Day 8: The Malham Amphitheater

August 3, 2024: As it turned out, there was no real rain during the night. Just the lightest of sprinkles to drum me to sleep and by morning, the skies were clear and sunny.

Immediately upon leaving camp, the trail climbed to the top of the Malham Amphitheater, an impressive-looking cliff with some weird limestone formations at the top. There's not really much else to say about that, except that the climb to the top included 421 steps according to my guidebook. I didn't bother to count the steps myself, however, so I'll take their word for it. And the the views were nice. Very nice. Well worth a visit if you're in the area. =)

The Malham Amphitheater, straight ahead!

From there, the trail led north through a dramatic valley which my guidebook described as a "Narrow, enclosed valley. High cliffs. Good place for an ambush!"

So I kept my eyes open for any ambushes, but I am happy to report that none appeared and we made it through the narrow, high-cliffed valley with all the hair on our heads completely intact.

The day included two big climbs, but it was the climb up Pen-y-ghent that was ridiculously steep and memorable. "Have the locals here never heard of switchbacks before?" I complained to Karolina. "This is an Appalachian Trail kind of trail!" I imagined someone who designed the AT came out here and bragging about the ridiculously steep trails they made through the White Mountains at a local pub and the locals here turned to him and said, "hold my beer" as they proceeded to out-do him.

This was the section of Pen-y-ghent shortly before we reached the really steep section!

There were lots of day hikers along that portion of the trail, and I wondered aloud to one of them why we were doing this, and he said he was regretting some of his own life decisions as this was the second time today he was climbing to the summit. WTF? "Why?!" I asked.

"I really don't know...."

Late in the day, we passed a really nice stream, and I filled up with water using the new water filter for the first time. It worked wonderfully, and I said a silent prayer for Martin hoping he was okay. I still hadn't heard from him or about him since he was taken to the hospital in the ambulance. 

I fill up with water using the brand new water filter for the first time! =)

Anyhow, coming down off the summit, the trail veers into Horton-in-Ribblesdale, but my guidebook seemed to suggest that there wasn't really any reason to go into town except for food or lodging. Wild campers could easily bypass it by following the 3-Peaks Bypass. That would knock a few miles off the hike as well as the long descent into town that would immediately be followed by a long ascent back out of it.

Since there seemed to be no good reason to go into town, I decided to use the bypass. The trail was surprisingly busy with people, even late into the day, and I decided to look for a place to camp along the bypass hoping that most people going into town or coming out in the morning would miss us as we camped between the two main trails that led into and out of town.

We set up camp, but several joggers still passed by. One even jogged by at about 2:00 in the morning for some ungodly reason. Why were there so many crazy people in this area?!

During the late afternoon, Karolina complained of a headache, but shortly after setting up camp, it turned into vomiting. After summiting Pen-y-ghent, she asked if her nausea might be due to altitude sickness, but I laughed that off as extremely unlikely. As steep as the climb to Pen-y-ghent was, it topped out at only 2283 feet (696 meters) above sea level. Nobody gets altitude sickness with those kind of altitudes. I didn't really have a good explanation for her sickness. Maybe it was just something she ate? Food poisoning from the dinner last night? I've heard that a lot of food poisoning often doesn't show symptoms for 24 hours after eating contaminated food, which would put it at last night. We never did figure out why she become so sick this evening, though. It will have to be a mystery for the ages!

Anyhow, the sun set and it was time to get some sleep. Another day thus completed!

View from the bottom of the Malham Amphitheater. Apparently this is also a popular rock climbing area, but I didn't see any rock climbers this morning.

Some of the 421 steps to the top of Malham Amphitheater

The top had these weird limestone formations that were remarkably hard to walk on!

View from the top looking back down the valley we had just hiked up

I was on high alert for ambushes through this valley, but I'm happy to report that there none! Not today, at least. =)

Malham Turn

I noticed that a lot of old logs and stumps had coins embedded into them along the trail. I don't remember seeing this sort of thing before, but it was all over the trails in England!

Malham Tarn House Study Center

Lots of mine shafts all over the country!

The old mine shafts near the trail usually had fences around them and appeared to be filled in anyhow.

View from the top of the first big climb of the day

Never did see any horse-drawn vehicles

And this is the infamous Pen-y-ghent. You can see the trail a bit heading up the mountain on the right side of the photo, next to the stone fence.

Looking down the far side of Pen-y-ghent, which wasn't nearly as steep as the uphill side!

And this is looking backward toward Pen-y-ghent and where we descended.

Lots of rabbits were visible on a daily basis, but this was the first time I managed to get a decent photo of one. They are very people shy!

Me at the top of Malham Amphitheater

Day 7: Whisked Away By an Ambulance!

August 2, 2024: Karolina and I got an unexpected surprise when we woke up and stepped out of the apartment-sized tent. Another guy who saw us stepping out of the tent approached us and asked if we had heard about Martin.

Karolina and I looked at each other in confusion. 

"No, why?"

"He was taken away by an ambulance during the night"

Wait, WHAT?!

Apparently, the back pain that he'd been experiencing all day the day before became too much during the night, and that eventually led to someone calling for an ambulance. It was later described for us that the ambulance had its lights flashing brightly as it drove through the tenting area to reach Martin's tent, and somehow managed to do it quietly enough that most everyone slept right through it--including us.

After discovering that Martin had been whisked away by an ambulance, that left us wondering how we could get back to Gargrave. We still had 186 miles to reach the end of the trail!

 (At least we had already completed 70 miles, though!)

 

They loaded him into the ambulance and whisked him away. I asked how he was doing, but so far, nobody had heard back. Not yet, at least.

This also left us with something of a conundrum, since we were now stranded an hour-drive away from the trail. Martin was supposed to be our ride back. Even worse, we had left our hiking shoes and trekking poles in his vehicle because we didn't really need them in camp. We just used our camp shoes (Crocs) around the campground. But the man assured us that they'd take care of us and arrange some sort of transportation back to the trail.

The man pointed us in the direction of breakfast, which we headed to, but we felt a little disoriented at this point. We ate breakfast largely by ourselves, although soon a few other people joined our table--but they largely talked to each other rather than us. Occasionally, we heard Martin's name being dropped around us. His ambulance trip was definitely the talk of the morning.

Eventually, an American with a British accent named Keith was assigned the task to drive us back to the trailhead, or rather, he volunteered to drive us back to the trailhead, but we still had the problem of our shoes and trekking poles being in Martin's car. His tent-mate started searching the tent looking for the keys to Martin's car, hoping we could unlock it and grab our stuff from it, but so far he was coming up empty.

Karolina suggested that maybe Martin hadn't locked his car at all. The likelihood of anyone breaking in and stealing it (or anything in it) seemed pretty low, after all. So we trekked over to his car with our fingers crossed and surprise! The doors were not locked after all!

We grabbed our gear and loaded into Keith's car for the drive back to the trail.

Keith volunteered to give us a ride back to the trail. Thanks, Keith!

Keith dropped us off back in Gargrove, right at the Co-op where we had been picked up by Martin the afternoon before, and thanked him for the ride back.

We stopped in the Co-op to get some food for the next few days on the trail before continuing on with our hike.

The trail passed through farms filled with lots of sheep and cattle. It was largely flat, grassy and easy, and we made good time--albeit with a bit of a late start.

During a break in the afternoon, I emailed Martin asking about how he was, but by evening, I still hadn't heard anything back. I hoped he was doing okay, but it seems like I wouldn't be finding out anything today.

At the end of the day, as we approached the small hamlet of Malham, we detoured 1.5 miles off trail. First to visit Janet's Foss, a small waterfall that turned out to be filled with dozens of swimmers and was crowded, loud and noisy. Then we pushed onward to also check out Gordale Scar, which was actually pretty interesting and included another waterfall that dropped through a hole and had some crazy rock climbers going up a ridiculously steep cliff.

Janet's Foss had dozens of people swimming and lounging in and around the waters around it. (I carefully cut most of them on the right out of the photo, but it was impossible to get a photo with nobody else in it!)

After admiring the views, we returned back to the trail and finally entered the hamlet of Malham. We set up camp at the campground in town, which could have saved itself a lot of time and money by putting up a sign that simply read, "No fun allowed" instead of posting the dozens of signs about all of the activities that were prohibited and rules that had to be followed.

We started setting up camp just as the first sprinkles began, which encouraged us to set up camp in record time and finished just as the rain poured down quite hard.

It only rained for a brief period before the rain let up a bit, and Karolina wanted to go out somewhere for a beer, so we walked down to Beck Hall, where there was a restaurant and bar. Karolina decided to order a full dinner, but I felt like that was a little too much for me and decided simply to order onion rings and a Pepsi. I'd eat the rest of my dinner from my pack back in camp.

My onion rings were delicious! Karolina seemed more interested in the Internet connection than her meal, however. =) You can see that I was writing my journal entry for the day just before the food arrived--that's my guidebook and journal in the bottom, right corner of the photo.

 

The added perk of going out was that we got a decent wi-fi connection at the restaurant and I was able to download some videos to watch later, but I still hadn't heard back from Martin which worried me. I wasn't even sure who I could contact to ask how he was doing.

After our meals and drinks, we headed back to camp for the night--the end of another day!

I thought this was a cute sign. =)

Gordale Scar

Did you notice that Gardale Scar actually has two waterfalls? The one in the background of this photo pouring through the hole in the wall isn't very obvious.

Here's a close-up of it the waterfall from the hole.

One of the rock climbers heading up the steep cliff!

It was the restaurant and bar that we were most interested in at Beck Hall.

The wall of unusual birdhouses was pretty cool!

This tree at the campsite was decorated for some reason....