Walking the Yorkshire Moors (Part 1)

We're built to be hill walkers.

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I love the first mornings in a new locale. As you wake up in a new bed, the brain processes a faint feeling of disorientation which, after a few cups of coffee, transforms into excitement. Fortunately, the jet lag from the previous day's hellish experience was merciful. It didn't hurt that The Royal Oak in Gillamoor served a hearty English breakfast and refilled our French press several times over.

The breakfast table would become a familiar friend over the next few days. Most inns we stayed at offered a complimentary English breakfast - a luxury that I tend to overlook on most trips. So when the itinerary permitted, the four of us would meet downstairs for a bite and to review the weather and the day's plan. That morning, while I was trying to steal the black pudding off everyone's plate, we looked at the route for the day - 14 miles to a village called Levisham on the edge of the aptly named Levisham Moor.

During planning, this walk took many forms. First, we were going to walk the Wainwright Coast to Coast, but that proved too long for our allotted time. England has an enviable amount of public walking paths all throughout the country. Some are nationally recognized trails, while others are regional or informally made by the local community. After some deliberation, we decided to make our own trail through the North York Moors National Park. With research and some help from GPS apps like CalTopo, we cobbled together parts of the Inn Way, Tabular Hills Walk, Cleveland Way, and Wainwright Coast to Coast.

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Gillamoor to Levisham

And so we set off. The first sight of a trail marker filled the body and soul with excitement. In The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, English walker and writer Robert MacFarlane says:

The imagination cannot help but pursue a line in the land - onwards in space, but also backwards in time to the histories of a route and its previous followers.

We traveled up, down, across, and around the rolling hills and farmland. Old gnarled public footpath markers throughout the countryside guided our walk, hinting at a bigger, broader network of trails. There were small towns with funny names. There were small forests and ambling creeks. There were old barns and quaint cottages. There were sheep. So many sheep. As we passed through reminders of a time long ago, or one that never really was, a feeling of provincial romanticism was inescapable.

It was late September, and the foliage was starting to show hints of yellow, gold, and orange amidst the lush, damp English greens. The weather was kind that day. In England, like the Pacific Northwest, you never really know what you're going to get until the day of. But, as if karmic justice for losing a day on the trail, the weather gods favored us on our first day - mostly overcast and a little sun, perfect hiking weather.

It's easy to forget we're walkers, or track-makers, as MacFarlane puts it. Today we walk or drive on concrete or soar thousands of feet up in the sky. But at our core we're hill walkers, built to impress our stories upon the soil. Which is why the first day felt...right. Primordial, even.

We couldn’t have asked for a better first day on the trail. The walk was nourishing, the conversation engaging, and the scenery was beautiful. Everything went without a hitch, except for the bull blocking access to a bridge we had to cross.

Eventually, we reached The Horseshoe Inn in Levisham. It was a welcome sight. What was supposed to be a 14-mile day ended up being closer to 17, and we realized our initial estimates shouldn’t be taken as fact. It was a long day, and the jetlag was still a factor.

After a hot shower, we made our way down to the pub for dinner. When we were booking the inn, we were prompted to add a bottle of champagne to the reservation, and of course, we did. As the waiter brought the bottle to the table he asked, "Are you all celebrating something tonight?" We looked at each other, weary-eyed and dazed from the walk and with no good answer to give. Noticing, he followed up with a slight chuckle and asked, "Or is that just how you roll?"

After this type of walk, the oft-maligned pub food is oh so satisfying. Steak and ale pies, stews, fish and chips, and bacon-wrapped black pudding? Oh yeah, give it to me. So we sat and ate, recapping the day's walk and looking forward to the next. After a few pints, the limbs stiffened and the body became heavy with a deep, satisfying exhaustion.

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Levisham to Aislaby

Sadly, there was no time for an English breakfast the next morning. We had an early start, resigned to the protein bars in our backpacks, trying to make quick work on the trail. It was one of our longest hiking days and the weather was looking choppy in the afternoon.

Worse than the sad breakfast was the state of my feet. Overnight, two golf ball-sized blisters formed on the balls of both feet. I drained them and applied blister protection, but fuck were they painful. It was one of the worst-case scenarios for a trip like this, blisters on the first of five days. I knew these would nag me for the next 60 miles.

From Levisham, the trail took us to the moorland. Compared to the previous day's walk, it felt like another planet. The morning fog and overcast sky made for poor visibility. The ground was spongy underfoot. Fields of heather faded into the fog. And of course, more sheep speckled throughout the emptiness.

After a few minutes in the moor, we quickly descended into a valley of ferns. This section of the trail must not be actively used. The holloways were overgrown, muddy, and not clearly marked, so we had to continuously reference the GPS map to stay on track.

And then, in an instant, the skies opened up. Within minutes, we were soaked. The backpacks had waterproof coverings, but everything else was waterlogged. Including our shoes. I could feel my feet sloshing around in my shoes, and my blisters tearing with every step.

Choosing footwear for this kind of walk is a fraught decision. Waterproof shoes don't breathe well (which can lead to blisters) and are usually heavy. The old saying goes, "one pound on your feet equals five pounds on your back." The other option is trail running shoes, which are lightweight but will get soaked through instantly. Unfortunately, I was in trail runners.

Whatever bleary-eyed nostalgia filled my head the day before now seemed naive. At this point, we were heads down, just trying to make it through. It rained heavily for the next hour, maybe more. Each step increasingly more painful.

Eventually, the rain subsided and we reached another moor. It was vast, haunting, and beautiful. Fields of heather stretched into the dense nothingness. And yet the colors were vibrant - greens, purples, oranges, browns all interwoven throughout the moor. But with each step into the moor the fog became more dense.

After a few miles through the moor, we made it to a small village called Goathland and stopped for lunch. We barged into the Inn on the Moor Hotel like a hot mess, soaked, tired, and clearly a little desperate for warm food and beer. If I were the hotel staff I would've thought twice about letting us in, but they must've pitied us.

We were facing a tough choice - can we make it another 10 miles? We were halfway through the hike but the pace was slower than expected, hampered by the rain and my feet. I was in pain, and the prospect of another 10 miles of rain and wet socks seemed daunting. After discussing transport options with the staff, we decided to call it a day. We hopped on a bus from Goathland to Whitby, a larger coastal city, then a taxi to our inn.

That was probably my lowest point on the walk. I had let the group down. Even though the group made the decision by consensus, I knew I was the biggest limiting factor. I felt like my body let me down, too. In all my well-trodden hiking days, I’ve only had a few blisters, and none this bad.

I hoped a small break today would help me get through the next 40 miles, since we had three more days. But given that our first day was lost to transit woes, leaving another 10 miles on the table hurt. So I was frustrated, fighting a mental and physical battle.

A few hours later, after a bus ride and some hobbling around Whitby, we reached The Forge Inn. I soaked my feet in a bucket of Epsom salt I bought in Whitby, praying to any deity that could answer my blistered prayers. The soak seemed to help though. By dinner, I felt more optimistic. Maybe, just maybe, I could handle the next day.