Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

The chance of a few fine February weekends has allowed me to continue my Pennine Way project after what has been a lengthy hiatus. The gap in my northbound progress to Hawes has been between Haworth and Gargrave and its one that’s been nagging at the back of my mind for a while now. It’s a section that may be a light workout for the legs in comparison with others but that means that you are crossing farmland. That introduces field navigation, a practice fraught with opportunities for error due to OS’ difficulty in showing the lines of footpaths to the required level of precision and accuracy on their Explorer maps. The same issue affects any attempt to exit any sort of sizable conurbation into hill country. Waymarking does helps but only if it is done properly and I have gotten the impression that it’s not one of North Yorkshire County Council’s finer points. In fact, the sight of home made signs and arrows paint and on stone walls is a little amazing when the role of such interventions is to direct you along what is a major national trail.

If I had taken heed of such amateur signposting, I would probably have avoided heading in the direction of someone’s back yard at the start of my walk south from Gargrave a few weekends ago. I was set right when I heard tapping on a window and I was suitably chastened because it was my own curiosity that led me to continue in the wrong way. Getting to Gargrave in the first place was a minor travail with the railway taking the strain for me. I had planned to allow a bit of slack by catching an earlier train from Macclesfield but it got cancelled due a staff shortage. Nevertheless, everything went as I had hoped, even if the train carrying me from Manchester to Leeds got crowded by ramblers at Dewsbury; they seemed to have headed off somewhere else because Gargrave was quiet and I starting out, which might have been just as well…

Once I had got onto the PW, it was very much a case of paying attention as I plied my way. Finding the initial sign in Gargrave itself required patience and the same quality was much required as I mad my way from field to field until reaching the canal at East Marton. After following the canal for a short while, it was back to more careful field crossing until I reached Thornton-in-Craven. I may have veered slightly off route at times but things on the navigational side were keeping up. After Thornton though, a spot of navigational bumbling struck around Brown House Farm before I got back on track again. After my thankfully unobserved fumbling, moorland began its encounter as I headed up and over Elslack Moor before more field walking until I reached Lothersdale, a pretty spot. I did have designs on continuing a bit further along the PW before returning to civilisation but navigation looked uncertain for the hour of day and I chose an alternative route that mixed footpaths and roads until I met up with a bus stop near Lumb Mill Bridge from where I took a bus to Keighley and it was all rail travel until I got home.

There was a gap between Lothersdale and Haworth to be closed and it wouldn’t have received attention on the following weekend were it not for the fact that I couldn’t muster up enough energy for a visit to Borrowdale in Cumbria on the Saturday. The fine weather was prodding my conscience so a trip to Haworth was in order for the Sunday. The journey there involved: a bus to Manchester, a train to Hebden Bridge and a bus to Haworth. From Haworth, I got to Ponden Reservoir over public footpaths and roads in just over an hour, not very fast for some but I was satisfied. The day was glorious and icy conditions remained in places where the sun couldn’t work its magic. The walking around the reservoir was easy and uneventful but an energetic climb up and over Ickornshaw was soon to great me. Steady progress saw me up onto the moor where an observant eye kept me on track. The way down to Ickornshaw can confuse because of its many twists and turns with some home made signposting in evidence; the waymarking people could do with visiting these parts. The good people of Ickornshaw have resorted to painting arrows on stone walls to keep weary walkers on track but I was to potter through to Cowling for a bus to Keighley and a railway journey back home.

The remaining piece between Ickornshaw and Lothersdale still beckons but that is another opportunity for exploring these parts rather than something maddening. The section itself is a reasonably short one so further walking can be added to see these parts from another angle. It’s good to see more possibilities…

My trip reports seem to taking longer to appear here than I might like so here’s a report of a visit that I made to Northumberland at the start of the month. The fine weather coaxed me out this past weekend too but there should be more on those activities to follow, hopefully later this week. Anyway, back to that trip up north…

February was beginning with a very promising outlook for snow and I was very tempted by the prospect. Having the whole weekend free for the first time in a while placed things into a sharper focus. However, the weather warnings that abounded might have tempered those thoughts but for a certain degree of cynicism regarding Met Office weather warnings. I shouldn’t be getting the impression that the slightest suggestion of adverse weather results in the issuing of warnings for areas with even the slightest chance of disruption but that’s what has been happening. I don’t doubt that warnings need to be issued but I’d rather it if the precision was a bit better than what seems to be the case at the moment; then you can treat them with the attention that they should command.

Once I make my mind up that I am going away, I then decide on the destination. Thoughts of snow covered slopes put the idea of heading to Fort William on the the Caledonian Sleeper into my mind. Even with my scepticism of weather warnings, thoughts of marching into the face of a blizzard didn’t appeal to me given my lack of experience of snowy conditions. So the Scottish escapade was placed on hold and I cast my eye over the weather map of the U.K. and that turned up Northumberland as an alternative. In particular, the hills near Wooler sounded an enticing proposition. True, I could have hugged the coast and avoided any difficulties but the prospect of trampling the white stuff wasn’t at all discouraging.

With the destination decided, it was then a matter of getting there. Friday night saw Macclesfield getting a dusting of snow so I crunched my way to the train station for the first departure of the day for Manchester; this was the right kind of snow: crunchy, grippy and not icy and/or slushy. A change in Piccadilly got onto the train that was to take me to York and there plenty of sightings of snowy moorland on the way to Leeds. However, there was rather too much time to enjoy what looking outside since my train got stuck behind a late local stopping service and a lady suffered a loss/theft onboard (hope everything worked out OK for her since, any delay that I suffered was a minor problem in comparison). The result was that I missed my connection in a non too snowy York and arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed an hour later than planned. There was no snow in Berwick either but I was to be satisfied that I still continued to Wooler by bus anyway: the white stuff was there for all to see on the hills, even if it had retreated from the lower ground.

I had been in Wooler once before, in September 2006, and I put my previous trip to use on arrival and avoided any dawdling before getting to the hills. The road to Wooler Common retained its dusting of snow and even was icy in places so rushing was not a good option. I didn’t and still made my way onto St. Cuthbert’s Way in good time to reach the snow after passing through some woodland. The landscape up high was well blanketed so some navigational confusion could be forgiven. However, the presence of good tracks and my having been hereabouts before served me well as I added to my experience of snowy conditions. Like my previous visit, I could only proceed so far before turning back and the turning point this time was further on than the last time. It was something of wrench to tear myself away from the quality Views west towards the Cheviot but I needed to return to civilisation.

A circular walk was in mind but my plans were changed by that late train. For a time, it looked as if my route was about to be an out and back affair until the idea of taking a diversion around by Humbleton came to mind. It was a choice that I was glad to have made as, for some reason, I started to proceed with childish abandon as my boots sank into several inches of powder dry snow. The snow had been dry and hospitable for all of my walk but this episode seems to linger in the memory. It wasn’t as if I didn’t enjoy the outing and I have thoughts of returning, always a good thing. Maybe, a walk from Wooler to Kirk Yetholm might be in order? Sounds good to me.

It’s amazing how an idea can come to be planted in your head. There was a time when I used the prospect of a dull day to keep me home from the outdoors so as get other important things done. On the other hand, that might have gone too far because I then might have become far too picky about the days on which I headed out unless my determination to get out there was strong enough. Now that I think of it, I suppose that my using the prospect of making pleasant photos as a motivation for my wanderings exacerbated the situation, as did the idea of having a photo to accompany a trip report on this blog.

So, a comment from The Solitary Walker on a previous post was a useful counterpoint to all the above and this year may be the one when I head off into the outdoors without regard for the photographic possibilities. I have decided that it isn’t going to be the end of the world if a post sees no photo brightening up its text so that gets me over one hurdle. In fact, that kind of thinking got me into the outdoors last Sunday week when the prospect of a dull day might have caused me to remain at home to do the usual chores.

Being a country lad, I have never been that bothered by imperfect conditions underfoot and, given the amount of Staffordshire mud that I encountered on my recent outing, that’s just as well; thoughts, probably inaccurate, of where they get all the clay for their pottery began to enter the mind. So long as I have dry feet and gaiters to keep the muck out of my boots, I am fine. Of course, you’d never set out to come home muddy but a misplaced foot is all that it needs sometimes. I recall going through a gate while following the Dane Valley Way in December of 2004 where a single step left me with one leg up to the shin in mud so it can easily happen. The muddiness didn’t relent after that, something that didn’t surprise me because the year in question was far from being a dry one; I reckon that a washout would have been an appropriate description.

Coming back to the trip that inspire this post, a return bus ride on the 108 to Leek was enough to set me up for six hours of quality walking all around Tittesworth Reservoir and the watershed of the River Churnet. Once I managed to find my way out of Leek and onto part of the Staffordshire Moorlands Walks network, I was off tarmac with a good track to get things started. Soggy ground was quickly encountered but not for long and my hike eventually returned my to tarmac until Meerbrook, after which I lost it again. That’s when things really got messy and the cause was the springs feeding the reservoir around which I was walking. A chat with a friendly farming type kept me away from what might have been the worst of it as I made my way towards Hen Cloud and the rest of the Roaches. In fact, I was momentarily back on tarmac again before walking up and over Hen Cloud in mild if blustery conditions. I wasn’t hoping for sunshine but that’s what greeted me at this point when the seemingly immobile cloud began to break up. It turned a walking day into one fit for photography in less than half an hour, all a very pleasing bonus. There were plenty of cars parked on the side of the road lining the Roaches but I have no idea where everyone else was since I amazingly had Hen Cloud to myself. Some retracing of steps and following another section of the Moorlands Walks took me all of the way back to Leek at the end of the satisfying and muddy day. Yes, some of that mud did come home with me but it didn’t keep me from using the bus to get back. Neither will it stop me returning…

Due to a "life event" (as Weird Darren calls them), my attention went away from this blog for a while. Nevertheless, I still got out to do some walking and, now that I’m back, I have two trips to share with you. The most recent of these was a snowy tramp in Northumberland last Saturday and the previous Sunday saw me embark on a muddy hike in Staffordshire’s moorlands. Ground and weather conditions on both walks couldn’t be more different and it only goes to show how huge a period of time that a week can be in weather terms. I’ll write them up separately with the Staffordshire ramble coming first.