A Homecoming of Sorts
Five days healing in the Cheviots
By Trevor H. Smith
August 2023
Part Nine: Barefoot trainers, or just barefoot.
Some miles after Raven’s Knowe, while following behind Phil and the other five across the peat and flagstones after Lamb Hill, I notice among the potato-printed marks left by their boots and trainers there are more than a couple of genuine footprints. I mean the kind with toes and everything.
When we met a couple of hours earlier, Andy mentioned shifting between hiking shoes and barefoot, and I thought he meant those barefoot trainers I had heard about in online hiking groups. When we stopped for a break near Beefstand Hill I noticed that three of them – Archie, Meri, and Andy – had had enough of the jip their blistered feet were giving them and had decided to go barefoot through the Cheviots. I had never seen it, nor even heard of it before today. Andy said the pain in his feet had gone from nine to zero within seconds of de-shoeing. Squelching through the mire, Archie agreed. Meri seemed to simply belong in barefoot. It’s not that I was shocked – I thought going barefoot was a pretty smart idea, given their discomfort in wet shoes – I was more taken with how matter of fact they all were about it. It felt right, so they did it. I loved that about them. The Brooks, from somewhere between the midlands and the Peak District. Phil was my gateway Brooks. That first stretch, two miles from Ravens Knowe to the Roman camp and fort at Chew Green, was like speed-dating; artist and photographer meet while hiking in the wilderness and discover a shared enthusiasm for art, photography, and hiking in the wilderness. By the time we had stopped at Chew Green it was agreed that would be welcome to camp with them if I wanted to, even if I was not quite in the tiger bread and cream cheese sharing zone at this point.
The hike down to the spring and back.
1930hrs. All five tents were up; mine, Phil’s, Andrew’s, Joe and Archie’s, Meri and Tia’s, and the four younger members of the group were in for the night. Andy had located the spring on his mapping app and we all trusted in his watch to guide us there – and Phil had more empty bottles than any man should feasibly be capable of carrying. I was keen to top up on water before my final push over the summit of The Cheviot and down into Wooler in the morning. I’d heard of the spring when I was here in the summer of 2018. A summer so dry that we walked carefree across the peat bogs, on which we seldom faltered, and during which we seldom filtered, for water sources were in the most part dried up or rendered inaccessible by their having retreated deep into the cloughs, drains, gulleys, and ditches that run off the Pennines east and west to the North and Irish seas respectively.
Off we went in search of the spring. As first our circle of tents and then the enormous Russel’s Cairn faded into the mist behind us, Phil and I descended the southern side of Windy Gyle with blind faith in Andy, our expedition leader, whose confident stride was all I had to convince me that he and his watch knew where he was headed. Having quickly left anything remotely resembling a footpath to trudge across the wet, tufty, lumpen terrain we emerged, half an hour later, from the base of the permacloud to the sound of running water. A series of switchbacks led us to the gushing stream, and I waited and watched as first Andy, twenty feet downstream, and then Phil, who had stayed with me up near the source, topped up bottle after bottle of the Cheviots’ finest. I filtered half a bottle and gulped it down, had water ever tasted this fresh?
As is always the case, the returning climb to our camp was nowhere near as wet, tiring, or heavy under foot as our descent had been, and as we reached once again our circle of tents the clouds cleared, just in time for dinner.