North Pennines with Snow
Just heard that there was a cover of snow on the North Pennines today.
And I missed it.
Bugger.
Must do better
The forecast for today was for a frosty morning and a sunny day with light winds.
As I poked my head through the curtains, I could see a rain-lashed Crook. I let the cat in. He was soaked and was muttering something darkly about the Met Office. The TV this morning announced weather warnings for heavy rain in NE England. I drove to Wharfedale through several deep dubs of water. It was till chucking it down as I set off on the walk.
Buckden Gill
The intitial probings went badly. It soon became apparent that any bare rock was as slippery as buggery. Only those deeply involved in buggery will appreciate just how slippery this can be – or so I’ve been told.
The route goes up to an impasse at a waterfall, backtracks a bit and then leaps up a little gully and along an exposed ledge for a bit. It does this twice.
The scramble that rejected me
Me and Superdawg got to the gully, which Bruno attacked with gusto and , promptly slithered off and almost tumbled down the hill. A second attempt went bravely wrong in a similar way. A third attempt, with me halfway up the gully for a push up the bum nearly had me off as well. A retreat was called.
We climbed Buckden Pike by an old trackway – then a path up to Buckden Gavel Mine – a hole I’d been in a couple of times many years ago and involving such fun as igniting snowdrifts with carbide and demanding three pints of bitter in the Buck Inn two minutes before closing time, whilst covered from head to toe in orange mud. (This wasn’t me by the way)
Buckden Gavel Mine entrance
We achieved the summit of Buckden Pike. It were right foggy on the top and quite sloppy. The old path from the top used to cross the wall and head South for a War memorial. This has now been diverted and a new path with new stiles handrails the West side of the wall which, despite being pretty boggy is much easier than it is on the other side of the wall.
Buckden Pike sloppy summit
Looking over the wall
We got to the Polish War memorial. The tale of how this came about is given here http://www.buckdenpike.co.uk/ Its well worth a read, but , basically a WW2 bomber crewed by Polish airmen came to grief at this spot in a blizzard. There were initially two survivors, one of whom crawled through the blizzard with a broken leg and a head injury to the inn at Cray, following the footprints of a fox. The second survivor succumbed to the blizzard. The memorial was built by the survivor and a service is held there by Keighley ATC and scouts and cubs and so on from Airedale. A bronze fox is mounted to commemorate the role of that animal. Read the website, though – its very moving stuff.
War Memorial
The Fox
The memorial and the help and funding from local people and the annual service reflect well on local people and local yoof in particular.
After a short visit to the memorial (missed the service by about an hour) – I wanted to bag the subsidiary top called Tor Mere Top (appears in the Bridge list) and also go down to Starbotton by the bridleway over Knuckle Pasture. With a bit of navigational shenanigans, I managed both. The path contours around the head of a great corrie and has been engineered long ago to service lead mines on the hillside. the mining here is very old and there are lines of bell pits as well as the usual spoil heaps and levels.
Bell Pits
On the way, I came to Tor Dyke – an ancient Brigantian anti-Roman defence, and on top of a mound which is probably artificial (being a qualified archeologist – I’ve see many episodes of Timeteam and quite a lot of Blackadder) – I found a large stone with some carvings on it. These were what appeared to be a number 8, and cross and a circle with a dot in the middle. I wonder what they mean?
Carved Rock
From Starbotton, we just followed the Dales Way back to Buckden.
12 miles and 2000 feet of climbing and, it eventually brightened up. I only actually fell over once, but in a fairly spectacular and very muddy kind of way. Some owd yows (translation = sheep), held up cards with numbers on. I got 9.6 for style, but only 3.2 for dignified recovery due to blasphemy and the use of horrible but unusual swear words, some of whoch are probably physically impossible for all except skilled ballet dancers. Bruno just laughed.
It was my birthday today as well. I got two cards. This is one more than last year, so I'm obviously starting to become more popular. The last time the wife sent me one was three years ago. I suspect that the magic has gone.....
Some alert readers may remember me going on about a route along the English/Scottish Border.
Auchope Cairn Cheviot Hills
Well, as its been chucking it down in Crook yet again, and I’ve been at a bit of a loose-end, I’ve been playing with the maps and I’ve come up with a first draft – or , as it’s November – a first draught, possibly, of a route.
And this is it:
Start at The Sands Centre in Carlisle. I’d been lead to consider starting at Gretna, which may be more logical, but its easier to get to Carlisle and you don’t have to get married. Its quite a bit longer, starting at Carlisle, but the paths are better.
So – we start at Carlisle and follow the Cumbria Coastal path northwards as far as it goes, to a place called “Metal Bridge”. Lanes take us into Longtown. End of first day. Its about 23km and should be fairly easy walking. Good start, I think.
Day 2 Goes alongside the River Esk for a bit then uses quiet lanes to get into the forest and forest tracks and paths to Newcastleton aka Copsawholme, which is a much better name. 27 km. This day starts well and deteriorates a bit on the lanes and forest roads. But it gets a bit further East, which is what we want.
Near Byreness
Day 3 Takes an old drovers road to Bloodybush and, very roughly over Larriston Fell for more forest roads into Kielder. 22km
There’s a campsite and a pub at Kielder, so thats OK then. Larriston Fell could be a shock after all that easy walking – but training for more rough stuff is required. Think of this as a granny-stopper.
Day 4/5 Goes up Peel Fell, down to the Kielder Stone, and, basically, follows the border fence over Carlin Tooth to Carter Bar and a bit further till a track down to Byreness is taken. This is a long way - 33+km. Some people may consider that two days with a big pack over vicious tussocks may be the thing. There’s usually a tea van at Carter Bar. The independent hostel Forest View at Byrness will probably turn out to be an oasis in a desert of brown grass. This may save your sanity. Onwards!
Day 5/6/7 - After an initial walk back up to the border fence, follows the Pennine Way from Chew Green to Kirk Yetholm. 40+km. Probably two days. There are multiple wild camping spots, specially on the Scottish side of the border, and two garden huts, sorry, refuge huts, and B&B off route at Uswayford.
Day 6/7/8 Goes to Town Yetholm and by lanes to the River Tweed, which is the border, which is followed on footpaths and lanes to Cornhill on Tweed 27km.
Day 7/8/9 More riverside paths and lanes to Berwick on Tweed for Fish and Chips, Beer and the train home. 29km
Hows that for a walk, then? _ I think I’ll have a crack at this next year….
Stanhope Dene
Brian called to swap wellies the other day and mentioned that on his way home he was going to watch the salmon jumping at Stanhope. This gave me the idea for this little trundle.
Every year, just about now, the salmon queue up in the weir at Durham and wait for rain. When it does rain (note its been raining a fair amount just recently) – and there’s enough water in the River Wear, they make their way upstream and into the little tributaries to mate, spawn and die.
To get up the Wear, and, specially up the little tributaries, they must jump over various obstacles to meet their ultimate fate. This can be quite a sight – some of these fish are quite big.
A good place to watch this is a pool with a small waterfall on the beck in Stanhope Dene. Here is a comfy spot to sit and the fish are often no more than a couple of feet away. If you were a brown bear – you might be able to nab a few…
Salmon pool
And so, me and superdawg journeyed to Stanhope and walked up through the woods to sit and drink coffee by the pool and fall, and, straight away, it became clear from the thrashing of fins and one or two plops and leaps that the pool was chock full of salmon.
I tried my best to photograph the buggers jumping up the fall and failed every time. Then they stopped jumping, except whilst I was pouring myself another coffee – then there was mayhem till I picked the camera up and it all stopped again.
The best I could do is on the short video – at approximately 19 seconds, a fish appears in the nearest of the flows of white water, has a look and decides not to bother. You have to be quick to see it. Just after this two very large fish were seen slipping quietly downstream. I thought I heard some fishy sniggerring. I swear I heard a little squeaky voice say "That's it, I'm gonna jump!" followed by a fishy chorus of "Don't do it, Kevin". You have to be tuned in to nature, y'know, like wot I iz.
After an hour or so, I gathered up the dog, who was busy collecting stones a bit upstream, and we clambered off over the moor to the Crawleyside incline – an ex-railway line to Sunderland – and along the very pleasant Crawley Edge and down the unpleasantly named Shittlehope Burn to have a look for the cave – which we found.
The Incline
This is in a deep limestone gorge which would be fun to explore sometime. Brian would enjoy this place.
Shittlehope cave
We finished off with a little riverside ramble and back home for a coffee
8 miles and 850 feet of uphill.
This bridge has now withdrawn from the TGO Challenge (washed away)
Just got an email from Roger Smith confirming my place on the 2010 TGO Challenge. Yes, I know I already had a place as it will be my tenth, but still, eh? Nice to have confirmation.
And now – designing a route. I hardly ever have much trouble doing this – it usually takes me a couple of hours, to be honest. I can’t understand why some people agonise over it so much. The only trouble I have is that I mangle the gaelic names so much,, the vetters can’t vet for laughing/crying/fuming….
Anyway, the news is that they’re going back to the old system of start points and there’s 330 people out of 440 who have places. The rest will go on a standby list and quite a lot of these wil get a place as some of the 330 wilkl die, break their legs, get married and move to Australia, get a sinking feeling that they shouldn’t have applied…..
back to the earwig song….
Buckden and Buckden Pike
This was the second walk in the Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops project.
Birks Fell is the highest part of a long ridge that runs from Knipe Scar (thats right, worra cracking place!) near Kettlewell – to Cosh Knott , some mnhmmnnnn miles (can’t be arsed to measure it) – bit its a long ridge anyway.
Birks Fell is 2001 feet above sea level. It was ever thus, except that fairly recently, the Ordnance Survey published a map saying that the top was 609 metres. This is less than 2000 feet by..er…..a bit. And then somebody else said that the highest part of the ridge was somewhere else. A survey reinstated Birks Fell as a 2000 footer and the top of the ridge, so let there be no further dissention or even discussion about it. Its probably important.
Birks Fell Tarn
I was supposed to go up here on Sunday, but a fierce gale with lots of rain got in the way and me and superdawg turned up at the Buckden car park a bit late (11:00 am) this morning.
It appears that all of the leaves have now left their trees and it is now winter. It was quite cold (7.5 degrees according to the car thermometer – and just 3.5 degrees at the top of Kidstones Pass on the way home. And the wind-chill in the mornin g was nithering to say the least, although it calmed down a bit in the afternoon. UpperWharfedale seems to be having a rest. There’s very few people about, the pub at Hubberholme was closed, and there were only one or two cottages in Buckden with lights on in the evening.
Birks fell Summit Cairn
The walk went well enough – it was a bit windy, and there were showers, and the wind chill was perishing… but we got to the top without much in the way of excitement. The summit cairn appears to be a newish one and is in the top of what appears to be a man-made lump of the local peat. No wonder its the highest point – some bugger’s been building up the top.
We lunched. I ate willie cake (very nice) and PEK and tomato butties, Bruno dribbled a bit – and we scooted off. The walking is very easy if you stay next to the wall – its level and mainly dry – it does get very boggy in a few limited spots – but we were soon loping off over the moors and bagging the very fine top of Horsehead – fine for its view of Penyghent and Ingleborough.
Horsehead and Dog Sitting As Instructed
Soon, we dropped down to Langstrothdale, where is went a bit dark and started chucking it down.
River Wharfe Langstrothdale
We followed the Dales Way back to Hubberholme, where the pub was shut, and took the road back to Buckden.
This is a good old bash along the tops – easy walking, easy navigation, easy women.
No, not the easy women , actually.
13 miles and 1700 feet of climbing.
Camera still taking pictures….
I saw no other walkers at all today, and when I finished, mine was the only car in the car park.
If you want peace and quiet – go on a damp Monday in November.
Next walk in this series (although, not necessarily my next walk) is Buckden Pike on 8 November 2009 (my birthday!) 9:30 am Buckden Car Park start - some mild scrambling is involved...
