Right off the bat I have to apologize. No pictures from today. The conditions just did not allow it. We'll have to rely on my expressive prose to paint a picture of my experience... So... We're screwed. You should probably start googling things.
Hike Notes
Today's hike took us to the highest point on the whole coast to coast walk: Kidsty Pike, at ~2500 ft. And we had to do it in an incredible amount of rain... And 50 mph gale force winds.
So, still clad in Tim's newspaper lined boots, I trudged up up up through the mud and the rain and the wind. We had to walk about 5 miles before getting to the top, passing the Angle Tarn along the way.
The closer we got to the top, the more windy it became. There were times I had to make sure one side of my face was completely covered by my jacket hood because the wind was whipping the rain so fast that it stung. I had to take my glasses off half way up because they would either fog up or be covered with rain droplets.
The wind got so bad we all had to stay close to the ground and use our walking sticks as support lest we got blown over. I think everyone got pushed to the ground by the wind at least once, me included. It was a strange experience. Things kind of slowed down and I knew pretty quickly I was stumbling and couldn't recover. Luckily a rock broke my fall. No serious injuries just a couple bruised knees and ego.
My boots (Tim's boots) performed admirably, but were filled with water by midday. However, as long as I kept moving, the water stayed at a pretty nice temperature, sort of like a wet suit, and it actually felt kind of nice on my feet.
A little after reaching the peak we came across another group of French hikers huddled together on the ground around a man covered in those aluminum foil heat blankets. He had slipped and broken his leg. Others in his group were visiably shaking. We stopped to give them extra blankets and advised some of them to get down off the mountain. They had already gotten in contact with emergency support and were waiting for them to arrive. One of their group came down with us. We passed by the first aid guys going up and eventually saw a helicopter flying towards the peak. It didn't seem to be able to land though since it was circling for a good while. We got word later that the man with the broken leg was successfully transported to a nearby town.
The rest of the hike was less eventful. Had some light scrambling down off the peak, then walked around Haweswater Resevoir before reaching our destination in Burnbanks. The weather cleared up a bit by the end but everything was still so wet, I didn't feel like taking my phone out.
Foot Status: 8 wrinkly, soggy toes out of 10
Did Obesity Save My Life?
One of the items on the ever increasing list of essential things I forgot to bring is waterproof pants. So you can imagine me hiking today in the heavy wind and rain in lightweight hiking pants. They were completely soaked after an hour. I felt OK until I started seeing and hearing the concern in everyone else for me. "You must be so cold", "Here are the symptoms of hypothermia", " Hypothermia sets in very fast". Yea... started to worry after that.
But, luckily, I never got cold. Never even had a single shiver. I could feel the cold wet pants sticking to my legs but only on the surface. My insides were nice and toasty while some of my fellow, more seasoned hikers, with proper waterproof gear were mentioning the cold and their occasional shivers. The only way I can reconcile this is to speculate that I had something none of these other toned, athletic hikers had: a thick layer of insulating fat.
So yea, I think I found the one situation where it payed off to be overweight!
Hikers Exposed: Nice Surprises
I got off the bus after it got back to Keswick and began walking back to my new B&B when I noticed that Sam was going in the same direction. Apparently, our B&Bs are right across the street from each other. Before going in to our rooms to get into some dry clothes we agreed to go to a nearby pub on the corner for dinner.
So we spent a nice evening together talking about different stuff. She started bringing up those quantum mechanics/free will philosophies and I had to try and put a stop to it. "It doesn't really work like that" I said. "You're too smart for your own good, Alex". Yea, maybe.
We talked about family and relationships and and half way through my explanation (excuse?) for why it was tough to have a relationship since I was moving around a lot the last few years, a huge smile came across her face. I was mid-sentence when she blurted out "You should meet my cousin!" Huh? "My cousin. She is about your age." She showed me a picture (from her phone this time) and sure enough, it was of a lovely looking, age appropriate young lady. So naturally, I immediately changed the subject.
This post is already way too long for one with absolutely no pictures so I'm going to abruptly stop it now. Let this final sentence be used in lieu of a more fitting and well written conclusion.