Trailblazer Guide Books

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Trailblazer guides take some beating.
 - Adventure Travel

 

 

HISTORY

In 1935 the journalist Tom Stephenson used the title ‘Wanted: A long green trail’ for an article. He was the fi rst to suggest a public trail along the backbone of England, the Pennines, ending just over the Scottish border.

His quest was taken up by many and over the years new rights of way were created until eventually one long chain of 256* miles
(412km) (* now 268 miles (429km) including optional side routes) was established from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in Scotland. It officially opened as the Pennine Way in 1965, making it the first official long-distance footpath in Britain. In its early
days the Pennine Way was hard- going because a substantial part of the route crossed water-logged
bogs which made sodden feet a guarantee at some stage. Today walkers never get wet as often as 20 years ago because of the Herculean efforts that have been made to lay a trail of reclaimed stone slabs. Most welcome these, others scorn them. They are but an example of how the face of the British countryside has changed, and will continue to change, over the relatively short time that this route has been open.

HOW DIFFICULT IS THE PENNINE WAY?
If attempted in a single continuous slog, the Pennine Way is tough. Although only a few days might
be really challenging, walking daily for at least a fortnight come rain or shine will take it out of
you. The weather can whip in unchallenged from the west coast and leave you drenched or even frozen. Without GPS, navigation is sometimes tricky, especially for those unfamiliar with map reading.
Who’d begrudge this slab causeway If attempted in a single continuous slog, the Pennine Way is tough.

Half the Pennine Way is on open moorland and one quarter on rough grazing;
only a tenth passes through forest, woodland or along riverbanks.

This level of difficulty is what gives the Pennine Way its kudos. You’ll end
most days feeling the strain but ideally will recover overnight, and once the
aches subside you’ll be able to bask in the glory of your achievement.

Do not be put off. Although the walk is not as popular as it used to be
and fewer than 4000 people attempt the trek annually, overall the gradients
are pretty tame; it’s the duration that does you in. There are 178 miles (286km)
on gentle slopes of less than five degrees, 20 miles (32km) on slopes of ten to
fifteen degrees, and only 31⁄2 miles (6km) on steep slopes of more than fifteen
degrees. All in all this totals 40,000ft/12,000m of ascent but if you can both
read a map and comfortably walk at least 12 miles (19km) in a day you should
manage it; just don’t expect every day to be a walk in the park.

ROUTE FINDING
Winding your way through villages and farmyards and out over open moorland,
navigation along the Pennine Way can – depending not insignificantly on your
route-finding experience – be notoriously tricky.  There are plenty of helpful photogenic wooden signposts along the route but there are also plenty of places where you’ll be left guessing. Fortunately,
on some open moorlands, the presence of slabbed causeways not only make
for easy going across the mire but also act as an easy-to-follow trail, even in
zero visibility. Nevertheless, there are enough places on the Pennine Way, both
in the valleys and on unslabbed moors, where poor visibility could leave you
helpless. In such conditions, if you’ve lost track of your position, the traditional
map and compass are of little use. With the absence of visible landmarks to
correlate with a map, at best you can guess your position and head off cross-country on a bearing hopefully leading to a recognisable track or road. In some conditions such actions can be a recipe
for a hill-walking disaster.

GPS
I never carried a compass, preferring to rely on a good sense of direction... I never bothered
to understand how a compass works or what it is supposed to do... To me a compass is a
gadget, and I don’t get on well with gadgets of any sort.    A Wainwright

While modern Wainwrights will scoff, more open-minded walkers will
accept GPS technology as an inexpensive, well-established if non-essential,
navigational aid. To cut a long story short, within a minute of being turned on
and with a clear view of the sky, GPS receivers will establish your position and altitude in a variety of formats including the British OS grid system (see p40), anywhere on earth to an accuracy of within a few metres.

One thing must be understood however: treating GPS as a replacement for
maps, a compass and common sense is a big mistake. Although current units
are robust, it only takes the batteries to go flat or some electronic malfunction
to leave you in the dark. GPS is merely a navigational aid or backup to
conventional route finding and, in almost all cases, is best used in conjunction
with a paper map. All a GPS does is stop you exacerbating navigational errors
or save you time in correcting them.

Using GPS with this book is an option. Without it you could find yourself
staggering around mist-clad moors all night, or ambling confidently down the
wrong path. With it you can reliably establish your position, or quickly find out
how far and in what direction it is to a known point on the trail.

Using GPS with this book
It’s anticipated you won’t tramp along day after day, ticking off the book’s
waypoints as you pass them because the route description and maps are more than
adequate most of the time. Only when you’re unsure of your position or which
way to go might you feel the need to turn on the unit for a quick affirmation.

Most of the book’s maps feature numbered waypoints from Edale to Kirk
Yetholm. These correlate to the list on pp259-65 which gives the longitude/
latitude position in a decimal minute format as well as a description. You’ll
find more waypoints on bleak moorland sections such as Cross Fell, where a
walk can degenerate into a prolonged stumble through thick mist. Typically
the end or start of a slabbed section is also marked, as well as cairns and other
significant landmarks or turnings. In towns and villages waypoints are less
common but in places can still be useful to pin down an unsigned turn down an
alleyway, for example.

You can either manually key the nearest presumed waypoint from the list in
this book into your unit as and when the need arises. Or, much less laboriously
and with less margin for keystroke error, download the complete list for free as a
GPS-readable file (but not the descriptions) from the Trailblazer website. You’ll
need the right cable and adequate memory in your unit (typically the ability
to store 500 waypoints or more). This file, as well as instructions on how to
interpret an OS grid reference, can be found at:  http://trailblazer-guides
.com/gps-waypoints.  You’ll soon discover that it’s possible to buy state-of-the-art digital
mapping to import into a GPS unit with sufficient storage capacity. Advanced
GPS users may like this option but it has to be said it’s about as useful as
internet on a mobile phone. Reliability and battery/charging issues aside, the
pocket-sized receiver you’ll typically se will have a screen far too small to give you the ‘big picture’ and currently the cost of this digital mapping will exceed a set of easy-to-use OS paper maps
which, while bulky, are always preferable.

It’s worth repeating that 98.2% of the people who’ve ever walked the
Pennine Way did so without GPS so there’s no need to rush out and buy one.
Your spending priorities ought to be on good waterproofs and a sturdy pair of
boots. However, all those thousands will have had their frustrating moments of
navigational uncertainty and reliable technology now exists to reduce mistakes.
Correctly using this book’s GPS waypoints will get you back on track and
dozing in front of the pub firereplace or tucked up in bed all the sooner.

HOW LONG DO YOU NEED?
It’s no surprise: the slower you go the more you’ll take in and get out of the
Pennine Way, if for no other reason than you’re not continually preoccupied by
aching limbs and attaining your next destination. Nevertheless some stages along
are simply not able to be shortened without resorting to the flexibility of wild camping (see
p14) and for many, time is money; not all of us can afford to dally. The Pennine Way record
stands at an absurd if impressive 2 days, 17 hours, 20 minutes and 15 seconds
(Mike Hartley, 1989); most mortals average 17 days over the walk, and even
then not without some gnashing of teeth. On this schedule there’ll be some long
days of well over 20 miles (32km), but at least one rest day. Anything less, even
a couple of days, can be really pushing your luck and is best left to fit walkers or
second attempts when you know the lie of the land and how to pace yourself.

Before you plan anything read the comments from Pennine Way walkers in
the boxes on p27, p30, p31 and p33 and look at the suggested itineraries (see
pp32-4).