Not lost, just waylaid
It’s another weekend after a lazy week, which means various maps are sprawled across our oversized table with a serious discussion about possible walking routes to take today. The last time we did a tough walk was when we took ourselves up and down Ingleborough, a route not particularly long distance-wise but a route definitely made harder by the steep ascent and snowy weather.
The main issue we’re having is that we can’t go too far. As much as we’d like to go up t’dale and try our luck with Whernside or Pen-y-ghent, the consensus is that these are too far away despite being in the same county. North Yorkshire is, after all, the largest county in England so to think it’s within the realms of reason to traverse the whole thing during a national lockdown is ridiculous. We agree that we should really stay within walking distance of the house. With current daylight hours, we say that walking distance is about 15 to 20 miles max. We have two options of method: we could go on a circular walk from the house; or we could get dropped off far away from the house and walk back. The first option is most definitely the least interesting because over the years between us we’ve trodden the best of these circular routes countless times. It’s time for a bit of creativity.
With current restrictions on movement that are in place it can be easy to feel uninspired. I’ve definitely not been getting out as much as I used to and I’m hearing the same from a lot of people I speak to. Pulling myself out of the glummest month of the year I’m starting to feel a lot more energetic and creative even within the restrictions, which is something that I thought I’d touch upon. Creativity within boundaries has been happening forever. When restrictions are imposed on a form of artwork, or a person’s ability to do something, new ideas are created as a result of these parameters. How could an idea be formed if it weren’t for the relation it has with its own boundaries? A literary example of this would be a haiku. Limited by the boundaries of a 5/7/5 syllable count, the artist is forced into thinking creatively about how to express thoughts and ideas.
All we’re trying to do, though, is find a new route to tread that doesn’t predominantly rely on routes we’ve done before. Which, when you’ve done the routes surrounding your house countless times, is harder than you may think.
After 10–15 minutes of map-staring and distance-measuring by holding thumb and forefinger roughly an inch apart and following footpaths on OS maps, we think we’ve nailed it. We’ll get a lift over to the tops above Carleton (a small milling village on the outskirts of Skipton) and walk down until we can join the Pennine Way which’ll take us into Thornton-in-Craven, at which point we’ll slide onto the Leeds-Liverpool canal for the rest of the walk taking us through East Marton and Gargrave before we finish up in Skipton for the final stretch home.
Sandwiches made and thermos filled up with tea, we bundle ourselves into the car. My mum takes the driving seat and my dad and I express our gratitude for driving us to our starting point. She doesn’t mind though. What’s a 15 minute drive each way to get us both out of the house for the whole day? No stinky boys making a mess and getting in the way. A day of peace and quiet. Zen.
Once we get to our starting point we clamber out of the car straight into a freezing cold wind. We’re all togged up but the wind manages to scratch and sting at our exposed necks and faces, so the best decision is to drop down out of this. With a hurried goodbye we close the doors and start our descent straight away. Unlike the majority of walks we do, this walk actually starts at the top and we’ll be gently working our way down over the course of the day. It’s a stunning day. The sort of day you only really experience between the middle of January and the beginning of March. Freezing cold with blue skies and very little cloud. The visibility over the valley below us is incredible.
We see quite a few walkers on the first stretch of our journey. It’s pretty commonplace to see walkers stretching their legs on the outskirts of towns and villages around here on weekends, so keeping our distance respectfully we drop down. We don’t get properly lost at any point, but we did have a moment of uncertainty pretty close to the beginning of the journey. There are so many paths winding around the outskirts of Thornton-in-Craven and the neighbouring Earby that we accidentally miss the turning to join the Pennine Way, adding an extra 40 minutes or so onto our route. Nothing to worry about.
Once we find the Pennine Way it’s pretty plain sailing. Suddenly we find that we’re alone, the weekend walkers are on tracks far away from us. The route is easy to follow from here because of the well-kept signs for the Pennine Way strategically placed the whole way around. They eventually bring us into Thornton-in-Craven and we are struck with the beauty of this place. It’s not particularly large at all and we barely see any of it. From where we come out we have to cross a road and go down the street by the primary school, a street of lovely country cottages with an air of rural peacefulness. Off this track we reach the canal and we can see the effects of the comings and goings of cold weather. Mainly comings. There is ice across the top of the water in parts, having melted where the sun reaches it but not in the cooler sections. The sun glimmers off it, and we sit and have our sandwiches a couple of miles down the canal in a quiet section and admire the view.
The canal winds us along through East Marton and into the edge of Gargrave past several locks used to raise and lower canal boats between various elevations of canal. Once we’re into Gargrave we hit civilisation again and we see dog walkers and leg-stretchers everywhere. This civilised feeling follows us all the way back into Skipton, the route between these two towns feeling much more like a way of getting from A-B than a beautiful ramble. Once in Skipton we hit the off-license and plod home along a path well-trodden, thinking about a bath and a warm meal.
