The Following is For Reference Only.
Every walking year seems to hit a point where my walking resolve starts to crumble, either from internal factors like mental or physical fatigue, or from external reasons like terrible weather, and we've definitely met the latter on those in 2021, but at quite the most unexpected time of year, as while early July can offer have weather that settles into roasting hot or markedly changeable, we have not seen consecutive weekends of awful weather in all of my walking years, having to go back to the infamously recalled year of 2007 with its latter half of constant rain and greyness for something comparable. Weather projections for this walking day had suggested we were due a day of sunshine and showers, that hard to read forecast that could bring weather that is sunny or damp, but when we rose in Morley we were greeted with fog, hanging low on the ground and not having been predicted to occur at any point in the week, which you wouldn't expect to endure at this time of year, so the walking resolve was steeled to go out and make the best of the mediocre conditions. The mental resolution for the day then started getting its beating right at the outset as we set out to hop on the #425 bus at Morley Town Hall, only to find it inexplicably cancelled and thus a half hour wait had to pass until the next service was due, putting me behind schedule and adding to the frustration that comes with a long enough wait of 20+ minutes for the #681 service at Bradford bus station, where it's painfully visible that the persistent damp gloom has not lifted even as we roll past 9.20am. The Halifax via Shelf bus is boarded, to ride us back up onto the Calder - Aire upland, and there's no sign of any improvement coming in the air, and indeed things look like they're worsening as we roll up at Odsal Top, as the skies darken and a sudden downpour comes on as we ride through Shelf, giving me an impromptu dousing as it runs in through the open bus window, and as we approach Northowram, conditions outside look no better than they did when I quit the path a week ago, and I stay firmly in my seat as my stop comes and goes a 10am, only moving on as we roll into the Halifax bus station terminus.
Taking in my surroundings in the deep cleft of the Hebble Valley, the cloud hangs heavily over all the elevated hills and the weather looks like something you might tough out through the fading walking days of November, rather than something that might be endured on the third weekend of Summer, and thus all walking plans on the day are junked, and the #576 bus is ridden away, rising up above the Holmfield valley and up to Queensbury to again find the mist hanging heavily over the 300m contour, making my decision look absolutely correct. Amazingly, the mist seems even worse on the Airedale side by now, and as we land back in Bradford, even a short trip in an urban landscape, putting down the four miles lost in the last bout of bad weather back in May doesn't appeal, and this we head home, through the enduring mist, having burned four hours of the day with literally nothing to show for it but a welter of utter disappointment, waiting for the improvement that doesn't come until after 3pm. I don't talk much about climate change here, but you can spot the weirdnesses if you trace a route through what the weather's been doing, and it's been all kinds of screwy this year, with the Gulf Stream having been sending its warm ocean currents to the north and south of the British Isles throughout the Spring, rather than directly upon us as is more usual, while the Summer is being blighted by the Jet Stream causing the usually predictable airflow in the high atmosphere over the Atlantic to waver around like a gymnast's ribbon, and bringing weather chaos with it. For me, right now, it's given me the internal and external challenges that make me feel the need to quit the trail for a while, to give me a rest and refocus, in the hope that we might get a Summer in which approaching the High Moors might be plausible, and thus on my imminent next week off work and away from home, it looks like all Down Country trekking plans will be shifted on to an even later date, and one of the weekends of it will probably be set aside to get busy with housework or making myself sociably useful before the Summer - Autumn push gets underway, hopeful that I've gotten enough physical and mental resolve to make a success of the remainder of 2021.
And they say there's a heatwave due next, so maybe we ought to have a musical interlude, and a contextually appropriate one at that, before we move on...
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5046.3 miles
2021 Total: 304.2 miles
Up Country Total: 4583.3 miles
Solo Total: 4714.7 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3644.1 miles
Next Up: Getting Back On The Trail; Somewhere, Somehow...
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