Last available day for 'free' train travel in West Yorkshire before my access all areas Metrocard expires, and that deserves a big day out going from valley to valley again, even though the autumn has now descended hard and even a clear day brings with it the risks of seasonal rains and chills. The Calder - Worth trail for today had really deserved a better day than one at the end of October, but I'd been holding on to it as it felt like a good finale for the High Moors season, and it's the last route that I feel like I could attempt over the Aire - Calder watershed on these rapidly tiring legs that I am compelled to use. Seriously, work in the hospital is doing me in, and my role as Departmental Gopher for the Out-patients Office is proving more of a physical strain than I could have imagined, and I'm going to need to use the Dark Season for some major recharging and refocusing, because I doubt that I'm going to have the physical and mental stamina needed for a healthy walking season in 2014 if this attrition rate continues...
Mytholmroyd To Haworth, via Hebden Dale, High Rakes & Withins Height 12.5 miles
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| Mytholmroyd |
A late bit of route amendment has me starting out from Mytholmroyd rather than Hebden Bridge, as this extra mile would give me some paths that I wouldn't have much reason to traverse otherwise and my original route would have had rather too much road walking. So off the train at 9.15am to be greeted with some proper Calderdale weather, low cloud on the hillsides with a persistent hiss of fine rain, so much for the clear day projected, and waterproofs are donned before setting out to New Road, and over the Calder, looking busier than I've seen it on all my prior excursions, and down Burnley Road for a stretch until the turn onto Westfield Terrace takes you away from the town and over the Rochdale canal. Thence through the front yard of someones's farm conversion and onto the track that leads along the bottom edge of the woods, rising and falling and providing extremely greasy going, and also offering some views over the allotments and sewage farm, with a mist-shrouded Mytholmroyd beyond. The woodland path might be a sketchy as you could want, but at least it provides shelter, and I acknowledge the only other person out on this track is if we share walking wisdom, and then there's brief diversion onto the track up to Broad Bottom Farm, where the post van needs to be dodged and the water cascading down the culvert provides an impressive volume (as in sound, but also capacity). Through another farm's yard, and rejoin the path along the wood's edge, and the view up Calderdale gets a bit more familiar as it moves onto a terraced edge along the field boundary, and then the going gets really tough as the path enters an narrow walled stretch full of vegetation and slippery cobbles and my tired legs start to struggle, with my spirits sinking badly before finally meeting a road surface above High Burlees. More than 100m up means Hebden Bridge hides beneath the folds of the landscape, but uphill sits Old Town mill, peeking out of the mist as we hit the bridleway that leads to the footpath down to Nutclough. Another horrible wet descent to squash the walking spirits, but with the reward of sheltering trees, with carpet of beech leaves and a cascading stream in the clough itself, before ascending again to Hurst farm, and the first hour and extra mile has proven far more challenging than I needed, and as I descend to meet Keighley Road, above Hebden Bridge, my brain and body are already in conflict and are ready to consider bailing, less than 2 miles into the day.
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| Gibson Mill |
Fortitude wins out when presented with a level surface, and I head on prepared for at least a few more miles as I set off along the edge of Midgeholes Road, admittedly not the safest road walk in the world, offering no footpath and plenty of short views for avoiding traffic, but it feels good to not be choosing every step as I plough on, beneath the cover of trees and listening to Hebden Water charging at the valley floor. Pick out high points above the valley as I go, finally seeing some sunshine breaking through on the distant moorland and feeling the rain finally easing off, and I'm surprised that this road, which really endures only for access to Hardcastle Crags, has had so much industrial and residential use along its length. A mile or more of safe road walking drops me at the Hebden Dale - Crimsworth Dean junction, were all paths in these parts seem to cross, and after early elevenses, it's onward along the tracks into the Hardcastle Crags estate, and I thought it might be pretty devoid owing to the horrible weather, but the paths are encouragingly busy with folks taking their outdoors-hardened kids out for a Half Term exercise. Follow the main access track rather than taking any of the nature trails, and I keep on at a decent pace, knowing that this woodland walk is a lot longer then you would think, and I pass numerous parties of enthusiastic parents, kids and ambling oldsters. No stopping at Gibson Mill for a brew or a tour of the craft fair, and do wonder about how some mills seemed to end up in the remotest and difficult to access corners of this county, guessing that proximity to a power source must have trumped other considerations back in the day, and onwards I go, along the steeper and much less used track to the upper half of the estate. For an estate with Crags in its title, there are disappointingly few vistas of rocks in the area, and the largest one you do see is really a big mossy lump, buried in bracken and not looking at all interesting, and on I go to the top of the track as the tree cover gradually thins out and emerge at the 270m contour having done a very slow ascent of 120m through the estate. Follow the high road as the fringes of Wadsworth & Shackleton Moors offer themselves to the oncoming walker and a look across Hebden Dale shows up some darkly forbidding moorlands around Heptonstall Moor, somewhere that tracks haven't lead to, but it's another new wrinkle to add to the landscape at this late juncture, and another place to look to explore next year.
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| Walshaw Dean reservoirs |
Walshaw Farm marks the start of the moorland walk, and having reached this point, my will has hardened and I'm ready to complete the day as planned, starting out over the 290m contour for the 70m rise to the moorland edge, following the permissive path along the farm tracks as gloom and sharp winds bring on the accompaniment to the dark soils and moorland grass. Still, it's nice to see Stoodley Pike reappear in the distance behind you, to give you some scope as to where you are, and at 360m the signs welcome you to Walshaw & Lancashire Moors, again, though OL21 claims different names. There's a well cut track rising steadily over the High Rakes promontory, so there's no real need to clutch hold of my map as the wind blows across me from the west, as I ascend, a trio of walkers are met coming the other way, rather underdressed for this weather, and I start to get views to the familiar edges of the moors along the northern side of Calderdale, along with the Calder - Colne moors when I look south. The moor itself is pretty featureless, aside from the shooting hides built into the turf, and the distant turbines on Ovenden moor provides the only distinguishing feature to the north east, but the path crests over 420m and the views to the west open up, with the Gorple reservoirs and Widdop reservoir appearing tucked away in their respective valleys, and the Lad Law -Boulsworth Hill upland rises to the north-west. Withins Height, looking much the same sort of moorland as High Rakes, stands to the north, but the cleft of Black Clough prevents straightforward progress toward it, and the path snakes downhill for 90m towards the Walshaw Dean Reservoirs, the Upper one appearing first and the the Middle one emerges rapidly. The path passes more shooting hides and a moorland hut, clearly associated to the hunting lodge sat by the Middle reservoir's dam, and that looks like a most appealing place to have party in the wilds of the South Pennines. The path divides and I take the muddier northern fork to descend all the way to the run-off channel mid-way along the edge of Walshaw Dean Middle, and wonder how I've come from such a height without getting sight of the Lower reservoir. As the valley provides some shelter from the wind, it's a good spot to break for lunch, and to meet the Pennine Way, again, and I'll sit in the lea of a wall to ponder the idea that if this area were to ever gain Nation Park status, I would move that it be named 'The Reservoir District'.
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| Top Withins |
After lunch, the day takes its decisive turn, for the better, as the clouds start to break up and autumnal sunshine arrives in quantity, turning the dull yellow grass to a golden meadow, and it aids me in fortitude as I hit the Pennine Way north on a 120m ascent up to Withins Heights, largely on flagstones over some darkly unappealing earth, which make you wonder about those original path-plotters again. It's a long, steady climb, watching the hills to the south re-emerge and finally getting visual confirmation that Walshaw Dean does have three reservoirs in it, before the path levels off and cyclists are met riding across the moorland top and the path hangs between long grass to the west and heather to the east. For a while the moor offers that rarest of experiences, a broadly flat plateau, at over 450m, offering level views on either side of you and no real indication of where you came up from or where your descent is going, a moment of moorland solitude and remoteness that make you glad you are not walking in dense mist, though the path ensures you won't get lost. It doesn't last long as the path crests and the Worth Valley emerges ahead of you and Calderdale vanishes, and a familiar bunch of wrinkles reappear in a different order, and as the decent ambles into the upper reaches of South Dean clough, the next target point is seen, namely the ruined farmstead of Top Withins, sitting above 420m and historically associated with 'Wuthering Heights'. It certainly does have a Romantic aspect and an excellent view, but it's doubtful that it was ever much more than a seasonal moorland shelter at this altitude, and has no features in common with the locations in
Emily Brontë's novel, and it has been aggressively restored to make it quite the most prosaic of ruins when viewed up close. Still, it's a feature that draws people to these hill, it feels crowded with about a dozen visitors as I pass by, and can't imagine what it might be like in peak season, maybe its popularity explains why there are signposts with East Asian character on them around these parts. So the moorland descent starts, setting off on a frequently slippery path down past the other pair of Withins farmsteads, ruined to the point of barely traceable, before arriving on a much more level path, which is wet in wholly different ways, that offers views down to Ponden Reservoir and the actual Worth Valley, and over to the Keighley - Oakworth moor, and looking back to the west has me wanting to trace the paths out towards Cowling and Trawden in a future season.
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| Lower Laithe Reservoir |
Upper Heights farm, and its campsiteat the 350m contour, marks the return to enclosed land, despite all the broken walls around Withins, and follow the farm track on the high ridge between the branches of the Worth, to the north attempting to pick out the route previously walked up towards Oldfield (much more obscure than you'd think) and to the south pondering a path over Haworth Moor or Penistone Hill, once the Pennine Way has been left behind. As the appeal is always for new experiences, I set course for Lower Laithe Reservoir, nestling in the valley below, even though there isn't a footpath down to its shore, and instead head down the tarmacked surface of Back Lane as low afternoon sunshine and dark clouds come over to provide a mix of autumnal shadings, to make you wonder if the day is going to end well or poorly. The lane leads down to Stanbury, a small village that has as many barns as houses on its Main Street, all in that distinctive Airedale style of thin, flat stones and looking like it is still gripped by the first half of the 20th century. Of course it's positively cosmopolitan compared to some of the hamlets around these parts, boasting a bus terminus and two pubs, The Friendly and the Wuthering Heights (which just cries out to be known as The Hostile) and that makes it another country retreat to appeal to me. The road leads straight on to the finish line, but my trail needs to fit with the theme of reservoir walking, and so I strike down Moor Side Lane to cross over the embankment dam of Lower Laithe reservoir, and wonder if Brontë associations put paid to the plan for an Upper Laithe further up South Dean. The size of the structure comes home to you when you find that it takes five minutes to cross the dam, and you also appreciate some of the artistry of the dam-builders after seeing so much of their work up close over the last few weeks, and makes me keen for further explorations of our water supplies from the Washburn valley and Nidderdale in the next season. Rise out of South Dean, and away from the strong wing blowing across the silvery water surface by taking the permissive bridleway above the waterworks as it seems to be the only track that doesn't feature a really harsh gradient, and that deposits me on the edge of Penistone Hill, by Haworth cemetery, hidden out on the common land because the churchyard ran out of space in the 1840's.
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| Haworth railway station |
No more moorland interaction for today, instead following Cemetery Lane down to meet West Lane on the edge of Haworth, and I'm not going to be heading into the throng down to the footpath to the Parsonage, instead sticking to the road past the cricket ground and Baptist church, to find that even a relatively anonymous road like this feature on Haworth's heritage trails. Carry on to North Street, where fun can be had in spotting the very old buildings, before picking out a route that avoids the tourist centre on the hill top, and that makes it the third different route traced through this town, heading to Mytholmes Lane and South View to meet the footpath downhill. It's a bit sketchy for a surfaced path, following a pasture with cattle roaming on it, oddly for a field with habitation all around it, and the path leadin off it at the bottom is damp and broken, just so the day can be ended with dirty boots, and all that remains of the day's trail is wander through a yard and down a secluded alleyway to meet the footbridge down over the throat of Haworth railway station. That's the end of the walking day, just before 3pm and I'd never have had thought I'd finish that early after the effort required for the first two hours, and I'll not be riding the bus home today, instead pushing the boat out for a rover ticket on the K&WVR, for some steam train riding before the day runs out of daylight. I'd hoped that I might be able to wrangle some company out as it's beer festival weekend on the line, but immediate friends are unavailable and the few Facebook friends I know are out are sadly untraceable in the crowds ( and me still not having replaced my mobile means I'm flying blind). So, no beer for me in the exhibition hall at Oxenhope, or on the train for that matter, I'll just settle to ride the line for its length three and a half times with an ever changing company of drinkers and enthusiasts, feeling tired but happy that the festival is proving to be a money spinner for the railway. Also happy to see that 43924 is proving to be the line's true workhorse, as it's been in steam on every occasion I have passed the line this year, and that 45305 is running the other train, as that is a locomotive which has had a long history with me over the years, definitely a good time for the late afternoon of good walking day.
Next on the Slate: Do I have one more day in my legs?
1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 913.2 miles (2013 total: 451.9 miles)
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