London

England:

The Pennine Way. June 25.
I awoke in the morning to the sound of the rain coming down hard. I decided to try to wait out the rain for a while in my tent. Lacking a stove, my breakfast consisted of a Snickers bar and a few pieces of dry bread. By noon the rain had not subsided and I was out of food so I had no other choice but to break camp and trudge on towards Dufton.

After a very quick pack up, I set off down the rapidly-disappearing-under-a-gush-of-mud-trail. The moors of England are not a nice place to be on a rainy day. The ground (if you could call it that) was soaked and as I stepped I literally sunk into the peat soil right through the thin grass layer on top.

And then the fog came down... The trail disappeared... And I completely lost my sense of direction! So I wandered...
Which way to go? Back? Which way was back? Forward? Should I cross the creek that had suddenly appeared in front of me?!?
My mind thought of the warning from An American Werewolf in London: "stay off the moors!" Great. But I pushed on...

What was that ahead? Could it be a trail marker through the mist? I continued on towards the cairn through the rain as it seemed to come down even harder. But wait! Oddly the trail marker had moved to the left! I slogged onwards through the bog to see the sheep that I had been following thinking it was a trail marker. Damn the sheep and their over-abundant sheep dip! Now I was getting a little worried.

And then suddenly a bridge! And an actual trail marker on a slightly muddier section of mud that must have been the trail! Now with direction I pressed on with purpose. Suddenly, the clouds cleared and I was standing atop the edge of a high cliff looking down into a huge valley, the bottom lost in the mist. High Cup Nick! I had seen this valley on a map and I knew where I was.
The trail descended the right side of the valley all the way down to the pub in Dufton! Woo hoo!