The Team Hike 2025

By Tom Gale, Atom Packs

The Beginning

The forecast was awful: driving wind and rain were predicted for the first few hours of the walk. I wasn’t too worried, the team are a hardy bunch: often seen cycling or walking the three miles to work when more sensible people would have taken the car. 

We met at Booths car park, the team excitedly comparing backpack sizes, colours and organisation. People dash inside to grab last minute pastries and coffees. Winnie (dog) is terrified of buses: luckily she hasn't realised yet what is about to happen.

Head count: Thirteen. We’ve a few missing - the team has got to the size now that there is nearly always somebody absent, today we are missing five.

Last year we had the indomitable Warwick photographing as we hiked, this meant I was able to focus on logistics and team morale and safety - crucially it also meant I didn’t need to worry about packing any camera equipment. This year, with Warwick now absent, I am slightly stressed and have seemingly packed every bit of photography equipment that I own, including a 1.5kg tripod that I brought purely for fun (news flash, I used it once).

I also brought a load of film cameras to hand out amongst the team, these are now dutifully stuffed into shoulder pockets and bum bags. I’m keen that I want this to be more of a team building experience than a photoshoot, a thought I consider as, with a heave and a groan, I lift up my backpack to get on the bus. It’s a decent trail weight… “Why is it so heavy?”  

Ah well, it's good training. 

We pile onto the bus, filling it with colourful backpacks that are now being jammed into every spare space, while the bus regulars look on mildly disgruntled. Winnie has feelings, she’s mostly shaking.

After a winding, bouncy and hot 30 minutes, we pile off at Stonethwaite. It’s fresh and starting to rain. Statistically, this is one of the wettest areas of England, the geography and location near the west coast meaning the weather tends to get stuck, releasing all of its water as it rises up over the mountains off the sea.

We are planning on walking from Stonethwaite to Ambleside, following the Cumbria Way southbound over Stake Pass. If all goes well this should be a 2 day, 16 mile trip with an overnight at the Great Langdale Campsite.

Jackets are put on, straps are adjusted and we are off. Jo and Iona are joining us for the first few miles to Black Moss Pot before turning back, Jo tells me as we set off that her jacket is no longer waterproof. Why this is a problem will become apparent fast.

The streams flowing over the trail are already high, for the first mile or so, the trail is sheltered by the trees. The weather ramps up slowly, like someone is slowly turning up a volume dial. We begin with a good amount of happy chatter. 

At some point things took a turn for the apocalyptic. Hoods were cinched down and the happy chatter stopped and as we started walking into a hard, cold wind that was rushing unimpeded down the valley. This was backed up by a driving, stinging rain that seemed to come from underneath. My legs, dutifully exposed by my shorts, were really taking a beating, I looked around - only one of us had put on their waterproof trousers: good on ya Rachel, always ready.

I looked back down the group, we were now spread out across a few hundred meters, colourful jackets and backpacks seasoning the brutal landscape.

My jacket gave up almost immediately, my new lightweight boots were wet through within minutes. The first objective was Black Moss Pot, a lovely deep river gorge with great opportunities for swimming and cliff jumping - not today though, Langstrath Beck was a torrent of white water, giving slightly more grade 5 kayaking vibes than chill swim spot. 

The only shelter in sight was a dry stone wall, just get there and then we can assess what to do next. By the time we arrived the wind seemed to switch direction, the wall offering little to no shelter. Winnie, normally fairly aloof when it comes to bodily contact, got as close to Gayle as she possibly could.

I was seriously debating abandoning the plan, we’d only been walking for an hour or so and I was already wet through and cold. Various contingencies were running through my head - they all involved pubs, warm fires and buses the hell outta there!

Will, bless him, had already turned back to escort Jo and Iona back to the safety of the woods. Group morale has a serious effect on the success or failure in conditions like this. I looked at people's faces: everyone was smiling. If one person had started talking seriously about turning back, I have no doubt we would have.

At that moment, Alex pulled a batch of freshly baked brownies out of his backpack. Holy smokes! Nothing has ever tasted better.

We huddled around, happily chomping Alex’s brownies in some of the worst weather I can recall being outside in for some time. We put on our waterproof trousers and discussed our options.

Yes it was bad, no it probably couldn’t get much worse, therefore it can only surely get better?

We were in the throes of a serious discussion about whether or not we could safely continue when, miraculously, it stopped raining. During this brief respite, we poked our heads up from under the wall where we were sheltered to see the entire Langstrath valley stretched out before us. I wouldn’t say it was sunny but there was definitely more light than we had seen for the last few hours. This glimpse gave us all the hope that we needed. We came to a consensus: Let’s keep going.

Things improved markedly over the next few hours.The happy chatter returned as people recalled the tempest we had been in some moments before. I took a stock of what was wet: feet - yep, shorts - yep, socks - yep, underpants - yep, shirt - yep, very expensive new camera that I hope is waterproof - double yep.

Slowly, mile by mile, we walked ourselves dry. By the time we started the ascent of Stake Pass, people were already starting to shed layers. 

There was much debate about how and when Will would catch us up. Luckily he’s incredibly fit and doesn’t feel pain or, apparently, cold. Just as we began up the switch backs, our hero had returned! He’d managed to get Jo and Iona back to the shelter of the woods - apparently the becks had all swollen - doubling in depth and speed since we’d had passed. I’m so glad he went back with them, thanks Will.

The switch backs that climb the ridge up to stakes pass are short and close, meaning you always have somebody to your left and right going the opposite way to you. I don't know why but this always makes me happy when hiking in a big group.

Before long we had reached the top of the pass and the turn off for our descent into Great Langdale, we briefly scooped up some American Coast to Coast walkers that had missed a turning some miles back and were now a long way off their trail. I managed to talk them through a new route that would get them a short bus ride from Grasmere and sent them on their way.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. We had a delicious lunch at the top of the descent and enjoyed some spectacular scenery as we dropped down into Great Landale. At this point I was starting to relax, the forecast for the afternoon was far more mild and it was literally all downhill from here.

At some point on the climb I had snuck a rock into Will’s backpack and this began a chain of events that would dominate team activities for the rest of the day. You can trust no one. It was every hiker for themselves as large rocks and then, ultimately, tiny rocks were balanced, dropped and snuck into the possessions of unsuspecting victims. Ellie was caught proudly saying she hadn't been rocked yet at which point the collection of pebbles that Will had expertly been balancing on the top of her pack all cascaded off. She shook her pack like a wet dog, pebbles and rocks went flying in all directions. Some days later I was still finding small stones and, even, acorns, hidden amongst my stuff. I now know that doing small menaces is one of Will's favourite things, perhaps it’s even his love language.

The walk out through Langdale is on a good track through a beautiful wide valley and everyone was able to walk at their own pace. Before long we made it to the Old Dungeon Ghyll and onwards to the campsite. After setting up the tents, we decided that we deserved pints before dinner, so we piled into the pub to fortify ourselves with frothy ales and chips.

It wasn’t long before Miryiam instigated a game of pass the pigs and fairly quickly, things got pretty heated. This must be the single greatest ultralight game to carry on a thru hike, I dont think it weighs 5g.

Suitably fortified, we returned to the tents where we huddled around cooking. There were noodles of every flavour, but Laura’s dinner must get a special mention featuring steamed vegetables, rice noodles and even a boiled egg. Kudos.

Eventually we all got cold enough that we retired to our tents. I’d managed to live up to my trail name by popping my sleeping pad so I was not about to have a good night sleep - “bad camper” strikes again. Hello old friend. 

I often found myself walking in between groups on this trip, pondering the experiences of the last few years and the journey that has been taken to land this group of people here on this hill side on this day. I started making backpacks on a kitchen table in the pursuit of a simple curiosity - can I make a lightweight backpack that fits me properly that has the features that I need. Somehow, that idea grew and slowly, a team of people began to form around it. We now stand eighteen strong, the work that used to take me several weeks now being done in a single day. Along the way we’ve scooped up costume designers, steam punkers, stage managers, folk singers and a good handful of thru hikers, our team represents six different nationalities, we fill two picnic benches when we all sit down for lunch and occupy two large workshops. 

As I lay on the hard ground, I kept smiling to myself. I like the idea that everything that happened around me today was entirely brought into existence by this idea: a backpack - it both brought us together and also physically enabled the journey we were on. What a lovely thing.

End of part one.