Recognizing Our Limitations : Borrowdale to Grasmere

“Now I see the secret of making the best person,

 it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”

 

Walt Whitman

 

Morning in Borrowdale

 

We were woken around 4 AM by a dawn chorus so loud and exuberant that it seemed to fill the whole valley. For nearly an hour, birdsong poured through the darkness, coming from the trees, hedgerows, riverbanks, and fields around Borrowdale YHA before slowly beginning to fade as the sun rose.  After that we dozed until 7 AM, when someone outside began calling sharply for their dog.

 

Screams of  “Bunty! Bunty! Bunty! Bunty, come back!” were called out from a van in the parking lot.

 

I was immediately startled awake, partly because of the volume, and partly because Bunty was the nickname my parents had given me years ago as a child. It was a strange moment of recognition and confusion where a piece of home has slipped into the middle of travel in a foreign land.

 

By then, though, the morning had begun, whether we were ready for it or not. Though awake our bodies were sore from the first two days of hiking, and we struggled out of our warm sleeping bags with the stiff, reluctant movements of people who had recently reintroduced themselves to trekking day in and day out. We made coffee and toast from our own supplies and ate breakfast at a picnic table outside the hostel, surrounded by damp grass, wet gear, and the sounds of morning in the valley.

 

The tent was wet, and everything was covered in dew. This is simply part of camping, especially in the UK, where moisture seems less like weather and more like a permanent aspect of the environment. Still, after the warmth and community of Borrowdale YHA, the morning was enjoyable. With no need to rush we packed slowly, folded away what we could, accepted what would remain damp, and by around 9 AM, we were back on Wainwright's Coast to Coast trail.

 

Toward Stonethwaite

 

Almost immediately, we crossed an arched stone bridge over the stream we had been hearing all night and entered a beautiful treed path. The route brought us quickly into Rosthwaite, where we navigated between stone cottages, tidy gardens, and narrow lanes before continuing onward beneath a canopy of trees beside a moss-covered wall and a small beck.

 

The hills rose around us, bluebells bloomed across the slopes, and the stone walls seemed less built than grown into the valley. In the pastures we saw possible Greenfinch and Pink-footed Goose, and later a Chaffinch moved near the path as we passed through a gap in a drystone wall.

 

We continued toward Stonethwaite, passing small accommodations, shops, and signs for the beck restoration project. Everything around us felt intensely green and lush. After the previous day’s long climb and hard descent into Borrowdale, this early stretch seemed almost easy full of birds and flowers.

At the end of the village we reached a fork in the trail and hesitated, unsure which way to go. Another couple pointed us right toward the upper path, and soon the Coast to Coast turned toward Stonethwaite Fell, where a narrow track took us along a stone wall, beside a peaceful riverway, and past fields of sheep as we began to climb.

 

Into the Valley

 

The ascent began gradually. The sun moved across the rocky hills, and the valley shifted between light and shade. Behind us, Borrowdale opened in increasingly beautiful views, while ahead the route followed the long valley upward, with fast streams cutting across the path and waterfalls stepping down the rock face beside us.

 

The walking was not difficult at first, but it certainly asked for attention. We crossed several strong streams that were only ankle-deep but fast flowing, making our way from rock to rock and trying to keep our feet dry for as long as possible sounds easier said than done when each step is on mossy and wet stones. The sound of rushing water was everywhere. At times it seemed to be the only sound besides birdsong and our own breathing.

 

There were birds hidden among the grasses, though most were difficult to see. I caught glimpses that might have been Meadow Pipit, and perhaps another small grassland bird, though the movement was quick and the conditions made identification uncertain.

 

As we gained height, the trail became wetter and more awkward. In places it felt less like a path than a shallow riverbed, with water running down the route and forcing us to cross and recross the flow. Ahead, we could see a rocky crag rising above us, and, somewhat ominously, people climbing it and posing high on the peak.

 

It took us a moment to realize that this was not merely a viewpoint beside the trail. That was the trail.

 

Lining Crag

 

Eventually we reached the base of Lining Crag and stopped to take a break. By every measure that mattered in the moment, the climb ahead looked vertical.

 

It was not technically mountaineering, of course, but it was steep enough to be unnerving with full backpacks, tired legs, and the memory of the previous day’s long mileage still sitting heavily in our bodies. A line of hikers was already making its way up the side, so we joined them, moving slowly, placing our feet carefully and trying to follow the most obvious route through the rock, grass, and mud.

 

The recent rain had turned the climb into something closer to a muddy slide. Water poured down from above, the ground gave way underfoot, and more than once we found ourselves clawing uphill with both hands and feet. It was a steep slog, made more difficult by the knowledge that one bad slip could send us sliding backward into the people below.  There was certainly no dignity in the fact that we spent much of this time literally crawling through the mud – which soon reached up to our knees and elbows.

 

At one point, Sean was ahead of me and looked back to check how I was doing. The slope was so steep that he was looking down between his own legs to see me below. It was not a reassuring angle from which to assess the situation.  For him I imagine it was a little vertigo inducing.

 

The climb itself may have been shorter than yesterday’s ascent out of Ennerdale and Black Sails, but this felt more direct, more exposed, and more psychologically difficult.  There was no rhythm to settle into, no gradual climb to accept, to place to take a break and sit. There was only the next muddy handhold, the next wet rock, the next awkward heave upward.

 

And then, in the middle of that already difficult section, everything changed.

 

The Backpack

 

From where I was below them on the slope, I heard Sean grunt. I looked up – worried that he had slipped or hurt himself.  Instead I saw that a middle-aged woman above him had slipped and, rather than stopping herself on the ground or asking for help, had grabbed onto the straps and back panel of his backpack. As a result she was actively using him and his gear as an anchor, hauling her full weight uphill by pulling on the pack.

 

For a second, everything seemed to pause. Then all I could hear was a loud rip.

 

Her weight had torn into the seams of Sean’s long-loved backpack, the same pack he had carried across more than a dozen pilgrimages in France, Spain, and Portugal, and across thousands of kilometres on the Trans Canada Trail. A huge rent opened in the side, large enough that some of his gear began to spill out.  Thankfully they were almost to the top and his gear did not pour down the hillside.

 

When she realized what had happened, she did not apologize. Instead, she shouted that Sean had been in her way, before next pushing past him, and continued hiking with her partner beside her.  They both jogged fairly deliberately onward – clearly wanting to get away from the situation.

 

There was no apology, no offer to help, no acknowledgment of what she had done. Around us, other hikers looked away, some with what seemed like embarrassment, but no one said anything and no one stopped to assist. In the middle of the climb, with water running down the hillside and people still trying to move upward, we were left to gather Sean’s gear and deal with the damage ourselves.

 

It is hard to explain what a backpack becomes after that many kilometres. It is not just equipment. It is part of the architecture of a long-distance life. Sean’s pack had carried him across the Bruce Trail, along the East Coast Trail, over multiple Caminos, and across 14,000 kilometres of the Trans Canada Trail. It had been trusted, adjusted, packed, unpacked, soaked, dried, and carried again. It had become part of how he and we moved through the world.

 

Now, on the side of a muddy hill in the Lake District, it was suddenly coming apart.

 

We hauled ourselves to the side of the path as best we could and began the awkward process of redistributing gear. Thankfully most of his clothes and important material was stores in stuff sacks. Some items went into my pack. Some could be fit into separate compartments in his pack.  Others however had to be carried. We tried to pin and tape what we could, though what would have been difficult enough at home felt nearly impossible on a wet hillside.

 

At that point, the problem was both emotional and practical. The sadness of seeing a beloved piece of gear damaged was real, but so was the more immediate calculation. We still had a long way to go on the Coast to Coast. Beyond that, we had more than a month of hiking planned across England and Scotland before we returned home and resumed the Trans Canada Trail.

 

We had not simply lost a bag. We had lost a part of a system that had held us together for years.

For the rest of the day, I carried much of what Sean could no longer safely keep in his pack. My load shifted from roughly thirty two pounds to more than sixty, and I felt as though the added weight was actively pressing me shorter with every step. I have always known that Sean carries a great deal on our treks, especially with camera gear and shared supplies, but this was the first time I truly felt that weight directly on my own back.

 

By the time we set off from the top of the hillside, we looked back and realized that most of us, ourselves included, had not followed the proper route at all. The actual trail appeared to be a stone stairway beside the riverbed, while the muddy line we had climbed was a worn track created by people making the same mistake before us.

 

To say the least it was a depressing discovery – not just for the fact that we had blindly followed others the wrong way, but that our own inattentiveness had put us in this disastrous situation.

 

Across Greenup Edge

 

From the top, the views back down the valley were beautiful: green-brown hills, waterfalls, and the long line of the landscape we had just climbed through. Under other circumstances, we might have lingered there longer. But we were soaked, tired, shaken by the damage to the pack, and very aware that the day still had a lot distance left in it.

 

I was terrified that the descent would be as bad as the climb. Thankfully, it was not.

 

According to the guidebook, the high ground beyond the climb included Greenup Edge and Grasmere Common, a section that has often been described as indistinct, boggy, and easy to lose in poor conditions. Recent trail work, however, had added pavers and stone slabs across the wet ground, making the route much easier to follow and much drier than it might once have been.

 

Given the sodden land around us, I was deeply grateful for that work. The pavers may not have been romantic in the way some people imagine an old fell path should be, but they kept us from sinking into the marsh and helped protect a fragile, heavily used landscape from further erosion.

 

Not everyone shared that view.  As we descended, we met a decidedly grumpy man coming off the hill who informed us that the trail was no fun anymore. In the past, he said, hikers used to sink into the marsh up to their knees, which apparently had been “a proper challenge.” Now, with the pavers installed, it was, in his view, so easy that one might as well be “on a day hike with one of those little designer dogs.”  After his proclamation he huffed and marched off like a disgruntled Winnie the Pooh come to life. 

 

Each to their own. Personally, after the morning we had just had, I was more than happy not to disappear thigh-deep into a bog for the sake of authenticity.

 

Down Easedale Valley

 

Originally, we had intended to take the Helm Crag high variant into Grasmere. Under different circumstances, that might have been a wonderful option. But with Sean’s backpack damaged, some of his gear now in my pack, and our nerves worn thin, we made the more sensible decision and followed Easedale Valley instead.

 

In that moment and for us it was the right choice.  The valley was rocky, green, and beautiful, even if the descent felt much longer than it looked on paper. The path was not terribly steep, but it was wet, muddy, and challenging enough that we had to remain constantly aware of our footing and balance. Every step required attention. Every wet rock had to be used with care. Being constantly focused was quickly exhausting.

 

The scenery around us was extraordinary.  Glacial erratics lay scattered across the valley, their surfaces marked with lichens in bright shades of green, pink, orange, and white that looked almost painted onto the stone. Large blue iridescent beetles appeared on the path, like the ones we had seen the day before, and I began to wonder whether they might be associated with sheep dung or moorlands. In places, narrow crevices in the rock were filled with moss and ferns, looking very much like entrances to an elven kingdom. Elsewhere, circles in the bog suggested fairy rings, or at least invited the imagination in that direction.

 

Even tired and frustrated, there was still wonder to be enjoyed everywhere. That is one of the strange aspects of walking. A day can be difficult, demoralizing, and physically uncomfortable, and yet the landscape does not become less beautiful because of it. If anything, the contrast becomes sharper.  Perhaps it happens because of the energy you have given to see a region.  We were exhausted, but the valley was luminous. Sean was quiet, thinking about his pack and the long weeks ahead. I was struggling under the added weight. And still there were waterfalls, lichens, birds, beetles, drystone walls, and hills that seemed to tie endlessly into one another.

 

Approaching Grasmere

 

By the time we neared Grasmere, we were both very tired. The muddy climb, the slippery descent, and the long careful picking across rocks had taken more out of us than the distance on paper alone suggested. Sean had said very little for much of the afternoon, lost in his own frustrations.

 

To be honest, we have been so lucky with our equipment over the years that I had never given much thought to what we would do when something truly essential failed. Boots wear out. Rain gear leaks. Tent poles bend.  In each case you get the same type, model and size and continue on. But a backpack is different. It is the structure that carries the load. When it goes, the whole system becomes uncertain.  And Sean’s is old and no longer being produced – indeed the company no longer even exists. Facts that changed the nature of this problem greatly.

 

As we approached town, sheep pastures spread across the valley, and the hills looked as though they had been scribbled on with drystone walls. We passed a farm with an enormous tree that must have been several hundred years old. Standing beneath it felt like standing in a different age.

 

We crossed a wooden footbridge, skirted a sheep farm with lambs and stone outbuildings with red doors, and saw Jackdaws moving in the fields just outside Grasmere. Near the end we lost the path slightly, then followed wooden signs and the general movement of tired hikers heading into town. For a while we were part of a small herd, everyone drifting toward Grasmere, spilling off the trail and onto the road.

 

Rather than remain in the road, we followed the Allan Bank path, a pleasant gravel route through rolling lawns and old trees. It was a nicer way to arrive, and by then that was exactly what we needed.

 

Stopping in Grasmere

 

When we entered Grasmere, we found ourselves beside the Inn at Grasmere. The village was charming, busy, and full of the polished beauty of a Lake District tourist destination: stone buildings, cafés, bookshops, art galleries, hotels, gardens, and literally bus loads of visitors everywhere.

 

But I was no longer thinking like a tourist or even a long distance hiker. I was looking at Sean’s face, feeling the weight of his gear in my own pack, and wondering what we could realistically do next today.  The answer was obvious. Costly but obvious.

 

We do not normally choose short stages. In fact, we usually resist them. Years of walking long distances have trained us to keep moving, to finish stages, to push when needed, and to assume that discomfort is simply part of the day. But there is a difference between perseverance and stubbornness. That afternoon, with our morale low, stopping in Grasmere was not a failure. It was the decision the moment required.

 

At the time, though, it did not feel quite so clear.I was beginning to wonder whether setting out on this trail had been a mistake. After the Atlantic crossing and our rapid transition back into hiking life, perhaps we had misjudged the reality of what we were doing. Perhaps the Coast to Coast was not the right beginning for the larger UK hiking plan we had imagined. Perhaps we should quit and do something else in Britain. Slowly make our way back into these routines rather than jump onto one of the country’s largest and busiest trails. 

 

With no immediate answer to the situation I stepped into the hotel and paid a small fortune for a room without a reservation.

 

The lobby was piled high with luggage that had been dropped off for other hikers. It was still only 2 PM, and our room would not be ready for another two hours, so we settled into the bar while people pushed and crowded around the check-in area to collect their delivered bags. We ordered two pints of Hawkshead Red and a plate of olives with bread and oil, and slowly began to regain a little perspective.

 

Reading through our guidebook, I discovered that while Borrowdale to Patterdale is often treated as the traditional stage, it can also be split into two shorter days, each with its own exhausting ascent. In that sense, our decision to stop in Grasmere was not entirely unreasonable. Tomorrow we could walk from Grasmere to Patterdale and tell ourselves (though likely not convince ourselves) that we were simply following the guidebook’s advice.

 

It was a comforting excuse, and I was willing to take it.

 

Grasmere and Repairs

 

At 4 PM we finally got into our room. We showered, washed clothes by hand, and hung everything wherever we could. Later, we walked around the village, visiting bookshops, art galleries, cafés, restaurants, inns, gardens, Sarah Nelson’s famous gingerbread shop, and the churchyard where William Wordsworth is buried.

 

It was a lovely place. Under other circumstances, I might have enjoyed wandering there more fully. But most of our attention remained fixed on the problem of Sean’s backpack and how to continue along the C2C tomorrow.

 

Eventually we found a Trespass outdoor shop and went in search of repair options. What we discovered was that shops in the UK did not seem to carry anything like Sean’s 100-litre backpack. Most bags available were closer to 30, 40, or 50 litres, which again highlighted one of the differences between the kind of long-distance backpacking we were used to in Canada and the walking culture we were encountering here. In North America, where long stretches can involve remote terrain, bigger carries, and fewer services, a large expedition-style pack makes sense. On many UK trails, where luggage transfer is common and villages appear regularly, smaller packs dominate.

 

None of which helped us in the moment.  In the end, we bought a sturdy-looking 50-litre backpack at an astronomical price, along with a pair of scissors. The plan was not to replace Sean’s pack with it, but to cut it apart and use the material to reinforce the damaged sections of his old one.

 

The woman working in the shop found the whole situation hilarious. She laughed and clapped and told us what great memories we would have, being able to tell people about a woman who grabbed Sean on the trail. To her, it seemed like a funny travel mishap, a scene from a British comedy rather than a crisis involving the possible loss of one of our most important pieces of gear.

 

Neither of us could share her enthusiasm. Sean looked like a ghost while she joked about the situation.

 

Back in our room, we began surgery. We cut the new pack into sections, removed stitching from Sean’s old backpack, and started building internal repairs by hand with a needle and thread borrowed from the front desk. A huge thank you is due to the receptionist who helped us. Without that small kindness, the repair would have been even more difficult – if not impossible.

 

Dinner and Perspective

 

By the time we realized that dinner reservations were apparently necessary in Grasmere, we ended up back in the bar, which fortunately served excellent pub food. There we met John and Undine, a couple from San Diego who were also finding the Coast to Coast difficult. They seemed relieved when we admitted plainly that the trail was hard. Sometimes honesty is its own form of trail kindness.

 

Other hikers at the bar mentioned that they had not finished the previous day’s route and had instead walked the road rather than continue up and down the hills. Because of that, they had arranged a lift forward to “keep pace.” Each to their own. Every walker has their own sense of what a hike means, what counts, what matters, and what they are willing to compromise.  I enjoyed focaccia while Sean had a plate of fish and chips, another pint and the comfort of being warm indoors.

 

Then, around 9 PM, we returned to our room and continued repairing the backpack.  The work took most of the night. We stitched, reinforced, adjusted, and tried to imagine what would hold and what would fail. At best, I hoped we could patch the pack well enough to get us through until we found a better replacement. At worst, I thought we might have to mail home whatever I could not carry and continue under extra weight.  I tried to keep my mind off the realities of trekking for almost 50 more days with such a load on me.

 

For now, I was simply grateful that we had made it into Grasmere and that Sean’s camera gear had not been damaged along with the pack.

 

Only later would we understand that the damage from this day would continue to worsen across the next month and a half of trekking through England and Scotland. This was not a one-day problem. It was the beginning of the end for Sean’s long-relied-upon backpack.

 

That night, as we worked under the dim hotel room lights, surrounded by damp clothes, cut fabric, loose thread, and the fatigue of the day, the title of today’s entry became clear to me. Recognizing our limitations was not only about walking a shorter stage. It was about accepting that experience does not make us invincible. Long-distance walking teaches resilience, but it also teaches humility. Gear can fail. Bodies tire. Plans often must change. Other people can affect your journey in ways you did not anticipate.

 

And sometimes the wisest thing you can do is stop, repair what you can, eat what is available, have a couple pints, and begin again in the morning.

 

See you on the trail!