I completed the Lyke Wake Walk starting yesterday in just under 24hrs. After driving nearly 7 hours from Tywyn, Wales with no sleep!
I was going to set off at 0200 but on reaching the start marker I realised my ear phones weren’t working so I sorted that out before starting proper at 0213 finishing at 0206 (I started Outdoor Active at 0204 but paused it when I realised the issue and went back to the car that dropped me off) My watch I started at the correct time of 0214 but it died so I can’t use the stats from that.
My partner dropped me off then I completed it alone unsupported so I carried everything!
Even at 0200 it was hot, I wore just a t-shirt the whole walk.
My favourite part was Lordstones to Claybank. It was just beautiful. I had the moon on one side and the sun on the other.
The ground was stony and painful. So the boggy section was welcomed!! (The truly awful boggy section I avoided thanks to Rory’s directions). But it was spongey and a delight. It also brought some interest as it was getting quite tough just walking.
There was also a meadow type section which was just bliss on my feet.
I knew I’d be slower than when I did it in 2021 with a group (the then Yarm walkers with Rory Stephen) at about 17 hours as I’m not as fit and I was solo but I’d forgotten just how tough it was.
There were lots of grouse. Everywhere!! I’ve has a run in with a grouse before where it attacked me. No one believes me but I had a witness. So I was a bit on edge when they kept appearing suddenly in large groups!!
Darkness meant it was cooler but navigating even with Outdoor Active (I had back up paper maps) was tricky as the paths weren’t clear and the down section at the end was slightly terrifying (I just went down on my bum!)
I was so glad to reach the stone at the end. It did take me a long time but the sense of satisfaction is amazing!! I didn’t enjoy the 1.5 + miles back to my car! However it was a nice smooth road so that was nice!!
Timings
Start Lyke Wake Marker 0213 (0 miles)
Lordstones 0515 (5.7miles)
Claybank 0718 (9.3 miles)
Bloworth Crossing 0929 (12.7 miles)
The Lion Inn Blakey 1153 (18.2 miles)
Hamer (I think!) 1619 (26 miles)
Wheedale Road 1923 (30.6 miles)
Ellerbeck Railway Crossing 2137 (33.8 miles)
A171 Road Crossing 0120 (40.1 miles)
Finsh Lyke Wake Marker 0206 (41.4)
So 2 nights without sleep, blisters aches and pains!! But smiling!!
I am already a member as I complete in under 24 hours in 2021 but I just wanted to report this solo crossing. It certainly wasn’t quick buy I did it!
Kind regards
Catherine (Cathy) Staniforth
On the back of a few annual 20-mile walks around the Peak District, we three 50-ish brothers decided to up the ante and take on the Lake Wake Walk. Two of us had attempted the walk in 1993 as teenagers but had to abort after eight hours, having walked through the night in thrashing rain until we got lost in a quagmire somewhere along the way. It felt like we had unfinished business, so we roped the third brother in, hoped it wouldn’t rain and decided to start at a more appropriate time of day.
It was dark but happily dry, with the forecast for no rain for the rest of the day, which put a spring in our collective step. The first stretch was through gentle woods and fields until we reached the steep climb up onto the moors. We’d hoped to rattle off some 16-minute miles early on to compensate for the second half slow down, but the hills had other ideas.
As we wheezed our way up that first big climb, we wondered how and why we’d attempted to take that section on in the dark back in 1993. It was easier this time around and the sun was rising beautifully as we reached the tops. After a long series of downs and ups, we were happy to see the flat of the old train track and got our heads down, attempting to make up for lost time.
We reached the Lion Inn about an hour behind schedule and with several blisters, but we felt fresh enough. A revolting bag of something boiled and sludgy did more damage than good and we got back on our way.
Everything we’d read suggested the second half would be much harder, particularly over the boggy section, so we trudged away from the pub and prepared for a grind. But it never really came. The weather must have been kind in the run-up as the bog was mainly dry and the track easy to follow. Until it suddenly wasn’t, and we found ourselves walking through a forest of Christmas trees, somewhere on the edge of a massive and oddly terrifying forest – what we assumed was Wheeldale Plantation. This was almost impossible to walk through, but it turned out it was much easier than trying to cross the forest itself, which was absolutely impossible and, in retrospect, a very foolish idea. So, after battling through thick trees for an hour and adding 0.13 of a mile to our count, we retraced our steps, rediscovered the correct path and got our heads down again.
We could obviously see Fylingdales by this point, but as everyone notes on these reports, it never seems to get any closer. Morale was flagging as we reached the stepping stones, with one of the party now struggling badly with self-diagnosed ‘downhill knee’. When we finally got to the RAF base, we felt buoyant that it was only another six or seven miles to the finish. But either we’d miscalculated or Lyke Wake Walk miles aren’t the same as regular miles. We could see the sea from miles out but as with Fylingdales, that also never seemed to get any closer.
The final section, approaching Jugger Howe Beck, was actually very pretty, but by now the light was starting to fade and we were desperate to finish in daylight, so we trudged on until we finally ran out of track. Obligatory shots beside the finishing stone, we finished in just over 16 hours and got a taxi back to Osmotherley in silence and pain.
The next day we all vowed never to do it again. Once was enough.
Now, a few weeks later, with the blisters gone and the knee more or less back to normal, we’re planning another go. And this time we’ll know to avoid the forest.
Smethers, Budget and Nails.
Day 1, July 2. Lion Inn – trig point on Beacon Hill – road by Loose Howe – Lion Inn: 13h45.
Day 2, July 3. Road by Loose Howe – eastern LWW stone – road by Loose Howe: 13h46.
Total elapsed time to cover entire route once each way: 39h01.
My first two Walks were with my father in the 1980s, unsupported, one each way, then I did a solo unsupported in my twenties in 1992. Having now just turned 60, thoughts turned to setting myself a challenge before too many more years pass and bring inevitable decline. I was reasonably confident I was up to a Lyke Wake Walk (living in Surrey, I’d done 40 miles and 5000 feet in a day by virtue of walking up and down the scarp slope of the North Downs more times than I could count). So could I consider a Lyke Wake Double? The logistics weren’t promising for a straightforward “one end to the other and back” – my wife offered to help support but I wasn’t going to ask her to drive silly distances at silly times of the day. Hence the idea of staying at the Lion Inn, and walking to Osmotherly and back one day, and Ravenscar and back the next – a Double in terms of the ground covered, just not in the right order.
So, day 1, I slipped out of the Lion fire exit at 5am. A couple of squalls blew through on the railway section, but it was mostly just overcast. I’d planned to build in what variety I could, so, inspired by a crossing report from Graeme Noble, from Urra Moor I dropped down to Seave Green, over the south end of Cold Moor, then up along the top of Barker’s Crags. I don’t know if there is an actual path down from them but I just ploughed through chest-high sopping wet bracken and felt like I’d walked through a car wash. Then Green Lane and through Clain Wood to Scarth Nick where my wife met me for the first topping up of water and flapjacks. Up to the trig point (new for me – all my previous walks had started at the stone), then the Classic route back, with from about Carlton Bank up to Clay Bank now in sunshine with blue skies. A sausage roll from the disappointingly non-vegetarian takeaway choice at the Lordstones café – my wife had gone to visit Robert Thomson at Kilburn and Mount Grace Priory – then a second top-up from her at Clay Bank and back along the railway, over Flat Howe, and round the head of Rosedale on the road and back on the lower railway track (through a late return of pouring rain), so as to even up the distances on the two days.
For day 2, I’d negotiated with my wife that 6am was not too unreasonable, so she drove me back round to where those pesky white boundary stones leave the road by Loose Howe. On my previous crossing, before the days of GPS, and doing that section in darkness, I’d strayed away from the stones there. This time, in continuous rain restricting visibility, I once again (and more than once) failed to pick out the next stone and strayed, but thanks to GPS, getting back was easier. The path across Wheeldale Moor seemed better trodden than I remembered, albeit with what looked distressingly like deep motorbike ruts. Thirty years ago I’d strayed off the path here too, and had kipped until dawn, consequently finishing in 23½ hours. The rain finally eased around Simon Howe, and there was almost some blue sky at Fylingdales. My wife met me at Eller Beck, and then at the Beacon Howes radio mast with a toastie from the National Trust café.
Turning back, I was now well into uncharted territory for me in terms of distance. Muscles seemed to be doing all right; little toenails would no doubt fall off later but would be manageable for the day; but the right knee had started day 2 tight and was getting tighter. Perversely, the climbs out of Jugger Howe Beck and Wheeldale Beck were a breeze as you don’t need to straighten the knee so much up steep hills; it was the level-ish slogging on uneven tracks from Wheeldale onwards that took their toll. On the last stretch from Hamer, I once again, despite best intentions, lost the straight route along the stones, it had started raining again, and tiredness was telling because I went knee-deep in bogs several times, which I’d been alert enough to avoid on the way out. Cresting Loose Howe, the moment the waiting car came in sight my brain stopped suppressing the complaints it had been getting from my knee and my finish was definitely more of a hobble than a walk. But 77 miles over two days, by a long way a new mark for me.
A supported walk, in daylight, with the benefit of GPS, is a very different animal from a solo unsupported walk spanning the night, with map and compass; more of a purely physical challenge, less of an engagement with the spirit of the Moors and, I would say, of the Walk. I am very pleased I set myself, and met, a challenge that I can remember in my old age. But it doesn’t really match the quasi-spiritual satisfaction of starting at one end of the Moors and emerging at the other entirely on your own resources.
John Swanson
Sunday/Monday 7/8 July 2024
Start – Osmotherley, Cod Beck car park
Start time – 03.55
Finish – 02.19 Ravescar radio mast
Age – Old man (63) and young man, 17 later this month
Still smarting from having to abort last year’s attempt at Wheeldale, Andrew and Alexander, related and determined, set off from the hallowed car park on Sunday morning. A number of things went in our favour this year, there is more daylight in July than August and we had learnt a lot from last year’s blunders.
Apart from that, much was depressingly unchanged. The western climbs are as steep as ever, so that once again we couldn’t face Wain Stones and walked through Broughton Plantation instead. Glaisdale was still untracked, but we found a few more boundary stones, and taking no chances, left offerings to ward off the spirits. They seemed appeased as we saw storms rumbling around us, but crucially, not on us. On Wheeldale Moor, they finally lost patience and gave us a brisk 40 minute shower. Huddled beneath Blue Man i’the Moss in the rain trying to figure out what to do next was a low point. It was dusk (c10pm) before we reached Eller Beck and as we toured Fylingdale, the mist rolled in obliterating landmarks and creating monsters of many shapes. We were later told the stars were lovely. Finally, we got our act together, slithered down the hillside towards Jugger Howe Beck in the dark and made it to Beacon Howe.
God bless Helena, wife and mother to the above and provider of risotto and tea en route as well as driving us away from the radio mast in a warm car. “Have you two ever thought of walking for pleasure?”. It’s a good question.
PS I think Lilla Cross was then, what it is now, a guide and consolation to travellers. A distant comparison is the account of Kosmas the Priest in newly converted Bulgaria in the 10th century: ‘who has not rejoiced to see crosses set up in high places…?’
Andrew & Alexander Roach
Clydebank