Staying on the trail with Atlas Guides

My good friends at Atlas Guides in Flagstaff design and code the "go-to" apps for staying on the trail while hiking - a challenge for me at times! They worked with the Trailblazer crew in Great Britain to develop a series of British hikes that I eagerly downloaded. I hiked sections of three different trails, while based out of enchanting cottages with lovely hosts. I deemed it "reconnaissance" hiking since I only did a few sections of each trail - but it was great to see different parts of England as well as hike the unique trails.

First up was the Cotswold Way. This trail begins in the most charming town of Chipping Campden - near the 14th century Woolstaplers Hall (now a museum). For those of you not up on woolly lingo,  a wool-stapler buys wool from the producer, sorts and grades it, and sells it to manufacturers. The Cotswolds were a key center of the wool industry and I never walked a section of the trail that didn't also include sheep. :)

The beginning of the Cotswold Way in charming Chipping Campden

The Cotswold Way also has loads of archeology - including the Crickley Site that shows occupation as early as 3,700 BC by some of the first Neolithic people in Britain. Another Neolithic site along the Cotswold Way is the Belas Knap Long Barrow. Excavations in the 1860's found remains from 38 humans in the four chambers and behind the portal.

One of the chambers in the side of the long barrow

The strangest section of the Cotswold Way goes by the Cleeve Hill golf course. Cleeve Hill is a large common area - and during the spring and summer grazing sheep are allowed on the course! I got lost on the course (it all looked the same to me) and thankfully the app brought me back to a nature reserve - a much less homogenous landscape!

Grazing sheep on the Cleeve Hill Golf Course

From the bucolic Cotswolds, we headed to Pembrokeshire. Several of my friends had just walked the full 186-mile Pembrokeshire Coast Path and raved about it. Though it wasn't yet on the Atlas app, I figured if I stayed close to the coast, but didn't go over the cliffs, I would be fine. Each section I did was fantastic and my hubby and I also went out on a boat trip to an offshore island with PUFFINS! Not to mention diving GANNETS! Oh, and RAZORBILLS! It was glorious.

Wildflowers in May

The trail goes close to the cliff edge in places...

Next up was the Lake District where I hoped to hike part of the Wainwright Coast-to-Coast Trail. This 182-mile track, created by British hiker extraordinaire Alfred Wainwright, crosses three National Parks; the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors. It is not well sign-posted so having the Atlas Guides app will likely save you extra hours of hiking. We connected with the trail near Patterdale, but didn't hike very far. The fog limited our visibility to almost zero as we climbed, so we hung out in the lowlands with the sheep. I researched why we see so many painted sheep and got two answers - one is just identification of your sheep from your neighbors, and the other is to determine which ewes have mated - the ram is loaded up with a sack of dye and deposits it during mounting so the farmer can tell which ewes have been impregnated. The things I'm learning...

Pink sheep in the Lake District

My final England hiking goal was the 84-mile Hadrian's Wall Path, steeped in the history of the Roman Empire's northern boundary. While trail guides tend to start the hike from the east, the app has a slick feature where you can change the direction you are hiking so you don't have to read the guide backwards, no matter where you start or which direction you go.

I first toured the Tullie House Museum in Carlisle, near the west end, to learn more about the Roman history of this area. The museum had an entertaining and educational animated film where I learned that the wall was begun in AD 122 under Emperor Hadrian to separate the Roman Empire from the barbarians (Scots!) to the north. The history is interesting and I'd love to do the entire walk, reading more about the history as I went along. You can't see much of the wall near Carlisle, but it is another charming town, and I enjoyed walking along the river and parks.
 

Communal latrine at Housesteads Roman Fort

Hubby and I drove to Housesteads Fort, the best-preserved of the 16 forts along the wall. We toured the fort and you can see my favorite part above. It is a communal latrine for Roman soldiers. No privacy for them... The poopers were along both sides and the troughs in the middle held water they hopefully used to clean themselves... Then hubby drove me to Cawfields, Castlemile 42, and I hiked along miles of solid wall until I found him at the Twice Brewed Inn in the town of Once Brewed - or something confusing like that!

Section of Hadrian's Wall in the mid-country

All said, I loved the hikes I did in England and want to do more. You can check out all the British hiking apps from Atlas Guides here!