Ingleborough from Horton-in-Ribbledale

12/3/14
Walking with; Nobody 

Ingleborough will always hold a special place in my heart, for it was after I had coerced/cajoled (depending on who you listen to) Ruth up to the summit on a brutally wet day that turned to snow as we reached Little Ingleborough, that I decided she was the girl for me! I proposed a few hours later sitting by the fire in the highly recommended "Game Cock Inn", Austwick, where the excitable French proprietor, Eric, bought us a bottle of champagne to celebrate with! In spite of this tale of romance and adventure I'd not been back since and was looking forward to enjoying the early Spring.
On our previous visit we'd taken the route from Clapham but I had decided to start on the other side and ascend from Horton-in-Ribblesdale, more commonly used to ascend Pen-Y-Ghent. The bright sunshine and warm temperatures were slightly disconcerting and most un-Yorkshire like as I passed by the picturesque station and picked my way along Sulber Nick flanked by impressive limestone pavements. The views back to Pen-Y-Ghent and ahead to Ingleborough and Simon Fell were expansive and whilst there were a fair number of other walkers we were well spaced out. I would imagine on a weekend during the "3 Peaks season" this path would see an awful lot of traffic. I passed a ruined shooting hut and the area of marsh and shake holes known as "The Allotment" and eventually cut off the path and climbed up on to Simon Fell where I had a solitary lunch with hazy views of Whernside. It was another 15 minutes or so and after a short, sharp last pull I was on the vast plateau that is the Ingleborough summit. The summit has been the subject of much conjecture. For years it was considered to have been an Iron Age hill fort but recently archaeologists have come to consider that the ruins might in fact be Bronze Age and related to ritualistic use, either way it is easy to see why people were (and are) drawn here, the 360 degree views are wonderful. There is plenty of furniture up here; A trig point, a well established windshelter, a cairn or two and the ruins of a tower built in 1830 that was partially destroyed by drunken revellers on the occasion of the celebration of it's completion!
   The summit was busy so I didn't stay long. I headed off South to Little Ingleborough (scene of much false summit heartache on excursion one) before making my way down to the magnificent Gaping Gill. This 98m deep pothole swallows Fell Beck and is the tallest unbroken waterfall in England and one of the largest known underground caverns in England. It's terrifying and magnificent in equal measure. Twice a year members of the public can pay to be winched down into the cave itself, definitely something on my bucket list! Leaving Gaping Gill I made the path at Long Scar and then back across the bleakly named and atmospheric Thieves Moss, a lonely spot where you could just imagine a highwayman or brigand lurking! The path eventually led me back to Sulber Nick and from there it was a gentle dander back down to the village.
Whilst my first visit to Ingleborough will always remain the most memorable for obvious reasons, this was a cracking day out in beautiful weather and it's only a matter of time before I head back to this scenic part of the world.

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Walking in the San Diego area

19/20.9.13

Walking with; Allen, Jess and Ruthy

Some of my favourite walking memories have come on trips to the Western United States, the challenge of the chains on Half Dome, the stunning vistas from Angel's Landing in Zion National park, the eerie solitude of the desert in Joshua Tree and the otherworldliness of wandering amongst the hoodoos in Bryce Canyon. This trip however was going to be based in San Diego where Ruth was attending a conference and whilst I had high hopes for some excellent eating and drinking and a little in the way of museum visiting I didn't hold out much hope for any real walking....luckily I was wrong. Whilst the walks I managed May not have been epic in scale they were certainly memorable for very different reasons.
I had headed down the long sand spit linking Coronado with Imperial Beach (the most South Westerly town in the USA) and was making my way towards the beach when a sign pointed me towards the lengthily named Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. It didn't seem the most promising environment for a walk, naval helicopters were hovering overhead keeping an eye out for any illicit border crossings and in the distance Tijuana itself sprawled untidily up the hillside above it's enormous bullring, but starved of leg miles over the last few weeks I decided to give it a go. The track led me along the edge of the reserve,which contains part of the 10% of remaining coastal wetland in Southern California, directly towards the Mexican border, I could almost smell the tacos! Helicopters continued to buzz overhead as I headed towards the estuary mouth, a Red Shouldered Hawk was using a low tree as a vantage point and I watched him circle over the marshes looking for his prey. The sandy path kicked down towards the beach and came to an end overlooking a series of shallow pools, there was not a soul to be seen and I drank in the incongruous feeling of solitude a couple of miles from the busiest border crossing in the world. The pools were busy with birds, the imposing Brown Pelicans huddled on the mudflats and around the margins of the water Long Billed Curlews, Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons and Dowitchers were busy searching for food. I meandered back, the dust coating my shoes and legs, picking my way past Cacti and the distinctive Pickleplant and watching Lizards dart out of my path. On the pier at Imperial Beach I watched the fishermen and saw more Pelicans, Double crested Cormorants and Caspian Terns. It goes to show that whilst many of us walk in order to explore high peaks and crags, it's worth looking in the most unpromising surroundings sometimes as it is surprising what you might find!
  The next day I was joined by Ruthy and our friends Al and Jess who had come down from LA. We headed up the coast a little to the Torrey Pines Reserve, home of one of the world's rarest pine trees. The reserve is crisscrossed with tracks high above the sandstone gullies and with magnificent views down the coast and out to see where, in season, Grey Whales can be seen on migration. We started out on the Guy Fleming trail named for one of the pioneers of Torrey Pine preservation. It's a gentle loop around sandstone outcrops with fine views over the ocean and a chance to examine the pines themselves at close quarters, whilst Bobcat have been seen on the loop we were restricted to Hummingbirds and the briefest glimpse of a Peregrine flashing along the cliff face. We then took the Razor Point trail leading down the side of a gully to another whale watching lookout flanked by bizarre rock formations reminiscent of the previously mentioned Bryce Canyon hoodoos. By now the sun was high and we sweated our way back to the safety of the car and air conditioning and headed back to San Diego to sample a few of the excellent microbrewery beers the city specialises in.
So, I didn't climb any mountains, discover the source of the Amazon or come across a Grizzly Bear in a pristine wilderness, but I did discover that even in the most unpromising urban environments there are pockets of wild land itching to be explored and which often provide the most unexpected of rewards!

Photos

Kate, my photo genius friend, has been working on a couple of photos for me and come up with these results, I think you'll agree they are very impressive! Check out her website at www.katescottphotography.co.uk

Skills in the sunshine above Elterwater

27.6.13
Walking with; Nathan

Ever since I completed my initial Mountain Leader training I have been living in fear! It is one of the most ambitious and intimidating things I have undertaken in my adult life and involved a number of aspects that would lift me well clear of my hill walking comfort zone. However, my jaw is set and my mind is made up and I am determined that this is something I want to do, with that in mind, a few weeks ago I put a post on a walking forum to find people in the same situation as me with whom I might be able to practice a wider range of skills than the standard day on the hill stuff.
So it was that I found myself waiting in the free carpark just outside Elterwater for Nathan, a fellow ML trainee employed for the Summer season at Whinlatter Go Ape, and with a good working knowledge of the knobbly bits of the Lakeland that might prove ideal for some ropework and micro-navigation. We climbed out of the valley bashing our way through the bracken and exchanging tips on the local flora or fauna before finding a suitable crag to practice some rope work. In spite of my recent Indoor climbing course this was the first time since my training I'd used a rope "in situ" as it were and it took a bit of getting used to! An hour or so later and I was feeling much more confident and we coiled the rope away and, enjoying the magnificent views down to Baysbrown campsite and the Langdales continued on our way upwards. After a bit of lunch by a small, cotton grass covered tarn we moved onto some micro-navigation on the numerous lumps and bumps of Silver Howe. It was the kind of terrain and practice that's hard to replicate during a normal hill day and really useful for all that, it gave me some helpful pointers for areas that I still need to work on! We were also treated to some spectacular views out over Grasmere, Rydal Water and Loughrigg, made a welcome change after a couple of hours of nose to compass and nose to map!
We finished with another batch of rope work, hopefully ingraining some of the skills we'd been working on earlier, before descending down through yet more bracken to Elterwater. It was a very different kind of day, but immensely useful and I shall definitely be incorporating plenty more of these into the mix before I take the final, dreaded exam!

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A Snowdonian overnighter

19/20.6.13
Walking with; Nobody

In my recent desire to get to know the Lake District better I have somewhat neglected Snowdonia but after a cracking two days in North Wales I am anxious to rectify this once more. The hostels in Snowdon were busy but I eventually found a bed at the Pen-Y-Pass YHA http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/pen-y-pass  and so planned a couple of days around my base.
I arrived in Beddgelert in blazing sunshine (a sentence not often written I suspect) and after a brief refreshment stop headed out along the pretty banks of the River Glaslyn to Gelert's grave. Gelert, a hunting hound, was the pet of Prince Llewelyn, one day the Prince went hunting without Gelert and on his return found his son's crib overturned and the room in disarray, there was blood on Gelert's muzzle and the Prince, jumping to conclusions slew him. As he did this a baby cried and the Prince found his son alive under the crib and a huge Wolf, killed by the faithful hound, lay dead next to him. The Prince was heartbroken and supposedly never smiled again! Leaving the grave I followed "The Fisherman's Path" which became ever rockier as the river became wilder, before emerging on the Aberglaslyn bridge. The path then zigzagged up through woodland before emerging onto boggy moorland near the ruins of the farm at Oerddwr-uchaf. Even in the sunshine the ruins had a slightly "The Hills have eyes" feel to them and I was glad to be past them and tramping through the Cotton grass towards my first target for the day Moel Ddu. I watched a Red Kite playing on the thermals, soaring gracefully up and up before dropping down again, and then repeating the process, and as I started up the painfully steep lower slopes of Moel Ddu my grunts of exertion were accompanied by the familiar "cronk" of a number of the local Ravens.It was a short, very steep slog, but the summit views were possibly some of the finest in Wales. As I sat sandwich in hand, whichever direction I looked it was magnificent. The Moel range loomed large, Snowdon herself sat proud and cloudless in the distance, the Llyn Peninsula stretched out into the sea and Porthmadog sat perched on the estuary offering the promise of fish and chips and ice cream....I'd have killed for an ice cream at this stage. Apart from the occasional "cronk" and the whistle of the steam train from down in the valley, it was blissfully peaceful and still.
Ahead of me I could see Moel Hebog and Banog, two more sharp climbs still lay ahead so, refuelled, I moved on. The climb up Banog was another where frequent "view" stops broke up the gradient and from there it was a last slog up the scree onto the summit of Moel Hebog where I met a squirrel hanging around the cairn on the scrounge and saw the only other walkers I met all day, seven hours close to one of Snowdonia's tourist honeypots and barely a soul to be seen. The path zig zagged back down to the valley where I saw a couple of Wheatears before coming to rest in the Tanronnen Inn for a restorative pint and a perusal of the photos of local history adorning the walls.
Snowdon is not just a mountain, it is a tourist attraction, a destination in it's own right, and my second ascent of it was a very different experience from the day before. I'd been up it once before, in a hurry, in the cloud at the end of a Three Peaks challenge, so this time I wanted to take my time and enjoy it. I left the friendly staff at the hostel behind and they agreed I could save myself a tenner by leaving my car in their layby rather than in the exorbitantly priced car park across the road. I'd previously followed the Miner's Track so this time I set off up the Pyg, a far more scenic path that climbs up to the foot of Crib Goch. It was still sunny at this stage but the forecast was poor so I'd decided to skip the ridge and concentrate on getting to the top in one piece. The paths were all busy but by varying my pace I managed to not get caught up in any traffic jams and the views remained pretty impressive until about ten minutes from the top when the cloud dropped a little further and things became a bit hazy. None-the-less I did have views from the summit, even if they had to be shared with a train load of 50 odd European tourists who timed their arrival to perfectly coincide with mine! Snowdon is not a mountain for peace and solitude! I dropped back down the Miner's enjoying the relatively flat return and almost making it back to Pen-Y-Pass before the rain started!
On the return leg I came across a number of groups of people who were very clearly (to my mind) under prepared and/or inappropriately equipped. I am the first to accept that I sometimes overdo it, but a full pack gives me a feeling of security and a better workout, and if the worst comes to the worst I am confident in my ability to deal with most things a mountain can throw at me. I am sure all regular walkers have come across this on occasions, once on the Half Dome Trail in Yosemite I came across a (for want of a better description) "stoner dude" in cut off denims and no shirt who had attempted the 15 odd mile round trek with a 350ml bottle of water and by the time we found him was suffering from heat stroke......an extreme example but it raises the question, what responsibility do we, as experienced and able hill walkers, have to people we see heading out into potentially perilous situations? My natural reserve makes me inclined to say little, but last month after I'd descended in full waterproof kit from Wetherlam due to the ferocity of the conditions on the top I felt compelled to say to three teenage Americans who were about to try and ascend the Old Man of Coniston in shorts and t-shirt that I didn't think it would be sensible for them to continue.....they ignored me, but at least I felt I done the right thing.....What do other people think?

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Skiddaw via Ullock Pike

30.5.13
Walking with; Nobody

Another one of England's big boys under my belt, but Skiddaw is doing it's level best not to enthuse me. A couple of years ago I tried the ascent from Dodd, the cloud came down, my confidence evaporated and I gave up  making a vertiginous descent down a gully off Longside Edge. A friend suggested the ascent via Ullock Pike and the ridge would make for a quieter and more pleasant route than the tourist track from Latrigg, and so it proved as I only met two other walkers on this route up to Carl Side Tarn. The wind was already blowing but the views back to Bassenthwaite were gorgeous, Skiddaw sat like a big, ugly lump of rock, but a big ugly lump of rock with a visible summit, this wasn't to last long........By the time I'd reached Ullock Pike and hunkered down on the Western side to escape the savage wind, the cloud had dropped and the path ahead lead into nothing more than thick murk, Skiddaw 2 Howellsey 0? Thankfully not, my confidence and navigation skills are much improved and the path from Carl Side is not an easy one to stray from so after much slatey slogging I reached the summit where a helpful plaque informed me of all the wonderful views I could have had from this point on another day!
After taking advantage of a stone shelter to grab a quick sandwich, I started to head down the Latrigg Trail before heading off to Skiddaw Little Man with it's quirky cairn containing what looked like the remains of a plough. Visibility was very poor, so I skirted across the scree slopes re-emerging on the path up from Carl Side. As I dropped below the cloud line, the views to Derwent Water opened up and I picked my way down the knee crunching path to the foot of Dodd which I'd decided to end the afternoon's events on. It's a fifteen minute stroll up the forestry track but the views of both Bassenthwaite and Derwent Water are remarkable for such little effort and well worth the comparative ugliness of the forestry scarred slopes. I rested on the top before making one of those fundamental mistakes that I really thought I'd managed to stop making, instead of checking the map or following my prescribed route I saw a couple of people who "looked as if they knew what they were doing" and followed them, doh! Half an hour later, scratched and bloodied and now lacking any sign of my map, I emerged from a conifer plantation so dense only my uncanny ability as a limbo dancer got me through in one piece. My sole consolation was that as I did emerge, an Osprey circled above me probably thinking "How the hell did he get down that way?" The rest of the walk was in sunshine and followed gentler paths back towards High Side and the vivid, yellow Gorse.
I spent the night at Cockermouth staying in the beautiful, traditional style YHA set in an old watermill and I would heartily recommend it as an accommodation. http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/cockermouth. Whilst there I met three lovely Scottish ladies doing a fundraising walk for The Bhopal medical appeal and I promised I would give them a plug! www.bhopal.org The town itself has a couple of decent pubs in the 1761 and Bitter End http://www.bitterend.co.uk/ and is a pleasant place to recuperate after a further falling out with England's fourth highest peak!

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South Wales wanderings

7/8.5.13
Walking with; Ruthy

Some of my earliest walking memories are of family outings to the Brecon Beacons where my Grandparents lived (and Grandmother still does). The names are evocative to me; The Sugar Loaf, The Table Mountain, The Blorenge and in my mind they have grown into epic mountain days, and so it was, that with Ruth having to visit Abergavenny for work the Wednesday after a Bank Holiday we thought we could stay with Granny in Crickhowell and I could relive a few childhood memories.
Tuesday felt as if Summer had arrived. We rolled into Hay-on-Wye in glorious sunshine, there was blossom on the trees, primroses and daffodils were still in flower and the fields were full of young lambs. Hay is the self proclaimed book capital of the world and with 30+ shops covering every conceivable specialism, it was easy to wile away a couple of hours and head back to the car with a bootfull of new reads. We headed out of Hay and onto the Offa's Dyke Path (which I am still hoping to do this year, time permitting) and had soon left the town behind for a world of forget-me-nots, celandines, goosegrass and primroses. We crossed the Dulas Brook, back into England, and the tiny hamlet of Cusop which found notoriety as the home of Herbert Rowse Armstrong, the only English solicitor ever to be hanged for murder! More country lanes lined with Cow Parsley and early bluebells took us back into Hay still bathed in beautiful sunshine.
Wednesday morning and the sunshine of the previous day had disappeared. The cloud hung low and drizzle was in the air as I emerged replete from another Full  English at The Kings Arms in Abergavenny. Undaunted I made my way through the narrow lanes and past the Sugar Loaf vineyards to the car park at Mynydd Llanwenarth where the cloud was lifting to provide spectacular views. I headed off North West and dropped into a valley below the Western ridge where I heard, and then saw, my first Cuckoo of the year. The climb up the ridge was long and blowy but undemanding and the views of the Beacons and surrounding countryside were spectacular. I now have longer legs than I did on my first ascent so it wasn't quite such an arduous adventure, but the 360 degree views from the summit are well earned and well worth the effort. It was a gentle descent back to the car park drinking in the views and skirting the edge of St Mary's Vale and once I was back I looked back at the cone like summit through the same eyes I did 30 years before and felt as if I'd had a proper adventure once more!

Kinder in Spring

23.4.13
Walking with; Nobody

After the trials and tribulations of a windswept Lake District last week it felt good to be back on familiar ground and to, maybe, just maybe, see Spring finally beginning to stir. Kinder is my "go to" hill, close enough to have a long day out and sleep in my own bed, and yet, wild enough to feel like a proper adventure and different every time I visit.
I set off from Barber Booth, one of a string of hamlets that make up Edale, and followed the River Noe, enjoying the daffodils and budding trees, until I reached Upper Booth Farm. The path follows Crowden Brook through a wooded vale before bringing you out at the foot of Crowden Clough with Crowden Towers and the Kinder edge towering over head. It was a pleasant climb, the gradient rises (for the most part) gently and there was a cooling breeze, none-the-less by the time I'd scrambled up to the foot of the Towers I'd worked up a sweat and an appetite! As I sat and ate the first half of my lunch, I saw my first Swallow of the year, a harbinger of Spring if ever there was one. The good weather had bought out quite a few walkers so I decided to leave the edge and head into the peaty heartland of the massif intent on doing a little "nav work". It was hard work, in and out of groughs and bashing through the heather, but as well as reaching my eventual goal of Crowden Head, I put up a few Grouse, spied a solitary Curlew and managed to come to the aid of a compass-less father and son who'd strayed a little off route......all part of the service!
Another session of cross-Kinder yomping bought me out at Kinder Low and then onto Edale Rocks for the second half of my lunch and some truly superb views down the valley and across to the Great Ridge. My knees didn't fancy Jacob's Ladder so after a brief consultation with my map I continued on to Brown Knoll, detouring to examine the sparse remains of another WW2 plane crash that lay on the Eastern side of the hill. The tops of Brown Knoll reminded me of Black Hill, peat and vast expanses of pale grass waving in the breeze. I located the memorial cairn of John Charles Gilligan complete with the classic biblically inspired walker's epitaph, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills........." before contouring round Horsehill Tor and dropping back into the valley. The last quarter mile or so had plenty of Spring lambs and that, as well as the Swallow and budding Hawthorns made me optimistic that Spring may finally have made it as far as the Peak District, fingers crossed!

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Aira Force and Dockray

31.3.13
Walking with; Rich

After a couple of weeks of indolence as a result of a rugby obtained knee injury it felt good to be out and about even on the gentlest of ambles. I was in the Lakes on a stag do staying at the fantastically appointed Blencathra Centre, in the shadow of the eponymous hill and with magnificent vistas of snow capped peaks. The stag and less injured parties were off scrambling in ghylls and via ferrata-ing, so it was left to me and Rich (hobbled by a hip injury) to enjoy a perambulation of a less demanding sort.
  Wordsworth writes in his poem "The Somnambulist", "Wild stream of Aira, hold thy course" and the falls are mentioned in two further works of his. They are certainly a popular spot and easily accessible from the Ullswater road. The name is believed to come from the Nordic "eyrara" meaning "gravel-bank stream" with the word force (or sometimes foss) being a commonly used term for waterfall. The land is now owned by the National Trust but was developed as a pleasure garden by the Howard family in the eighteenth century who landscaped the area around their hunting lodge. The two bridges are dedicated to members of the Spring-Rice family and are popular photo spots.
Our car park provided good views of Ullswater and the snowy hills beyond and we descended the gentle path through the pine arboretum before crossing the stream and climbing slowly up the other side of the valley.  The view of the falls from below is spectacular and was enhanced by the icicles and frozen spray decorating the surrounding rocks. We continued, following the river, until we eventually reached the tiny hamlet of Dockray for a pint of "hair of the dog" in the very attractive "Royal Hotel". It was a simple matter of following the road back to the car then and whilst four ambled miles might not represent my most challenging walk, it felt could to be back out in the countryside once more, and even more pleasingly, the knee held up pretty well!

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Higger Tor and Carl Wark

12.3.13
Walking with; Nobody

The skies were blue and the air crisp and I decided that such a day was not to be wasted in Manchester so, amidst the flurries of snow, headed off to do this walk which had been on my list for the past couple of weeks. As I headed towards Sheffield the skies grew darker and the snow a little more insistent, but there were plenty of hardy souls out and about and whilst this is not, in any sense, a wilderness walk there was still enough weather and heather to make it feel pretty wild at times.
  I parked near "The Grouse Inn", above Froggatt village, when I arrived it wasn't open and by the time I'd returned it had shut......have to learn to time my walks better........From there I headed up to White Edge and out onto the exposed moorland where the wind whipped plenty of snow into my face and forced me into digging out the hat and gloves. I carried on entering the grounds of the National Trust owned Longshaw Estate. The Estate was once owned by the Duke of Rutland who used it for shooting parties, however it was purchased from the Duke by public subscription in 1927 and presented to the Trust the following year. Eschewing the undoubted delights of the NT tearoom I carried on following the high path above the quarries onto Burbage Moor. The views from the edge took in my eventual objectives of Higger Tor and Carl Wark as well as the forestry plantation planted in the shape of Great Britain and which Sheffield Council are now talking of removing. The edge is normally a very popular spot for climbers but there was nobody brave, or foolhardy, enough to risk it today and I made it to Upper Burbage Bridge (for lunch) without meeting another soul.
  Higger Tor itself, is a classic Dark Peak gritstone hill and whilst only attaining a height of 434m affirds some excellent views to Stannage Edge and Mam Tor and the Hope Valley. I descended and headed over to Carl Wark, a site I'd been meaning to visit for a long time on account of the (what are thought to be) Iron Age fortress remains situated atop it. Much mystery still remains as to the actual useage of the area and no remains of settlement have been found but the remaining wall is none-the-less a very impressive piece of work and has weathered over 3000 years of inclement Peak District weather admirably. The path back to the estate was boggy underfoot and I was glad to get off it and head down to Padley Gorge, a beautiful wooded valley just waiting for Spring to have sprung! The path follows the stream as it cuts it's way towards Grindleford, but what goes down must come up meaning that after bypassing the village, it was a short, sharp shock that led me puffing and panting back towards "The Grouse", just too late to console myself with a well earned pint!

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Crowden

Walking with; Nobody
28.01.13

When I think of the Dark Peak, I tend to think about the "Big three", Kinder, Bleaklow and Crowden/Black Hill, but I do seem to neglect the latter. It doesn't have the mystery of Bleaklow with it's low hanging fog and aircraft wrecks (although it does have a few up there) or the history of Kinder and the tresspass, but it does have the Great and Little Brooks, Laddow Rocks (where the original members of The Rucksack club climbed and put in place the foundations of the modern Mountain rescue service) and miles of barren moorland. I wanted a bit more navigation work and figured miles of barren moorland met that criteria so away I went, passing the YHA before crossing Crowden Brook and making my way up to The Pennine Way. There were Pheasant and Grouse about and I heard Ravens at least twice on my walk. I ascended slowly until I reached Oakenclough Brook tumbling down off Rakes Moss,then instead of re-treading the next section of the Way, I decided to follow a narrow track contouring along the valley and below Laddow Rocks before emerging back onto the Way opposite the magnificent rock formations known as Castles.
The path crisscrossed the brook before the distinctive paving slabs showed me the way towards the distant Black Hill. I'm always struck at how vast the expanse of moorland is up there, miles of nothingness giving the lone walker the occasional chill down the spine especially when the mist starts to drift in.......Visibility remianed pretty good though so I struck off in an easterly direction, locating the pond at Sliddens Moss before continuing on the rough, broken up, tussocky ground in the direction of the ever visible Holme Moss Transmitting Station. The groughs were still full of snow and I set off a Mountain Hare in it's beautiful white coat, he made my progress across the moor look decidedly clumsy and he bounced and bounded away from me. I eventually made my way up on to Tooleyshaw Moss and searched for the remains of the original route that the Pennine Way took. The wind had gotten up by this point and the dark clouds that had hovered over Bleaklow began to scud in my general direction incentivising me to pick up my pace as I slip slid through the peaty bogs and mossy marshes from White Low and across Westend Moss. The squall when it hit did so with the kind of malevolence a disgruntled Nordic God might have used to show his power over mere humans and I was soaked before I'd even got my waterproofs out of my rucksack......luckily it was over as quickly as it started and I wandered the remaining path back to the hamlet of Crowden (the most Northerly settlement in Derbyshire) without further downpour.

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Fernilee Reservoir

22.01.13
Walking with; Nobody

Snow seems to divide the nation, one half turning into big kids and the other into whingers and moaners, perhaps the divide is based on whether you have to go to work in it, because spending a day wandering through the Peak District in the snow is, quite frankly, one of the best things I can think of doing! It's a while since I have found a completely new walk in the Peaks so I pulled my well thumbed "Pub Walks in the Peak District"  out of the bookcase and on John Morrison's advice decided to try a variant on his stroll around Fernilee.
Fernilee is a hamlet, a mile or so South of Whalley Bridge and consists of "The Shady Oak" pub, a few farms and not a lot more. However a short stroll down the Goyt Valley there are the twin reservoirs of Fernilee and Errwood built in 1938 by the Stockport Water Corporation. I followed the footpath through Folds Lane Farm and down the pristine slopes to the River Goyt itself which I crossed before following a path that seemed better suited to cross country skiing than walking to the head of the Fernilee Reservoir.  Walking with the crunch of snow under boot, the sky blue and cloudless and a chill wind reddening your cheeks is hard to beat and my meander was further cheered by a friendly Robin accompanying me en route......no bird looks better against a backdrop of snow and holly. The next section took me through a fir plantation giving the walk a distinctly Scandanavian flavour before a path dropped down to the shore and I followed this to the dam separating the two reservoirs. It was being utilised by some kamikaze sledders who I watched in awe before lunching on top of the dam and spending ten minutes chatting to a gent who'd come down from the Cat and Fiddle.
I circumvented Bunsal Cob before taking the Midshires Way and heading through some seriously deep, drifted snow to the roadside viewpoint of Long Hill with views back towards the reservoir and across to Ladbitch Wood and Taxal Moor. The slog across the thigh deep drifts made me feel like Titus Oates, except with a little less immediate peril. Crossing the access land North of the A5004 I headed through more deep snow up to the Old Road which led me past the very lonely and remote farm at Wythen Lache and back through a true Winter wonderland to the lane down to the pub which sadly had just closed thus depriving me of a well needed pint and opportunity to thaw out in front of a fire......ah well, there's always next time!
All this snow has seriously whetted my appetite for our ski trip, one month from today, so fingers crossed it continues in this vein!

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Kinder plateau in the snow

Borrowdale......and snow!

4/5.12.12
Walking with; Nobody

Wainwright is allegedly described Borrowdale as "the loveliest square mile in the Lake District", it is also the wettest in terms of annual rainfall with the hamlet of Seathwaite taking the honours and receiving around 3.15 metres of rain a year! So, I couldn't really be surprised as I pulled into the carpark at Rosthwaite that the cloud was low and the rain starting to fall. I took the path across the fields towards the Youth Hostel where I was staying for the night before following the banks of the fast flowing Derwent towards the ominously named "Jaws of Borrowdale". It got wetter. By the time I started the ascent of Castle Crag,(the smallest Wainwright and the only one under 1000 feet), picking my way through the leafless skeletons of the trees the rain was bouncing off my hood, off the branches and even the Robins were looking for shelter in the Holly. Small it maybe, but Castle Crags is steep and by the time I had made my way through the slate workings and up the wiggles to the War Memorial on the summit I was breathing hard. There was still enough of a view to make the effort worthwhile. Ahead through the cloud lay the village of Grange and Derwentwater and below me Borrowdale lay bisected by the Derwent.
I descended onto a section of the Allerdale Ramble, a 54 mile route running from Seathwaite to the coast at Grune Point and followed it's gentle route until I reached the tumbling waters of Tongue Gill where I headed uphill through the ruins of Rigghead Quarry, atmospherically spooky as the light levels dropped, and onto the plateau of High Scawdell. In front of me Dale Head was blanketed in snow and looked magnificent. High Scawdell was covered in a scruffy layer of light snow which crunched underfoot as I made my way across to the partially frozen Launchy Tarn before the vertiginous descent down Scaleclose Gill back to the Allerdale Ramble which I followed down into Seatoller before retracing my steps back to Rosthwaite and The Scafell Hotel http://www.scafell.co.uk/ where a pint in front of an open fire helped to dry out my gear! Bed for the night was at the Borrowdale Youth Hostel, http://www.yha.org.uk/hostel/borrowdale where I made the most ofanother fire and another pint or two!
   It was minus three when I left the hostel full of porridge and a full English, but the sky was blue and there was not a cloud in sight. Wasdale Head always feels remote, but although Seathwaite has many nearer geographical neighbours it really feels extremely remote and must be a rough place to Winter.The path leads away from the hamlet with Base Brown and Glaramara towering on either side and both tops were well dusted with snow. Crossing Grains Gill at Stockley Bridge which afforded excellent views of Taylorgill Force, the icy path looped round Greenhow Knott before following Styhead Gill up to the eponymous tarn. The snow on Green and Great Gables looked beautiful in the sunshine but until the tarn was reached there wasn't much underfoot and with almost nobody else around and the sun warm if weak, it was a grand spot for a coffee and flapjack! Leaving Styhead I continued on through deepening snow up to Sprinkling Tarn and then onwards to the foot of Allen Crags. I'd considered heading over to Glaramara but the snow was getting ever deeper (I was passed by a couple pushing on further up complete with skis) and so after snapping a few more Scott of the Antarctic style photos of footprints in virgin snow, I dropped back down to the summit of Seathwaite Fell for lunch and to drink in the views.
Snow makes everything seem more adventurous, turns a walk into a trek, makes you feel as if you are pushing the boundaries and makes an amazing landscape, yet more amazing. It envelops the countryside in silence and yesterday there was nowhere else I'd rather have been!

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