What On Earth Has Happened To All Our Brideways?

Hugh Thomson takes a mule across the country to find that off-road travel on horseback is a mounting challenge

- Hugh Thomson

Over the years I have taken many expeditions to Peru and have often used mules as pack animals. There’s something very romantic about a long line of mules crossing a mountain pass with their bells tinkling. And of course, if a pack animal is carrying your stuff, the good news is that you don’t have to.  So I thought it would be intriguing and fun to do the same along the rough line of the Coast-To-Coast route across the north of England – although obviously I’d need to take bridleways, not the official footpath. After a bit of searching, I found a friendly mule called Jethro at an RSPCA rescue centre and set off from St Bees, the traditional starting point of the walk.

On reaching the Lake District, I wanted to take Jethro along the old pack-pony path that wound from the Honister quarries towards the ring of mountains of the Western Fells, centred on the domed anvil of Great Gable. That was the theory at least.

OLD MOSES TROD

The path was called Old Moses Trod, after a 19th-century quarryman who designed the route to contour beautifully around the mountain slopes and arrive at Ravenglass for the ships. But although Old Moses Trod had always been a bridleway in the past, constructed for pack-ponies, it had reverted to footpath status; so when we came to a boundary fence, there was a quite legitimate – and impassable – stile. It is one thing trying to wrestle a mountain bike over a stile. But it’s quite another to heave 300 kilos of mule. I had to turn back and find another route.