn had been wonderful, but our energy was now low. We set off again, uncertain where we would ultimately call it a day.

Walking On

From Glaisdale, we continued down the street, past the Museum of Victorian Science and Glaisdale railway station, before joining a muddy track along the River Esk and through adjoining woodland. This was part of the Esk Valley Walk, and almost immediately the feel of the day’s stage changed again.

The river had clearly recently pushed beyond its banks.  As a result, the track had become muddy and awkward, making for awkward walking and the hope of simply not slipping or having to continue on covered in muck.  Past this stretch, the route then gave way in places to old stone paving laid to reduce erosion and help walkers through the wet sections. The stones were worn and, surprisingly, not as slippery as they looked. Around us, the woodland was admittedly beautiful, with tall trees and a winding river.

Eventually, the trail brought us out to a road, which led us onward through another stretch of local lanes. Our shoes were sodden and muddy, and now that we were lower down and working harder, we were becoming overheated inside our rain gear.  With no reasonable or dignified area to stop and strip out of one set of gear, we pushed on.

Egton Bridge

It was not long, thankfully, before we walked into Egton Bridge, which the guidebook described as one of Yorkshire’s most beautiful villages. By then, we were in no state to judge fairly, but even wet and tired, we could see its appeal. Set along the River Esk, with old stone buildings, trees, and arched bridges, it felt immediately welcoming.

Looking for coffee, we stopped at the café shop outside the Horseshoe Hotel. We bought coffee, walnut cake, and scones, and were told by the kind hostess that we could take them across to the bar and sit beside the fire. After the reception in Glaisdale, this small consideration felt enormous.

While we ate, the proprietor chatted with us about our trek and asked where we were staying for the evening. We admitted that we did not know. Our assumption had been that we had a couple more hours of walking ahead of us, since we had found nothing obvious to reserve, stay at, or camp at for the next eight or nine miles.

He told us we could camp out back for the price of a meal.

Given our state, our energy levels, and mindset in the moment, that was all it took.

Camping on the Coast to Coast

Soon, we had pitched our tent on a small island beside the chicken coop behind the hotel. It was secluded, quiet, and more than enough. All of our gear was still wet, but at least we had a place to spread things out, let the tent air, and stop moving for the day.

After setting up, we returned to the pub and settled in for the afternoon. The place smelled of wood smoke, and we found a table in the snug beside a plug where we could charge our phone and camera batteries. We worked for a while, drank a few pints, and slowly felt the day melt away.

It was, by our standards, an incredibly short day. Possibly our shortest day hiking in several years, and certainly one of the shortest on the Coast to Coast.

But exhaustion was beginning to catch up with us. We had been walking hard for days, often through rain, mud, moors, hills, and the uncertain logistics of navigating an unfamiliar hiking culture amid a holiday. Stopping early felt wonderful. In our minds, it was also desperately needed.

Unfortunately, it also created a problem.   We only had a limited amount of time in the UK, and we already had bus and train reservations two days from now to get to Manchester and then on to Edale to begin the Pennine Way. Stopping in Egton Bridge meant that, if we wanted to keep to our schedule and reservations, we now had to reach Robin Hood’s Bay tomorrow.

There would be no easy finish. There would be no rest day after completing the Coast to Coast.  Our stop here had ended the possibility of that.  These realities were frustrating, but also tomorrow’s problem.

Tonight, though, there was a pub, a fire, coffee, cake, a place to camp, and the relief of having been welcomed when we needed it most.  So we ordered another pint and settled in to enjoy the moment.

Outside, our tent stood beside the chicken coop, damp gear airing as best it could.  Inside, we sat in the snug, warm at last, enjoying a terrific meal, aware that the Coast to Coast was almost over and that tomorrow we would have to finish what we had begun at the Irish Sea.

See you on the Trail!