The Night of the Thousand Spinning Hamsters (The Peak District County Tops walk.)

This piece was originally written for a well known outdoor gear company's website back in 2016. Time has passed, it is no longer on there and I've decided to re-write it. The title explains everything... 

The Holme Moss Mast.

March 2016. The long distance walking game was at its peak. Okay. I'd not gotten into cycling, swimming or climbing properly back then. Eat, sleep, think about the next daft walk, repeat... In the last four years I'd done 5 40+ mile walks (mostly alone) and my first 50 miler in 2014. The 51 mile Peak District County Tops walk was next on the agenda. Only nine people had done it. 10th? That was going to be me- and alone with no assistance too.

7pm, Crowden Campsite shop. It was raining heavily. Tried to explain to the warden that I didn't need accommodation, just some bog roll in case of any midnight evacuations. He looked genuinely concerned as I headed northwards into the clag over Black Chew Head and Black Hill. 

Despite the rain, the alien lights of the Holme Moss Mast made for simple navigation for the first couple of hours. The hills were deserted and it was just me. Happy days. Big fancy lights do not help with one thing though- tussocks. One minute you are blissed-out wandering alone at night, the next you're a soaking wet grumpy mess staggering through a knee deep nightmare. White Low folks. Don't fuck it up getting to the Woodhead Pass like I did. Fun was not had! 

Midnight on the Woodhead Pass is an unusual place for a midnight snack. Especially when obviously alone with a dimmed headtorch. All the boxes on the 'How to get yourself Kidnapped' list were ticked. Ten minutes and a flapjack later I'd still not been kidnapped, so off I shuffled south onto the vast Howden Moors before my luck ran out. 

Did I mention my headtorch was dimmed? 

It soon became apparent that the batteries were dying and of course my spares were at home. Very clever. By some sheer good fortune the clag cleared to a starry moonlit sky with the silhouettes of the hills clearly identifiable. Half of South Yorkshire was woken by my sigh of relief that night. 

Somewhere on the Howden Moors. 

Moonlit wandering, intense navigation, sleep deprivation kicking in, miles of bog and hill to cross before dawn. A very focused trance-like state was entered. Then as Outer Edge was passed, one of my favorite psytrance tracks ever (A Higher Pathway by Nebula Meltdown) began playing on loop in my head. Over and over again. Very trancy. 

And then the hamsters appeared. 

By Howden Edge my eyes, strained from several hours of dim light and trying to keep me on the correct bit of bog, had given in. One by one they materialised. Small brown hamsters spinning clockwise in their own little green hamster balls. Definitely real. They were cute and appeared quite content too. One became two became very quickly several thousand. Soon the hills were alive with small dizzy rodents. 

My own silent disco, sober (but very real) hallucinations, milky moonlit hills? Some of my friends into ecstatic dance would have loved this. Maybe. It was a bit soggy up there. I was as happy as a pig in shit, grinning and tripping my way across ladybower and over to the A57. Modern sober psychedelia? I'm converted. 

5:30am. Daybreak. Breaking of the hamsters. Un-breaking of my strained eyes. Sobering up. There was a solid 6 miles to Kinder which was easily done non stop. I needed breakfast. Sunrise over Stanage was beautiful, so was the birdsong and distant views. The long, long tunnel had been exited. I nestled down by Crowden Clough for breakfast at 7:30am after 28 miles of walking. Fresh socks, food and a 20 minute rest. Relief.

Sober me after 28 miles of walking
and 25 hours awake. A long day ahead...

It was a new day, the sun was shining and there was another 23 miles of walking still to do. The night had been unusual to say the least (and a lot of fun). All I knew was that- as fatigue took it's toll- the day was going to be interesting... 

The rest of the walk went by almost too smoothly. In fact, this was the most enjoyable of all the 5 walks I've done of 50-62 miles in length. Although it isn't uncommon to experience audio/ visual hallucinations on big days (due to lack of sleep and strain), this was the first time I'd really experienced it. So cool! Seven years and much more experience later, I warmly anticipate this aspect as much as watching the world go by and seeing sunrise and sunset when heading out on another big adventure.