New Valley Hills

What are they? As far as I can tell the term is from the USA. I first came across it when researching the PCT in 2022. They’re local people who volunteer their time and effort, and sometimes transport, home and food to support thruhikers on long distance hikes. They might offer a lift to/from a trail head (a conjunction of the wilderness trail and a road) to the nearest town, offer sustenance at the trailhead, offer accomodation in their home (spare room or camp in the garden), provide a home cooked meal, advice and support.

Anyway people who love hiking, hikers, the outdoors who wish to give something to the hiker community.

In the context of the SWCP the first trail angel I heard of was a local in Instow, himself an avid SWCP hiker, who responded to a Facebook plea from a young woman from Germany in the unseasonal weather in August 2023 who’d suffered a tent collapse in torrential storms. Christin was wet, cold, miserable and thinking of chucking it all in. She’d been blogging her hike in the relevant Facebook group, and Graeme was also well known in the group. He drove out to collect her, back at home his family offered her a room for the night, hot food, washing and drying facilities. She was restored to continue, delivered back to the campsite. She then successfully thruhiked the rest of the path blogging along the way.

For me I had 7 instances of trail angels!

• My wife Lisa who posted out a resupply box with much needed essentials I couldnt acquire on trail. Thanks Love!
• Friend Katy who took me in for 2 nights during torrential rain. Her dog Nevil, rugby on the telly, and good conversation helped.
• Friend Pwete who took me in for 2 nights during the first named storm of the season. He picked me up and drove me back as well. His families life with dog and toddler was welcoming.
• Friends Bex and Dan who gave me a base for 4 nights to slackpack the Lands End peninsula. Yummy food, the odd glass of wine, and clothes to wear while mine washed.
• Inga at the Porthcurno bus stop. Both waiting a very long time for the bus, she’d persuaded her husband to drive out to her. Inga and David drove me to Penzance and we whiled away the time with conversation.
• Friend Jon who took me in for a night and filled me with much delicious wine.
• Various people on Facebook groups provided much needed advice, ofetn in realtime, which kept me going during times of need. Special mentioned to groups “South West Coast Path” -the only Fb group worth using IMHO, and “Durston Gearheads” – helped with my daft questions on my tent and backpack from Canadian company Durston Gear.

When I’m on the PCT I won’t have friends closeby as trail angels. While I learnt on the SWCP the kindness from strangers was very gratefully received as was the support in many ways of longterm friends, for the PCT I’ll need to be more emotionally self-sufficient as those friends won’t be conveniently based along my way.