We’re back on the Coast-to-Coast Trail with EL in England.
EL: English pubs can be great. One is on the Yorkshire Moors. It’s very bleak, and it seems to go on forever. I can remember walking through nothing for hours on end. After you arrive at the Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge (the fourth-highest in the UK), you are back in a traditional English pub enjoying a beer or cup of tea. This was a lovely experience. You’re then back on those bleak moors, for another few hours.
LA: The Moors who inspired…
EL: The Bronte sisters wrote their own books.
LA: Exactly. So Wuthering Heights Heathcliff, and all that darkness.
EL: Exactly. And the moors differ so much from the Lake District. It’s an interesting contrast to where we started the walk. I like the mountains and lakes better than the moors because it’s much more exciting to scramble down the mountain and skinny-dip into the lake rather than walking for long periods of time in bleak, nothingness.
The Lake District is a place with many ups and lows. When you reach Yorkshire, the landscape flattens out and changes quite a bit. There are more farms and cows. They’re my nemesis. I dislike cows.
LA: Was this group a rival before the hike?
EL: Yes, I have always been a hiker. But my worst nightmare would be to walk through a cow field.
LA: I assume you’ve been hiking and walking a lot. Did you say that you went to Kilimanjaro before? There aren’t many cows.
EL: Kilimanjaro is a mountain with a lot of people and not many cows.
I find that my best stories about hiking are often a result of a little chaos and fear.
LA: Continue. I’m like, “Tell me.”
EL: Cows are always involved. On the Coast to Coast, I would jump walls to avoid cows.
LA: Over Christmas, I went hiking in the Himalayas. It’s a wonderful, amazing thing to be able say. We were completely lost and found ourselves on farmland, which we quickly realized was not where we should have been. A dog chased the two of us off.
EL: [inaudible 00:12:24].
LA: You may have ended up in some strange or unexpected places without any signage. You’ve probably thought to yourself, I should not have turned that corner or I shouldn’t even be in this place.
EL: Yes, I once tried to take a huge diversion to avoid cows. But it was either run across a dangerous train track with high fences and electrical cables or go through the cows. I went through the cattle and headed-
