Well as Hallow'een is almost upon us, my first ever head torch run just last night seems appropriate.
Three of us (well four at the start but one was obviously too scared and feigned injury after a mile or two ) ran up Sharp Haw (a volcano shaped hill near Skipton). We started at 6:30 but it soon became dark, although it was clear and the moon was up, and hacked up Sharp Haw without too much trouble. At the top we headed down towards Flasby - a small hamlet where, co-incidentally, someone was stabbed almost fatally on a couple of days before......
At this point our head, head torch meister Dermot started to remember that he wasn't quite sure of our route and, surprise, surprise, we missed a 'planned' turn off. We had been hoping to avoid Flasby itself and cut through a field and hit our path back up but instead journied on into...... peril. Dun.... dun.... dun....
We reached a farm track (by this time thoroughly plastered in mud) and decided to follow it but as we neared the farm itself, we started to have rabid dog attack thoughts and it, well, didn't look a wholesome place. There was also a little red light on a post that might of set off a security light or..... open up a spiked trap even . So we 'bravely' back tracked and followed the path through the woods down to Flasby itself.
Here we headed south along...... another farm track! And yep, after about half a mile, came across another farm. We now knew where we were though and Dermot remembered another previously unmentioned point; this farm did have a dog, a "beast of a dog" quoting Dermot's exact words.
It was now totally dark, apart from the (blood red ) lights eminating from the barn nearby and another building off to one side. All we could see was our cubicles of light from the torches and our breath steaming....... and two green specks of light 100 metres away.
We started to walk here, in case of startling anyone (or thing), but these two green lights remained fixed and completely still as we got nearer. Just as I was relieved to think that they were security sensors or something, the lights moved and turned into a f**king great Alsatian, who thankfully was behind a garden fence, but less thankfully not a big one. He sure didn't much like us though and barked his head off. We kept on moving, keeping Dermot 'dog side' and managed to not be at all killed or eaten and could then after a nervous, neck prickling 50 metre walk with the dog going beserk behind move on and start running..... a bit faster than before.
We still had the return journey to do, maybe another 5 miles, through the darkest part of the woods and back over Sharp Haw again but no hound of the Baskervilles or werecows or sheep attacked and we returned to base after a just brilliant 1 hour 40 or so run. All the cows and sheep also had green eyes by the way and it was totally surreal going through a herd or flock. T'was the reflection of the head torches y'see!
Next time, no farms!