Rumination: The Conclusions of 2012

Not getting up on a Saturday morning is an odd feeling after all those weekends of walking, but on the morning of 17th November I stayed in bed and was not roused from my slumber until 10.30am. Not walking turned out to be enormously relaxing, but even when the reality of walking was put away, I still had a pile of blogging to be done and only once that had been put to bed could I really consider the 2012 season to be done, and so 47 walks and 55 write-ups later, we are finished. So 2012 draws to a close and what have we learned?

Stoodley Pike 10/11/12

When I did my first walk back in March, I talked with some members of the FOSCL group about my reservations about the idea of walking through the months of Winter and was told in return that 'walking season never ends'. As Autumn lowers the temperature and shortens the days of 2012, I'm not so sure that statement is true as the available windows for excursions reduce and I have additional pressures on my time, mostly a couple of imminent birthdays and the on-rushing festive season, and I need a rest. The short days and lack of sunlight wreak havoc on me during the dark quarter of the year and I feel work pressures aren't going to lighten any time soon, so I need to draw a line under 2012's season and get some proper rest. Let us have one last wander then, to the place I'd observed so many times on my wanders through Calderdale but had never actually visited, and a small celebration to wrap up a successful season.

Mytholmroyd to Hebden Bridge, via Stoodley Pike.  6.4 miles

Skipton & Flasby Fell Circular 03/11/12

As my last 10 walks from home have all been somewhere in the vicinity of the River Calder, I think it's time to find some other part of Yorkshire to explore before the season comes to an end, so it's to upper Airedale we head for a complete change of scenery. I'd fancied a shot at the FOSCL walk from Dent to Ribblehead today, but the changeable weather put me off that, and its wouldn't have linked up my walks in the Dales as the section from Garsdale to Dent would have been missing and I'm not going to venture solo into the Dales at this time of year. So instead, let's at least stitch together my canal walks in West Yorkshire to my ambles in the lower Dales and also return to part of the scene of my very first walk of 2012's season, and to get in one of the hills that I have observed many times. After all there are not that many opportunities for a canal walk and a summit on the same day!

Skipton & Flasby Fell Circular, by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal path to Gargrave,
              and return via Skipton Woods and the Springs Branch.  13.1 miles.

Calderdale Way #5: Illingworth to Brighouse 27/10/12

Self near Illingworth

Back to the North Country, and having missed out on extra walking opportunities in the Peak District, I can still set out on my last weekend of the holiday to get down the last stage of the Calderdale Way, and the odyssey back up to Illingworth commences on that sort of clear and crisp day that you hope for in Autumn. Along the way, I draw the conclusion that Halifax is one of those towns which looks good when it has its face on and arrival high above the town reveal that the icy blast of Autumn has arrived in force. The cold wind tears down off Ovenden Moor and the temperature has dropped by about 6 degrees from a couple of days ago, and the wind chill would have it feeling like below freezing point. There's little shelter to be had so one can hide to put on an extra upper layer, and I'm glad I chose to wear my thermals, and so priority for the morning is to get a move on and off the high lands...

The Calderdale Way #5: Illingworth to Brighouse.  10.7 miles

The Manifold Trail 24/10/12

The Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway was a White Elephant by any interpretation of the phrase, opened as a narrow gauge line in 1904 to link the dairies of the Manifold Valley to the rails of the North Staffordshire Railway, it was never going to succeed as a passenger line as the valley it served had no significant habitation and tourist traffic would always be limited because, as one wag put it, 'the line starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the same place.'. For thirty years its two locomotive transported milk to the wider world before the depression of the 1930s closed the dairies and put an end to the line in 1934, and Staffordshire County Council inherited the line, opening it as a bridleway in 1937, showing that practical thinking towards transport is not a modern phenomenon. 

The Manifold Trail: Waterhouses to Hulme End  8.4 miles

The Monsal Trail 23/10/12

Whilst the Manchester, Buxton, Matlock and Midland Junction Railway was built as a joint venture with the L&NWR, completed in 1863, it was always the baby of the Midland Railway, forming their mainline to Manchester. If the line had remained open, carved through Wye Dale and the Derwent valley, it could have been a scenic line to rival the Settle & Carlisle (also a baby of the Midland Railway), but it met it's end in 1968 after the Labour government gave up on it, proving that idiotic decisions were still being made in the post-Beeching years. The Monsal trail, occupying stretches of the line was opened as a multi-use path by the Peak District National Park Authority in 1981, with Derbyshire County Council protecting the line from encroaching development, but the original trail took detours around four tunnels which were only reopened to use in 2011, thanks in part to Julia Bradbury walking them for her TV programme, and making the new alignment possibly the best railway walk in the whole country.

The Monsal Trail: Wyedale Head to Bakewell.  10.6 miles

The Tissington Trail 22/10/12

The London & North Western Railway were late arrivals to the Peak District, a region dominated by the Midland Railway (of whom more later), and their line from Uttoxeter to Buxton (via the lines of the North Staffordshire and the Cromford & High Peak railway) was opened in 1899 in an attempt to generate revenue in the area and to milk some of that sweet tourist money. It was a line that was popular with ramblers for easily accessing Dovedale and brought visitors to the Tissington Well-Dressing Festival (when people used to travel for such things), but the line was never profitable and only the lower section below Ashbourne was any use for local traffic and it lost passenger services in 1954 and closed entirely in 1967. The track bed north of Ashbourne was acquired by Derbyshire County Council and in 1971 was opened as a dedicated cyclepath, one of the first in the whole country, and as it's the longest of my planned walks for this holiday, it's a good idea to get it off the slate nice and early.

The Tissington Trail: Ashbourne to Parsley Hay.  13.5 miles

Carsington Water 21/10/12

Away from Calderdale for a while and head down country for a family get-together for celebration of my Mum's 70th birthday, on the nearest available week, and as it lands in Autumn Half Term week, this makes it possibly the most pre-planned holiday since our trip to Oberammergau in 1990. Amusingly, planning was done without an obvious destination in mind, but when notes were compared it turned out that My Sis and I had managed to pick out holiday houses within 3 miles of each other, I'd picked the nicer house but she picked a site with a pool so her girls might be more easily entertained, and her choice won out. So on the Saturday we all converge on South Derbyshire, to Knockerdown Farm, just outside the Peak District, and I travel with a pile of copies of OL24 and walking destinations for the first four days, hopeful that Autumn Jollies will deliver good weather.

Carsington Water.  9.6 miles

Calderdale Way #4: Heptonstall to Illingworth 13/10/12

Self in Heptonstall

The morning looks like the Autumn might be coming on hard, suggestions of fog up on the hillsides as I ride out into Calderdale, and I wonder if this might be the day when the local weather catches up with me, or maybe the first occasion of getting lost on a misty moor side. Anyway, arrive via the train in Hebden Bridge and there's no way on Earth that I'll be walking up to Heptonstall, as that is one unnecessary ascent too many, and I love the fact that the bus service E, my chariot to the hills, waits at the railway station to check that any passengers wanting the service will have time to catch it. I'm one of two patrons for it, and it's a slow grind up the hill, but still entirely preferable to hoofing it, I do seriously wonder about the walkers that we pass on the way up...

Calderdale Way #4: Heptonstall to Illingworth.  9.6 miles

Calderdale Way #3: Todmorden to Heptonstall 06/10/12

Self in Todmorden

Having mostly shaken off my bout of what I think must have been Fresher's Flu, I return to the trail, assuming that a walk of just over 9 miles shouldn't be all that strenuous. I ought to know better of course, as the rote guide warns of this being the hardest section of the walk and I know that one of the paths I'll be ascending is one of the most brutal gradients I've ever attempted and that there really are no easy paths in Calderdale. So out comes my new stick, to aid me on the ascents and descents, and feeling hopeful for another good day on the trail as the morning sunshine blazes through and the sting of a cool Autumn morning greets me as I arrive in Todmorden, ready to hit the apex of the Calderdale Way, and to start on the eastward stretch.

Calderdale Way #3: Todmorden to Heptonstall.  9.3 miles


Rumination: Disappointments

All my plans for walking through summer and winter had been mutable and subject to change, depending on weather and mood, but one was going to happen no matter what, and that was hitting Wild Boar Fell on 29th September. On my first trip up to Carlisle in February 2011, I saw this huge mountain that I'd never previously accounted for, and then read about it on my reading about the Eden Valley for the summer holiday, and it seemed such a tempting and under-visited walking target. However its size and lack of tracks meant it wasn't one I felt I could do without guidance, so it fell into 2012's walk schedule and I looked forward to it after seeing it snow covered in February and falling in love with Mallerstang in March, and I waited on the FOSCL group attempting it again. It came up on 7th July, but I didn't fancy it in early summer, and then the next walk was mid-week, so last time in the year was September 29th, and it was going to be a triumphant conclusion to my Dales trips and nothing was going to prevent me going...

Calderdale Way #2: Ripponden to Todmorden 22/09/12

Self in Ripponden

After all that talk of the End of Summer over the last few weeks, the Summer has now passed and we can move into Autumn. I know that the year always seems to descend quickly but the chill in the morning air is palpable and there's mist hanging over the Calder as I ride out through Mirfield, so now Autumn is here and I hope it remains as walkable as the last few weeks have been. I need to bus out to Ripponden from Sowerby Bridge, and I catch the 531, the minibus that bounces along the back roads as it's the first one to show up and it's always a good idea to make the local buses feel needed, so I can an early look at the field I'll be walking as we bounce through Mill Bank and Soyland, and the day looks as clear and bright as you could want, and the paths look inviting too. So off the bus and I'm ready to walk.

Calderdale Way #2: Ripponden to Todmorden.  10.5 miles

Calderdale Way #1: Brighouse to Ripponden 15/09/12

Self in Brighouse

The end of Summer is upon us and despite it being 'the wettest ever', for me it has been just fine, all those weekends of walking and only took two brief dousings, with only one weekend being ruined by the weather. The coming Autumn is an unknown of course, and projections of 'indian summer' and 'constant rain' are heard, and I'm going to go with my instinct that it will be nice enough to complete my Autumn plan of taking on my second long circular walk, namely the Calderdale Way. I may joke that the weather is always grim in Calderdale, based on past experience, but it has been good to me this year, and I'm going to thumb my nose to the fates of weather and hope for five more good days to get down the 50 miles of this trail, so let's head out to join this trail at the closest point to home.

Calderdale Way #1: Brighouse to Ripponden.  10.4 miles


Egerton to Rivington Park 08/09/12

Over to Bolton again for the end of my late summer break, mostly to get together with the family to celebrate my parents' 45th wedding anniversary, and with dinner out on the slate for Sunday, I've still got a Saturday to use to my own ends. Fortunately, with my Mum being away on other business for the day, and Dr G's 7-seater car being in the garage with all manner of mechanical difficulties, we only have My Sister's 4 seat road-bug as available transport, so if a trip to Witton Park is due for my nieces, at least two of us are left to our own devices by default. So that's as good a reason as any for My Sis to come walking with me for the afternoon, and having viewed a most uninviting morning, the day turns to a blazing hot afternoon, so this must be time for an assault on Winter Hill.

Egerton to Rivington Park, via Winter Hill.  7.9 miles

Cooper Bridge to Standedge 05/09/12

Catching the 220 bus from Morley to Cooper Bridge seems a much more sensible trip than riding the train to Mirfield and having a couple of miles of extra walking, even though the bus is something of a dawdlebug and wanders all over the Spen Valley en route to Huddersfield. What I hadn't realised is that September coming on means that the school term has started up again, and the service is crawling with children. Kids everywhere, and it's just as horrifying as it was when I was a youngster, and just to add to the ridiculousness, many are travelling from Queen Street to Bruntcliffe college, less than half a mile! Madness, all of it madness, and getting some downtime on the ride into darkest Kirklees is necessary to let the PTS of school memories pass away.

Cooper Bridge to Standedge, via the Huddersfield Broad & Narrow Canal paths. 12.4 miles

Mytholmroyd to Summit 01/09/12

The relief that comes with a week of being NIW is huge, especially when you have been able to relax some and refocus your interest in walking for the remainder of the year, plans are set out and targets are chosen and my head is back into the place that wants to walk. Still, I almost didn't get out as I'd got Lorna-ed the previous evening: getting hauled out for post work drinks against my better judgement. I know I mostly avoid using names here but some social interactions do need to be named after their progenitors, like getting Banner-ed: persuaded to stay out for more drinks when you really should be going home. Not really anything to do with walking, but a small insight into my world, and the reason that I got out an hour later than I had planned to.

Mytholmroyd to Summit, via the Rochdale Canal path.  10.7 miles

Rumination: Aches and Pains

I keep this blog for tales of walking, it does not exist for any other purpose. The days of everyone thinking that a blog should cover every single fragment of detail from people's everyday lives has thankfully passed, and I will endeavour to keep away from adding details from the rest of my life here (that was for my Livejournal account, and I haven't logged into that for years!) However, sometimes the rest of my life interferes with my walking, and causes disruptions to my plans and that is what I'll be talking about today, so I apologise in advance for griping about my work and the physical toll it took on me over the summer. For a brief hiatus, I will talk about something other than walking, and if you are not interested, there are plenty more walks to come before the end of my first walking season!

Mirfield to Sowerby Bridge 18/08/12

An important thing to do when walking is to trust your map and to hold the idea that what the page states is where you should be going. The map is your friend and your helpful guide and you must believe in it and what it tells you, but sometimes it is wrong and will lead you astray, lead you into potentially dangerous places and you will wonder why the map misled you. Then you will realise that the map has one major limitation, it is only as good as the person reading it and the flaw is not with the map, it is with the interpretation of it, and you led yourself into peril and can be the only one to blame for your actions. If you are wondering how this relates to river and canal walking, read on...

Mirfield to Sowerby Bridge, via the Calder & Hebble Navigation path. 12.9 miles.

Wakefield to Mirfield 11/08/12

I've been resident in West Yorkshire for nearly 19 years now, and I'm amazed that I can still find areas near to Leeds that are still completely terra incognita to me, and that is the case today. Despite having taken all sorts of routes across the county over the years, my only interaction with the lands between Wakefield and Dewsbury has been tearing up and down the M1. I would have ridden that way taking the train from Morley to Wakefield via Mirfield but failure of the trains to run to time means that I have to go the long way round, via Leeds, before I can venture into the unknown.

Wakefield to Mirfield, via the Calder & Hebble Navigation path.  11.6 miles

Castleford to Wakefield 04/08/12

New Shoes: Does anyone else do the skit of discovering that somebody has new footwear and going 'Noo Shoos! Noo Shoos!' repeatedly? I do, and have no idea why! But it's new boots day for me, and having made no attempt of any kind to break them in, let's hope they're not going to rub me up, I'd worried that they might pinch a bit when I bought them, but today they felt a bit on the roomy side, so I hope my feet don't slide all around inside them. They're as comfy as you could want though, and it's going to be nice to be able to wade through puddles and not worry about leakage, and maybe I should take good care of them too, like scrubbing them occasionally and not letting them get them all scuffed up, I might finally look like a proper walker! So, let's hit the trail and get these new All-Leather babies dirty!

Castleford to Wakefield, via the Aire & Calder Navigation path. 9.8 miles

Settle to Ribblehead 28/07/12

This day's walk came about as I had a rejiggering of my walk schedule, as I had intended to join the FOSCL group for a walk from Dent to Ribblehead in August but changed my plan to attending this one as I figured that it would get in more useful territory for future reference, and would also start to stitch together my Dales walks with my other wanderings closer to home. It was first competitive day of the London Olympics too, and I had no real desire to veg away in front of the TV with that. Not that I'm one of those natural complainers who were all 'Boo! Waste of Taxpayer's Money!' before the thing had even gotten started, I'd consider myself more 'sporting disengaged' and had no desire to get suckered in like I did with the Beijing Olympics when I had a lot of time to fill between episodes of painting during 2008's flat redecorating.

Settle to Ribblehead. 14.7 miles

Egerton to Ramsbottom (almost) 21/07/12

Instead of additional walking on the 19th, I had my parents visit and took a nostalgic trip on the Scarborough Spa Express, getting in a repeat steam-hauled trip on the oft-travelled rails of 30 years ago. Only a three hour turnaround at the coast didn't allow much time for a wander into the unknown, but it did give me time for shopping, and Mountain Warehouse offered me up a pair of new walking boots to replace my leaky pair. So a successful (and expensive!) trip there, then, and as I've got my parents up country, that's a fine excuse to head over to Bolton for a family gathering and for me to get in a walk around the periphery of the West Pennine Moors.

Egerton to Ramsbottom (almost).  8.9 miles

Leeds to Castleford 17/07/12

Having done the walk along the Aire valley upstream from Leeds it seem only natural to do the path downstream as my next stretch of canal walking, and having chosen to start from Victoria Bridge to go south-east, a look at the Leeds waterfront guide has me realising that I have mad virtually no interaction with that area in all the time I've lived and worked in Leeds. I visited the Royal Armouries in 1997, and have had regular sessions in the Adelphi on Hunslet Road, but other than the regular bus rides over Leeds Bridge and an almost pathological obsession with the level of the Aire, I have no knowledge of the area. That needs to be rectified, and I reflect that my colleague who told me to walk the streets of Leeds might have been on to something after all.

Leeds to Castleford, via the Aire & Calder Navigation path.  13.2 miles

Long Preston to Malham via Gordale Scar 14/07/12

My first week of Summer hols comes around much more quickly than I had anticipated, and I don't have any expensive trips away planned, just good old-fashioned walking and getting back out to the Dales again so I can put the horrible experience of a month ago behind us. Also I can continue my attempts to walk from, or to, every station on the railway line between Skipton and Kirkby Stephen, starting at the easily forgotten station of Long Preston, and to renew some acquaintances with the FOSCL group under altogether more favourable circumstances.

Long Preston to Malham, via Gordale Scar.  13.3 miles

Saltaire to Skipton 07/07/12

The first week of July seemed to feature almost constant rain, with it landing especially hard at the end of the week, but the weather projection for the Saturday remained as sunny throughout, so despite declaring walking to be an almost certain impossibility on the Friday, I set out on the following morning knowing that Airedale has at least 7 hours of sunshine forecast for it. The crazy summer weather is looking like it will be keeping me alert and on my toes, but I'm gonna enjoy the season regardless of what the weather does!

Saltaire to Skipton, via the Leeds & Liverpool Canal path.  15.9 miles

Leeds to Saltaire 30/06/12

Nearly four months into my odyssey of walking and it's odd that I haven't managed to walk out of or into Leeds yet. It is the city in which I currently work, and lived from 1993 to 2007, but it has somehow not gotten onto my walking schemes. One of my colleagues recently wondered why I walk to all sorts of remote places but don't pound the pavements of Leodis, and my response was that while the city did have plenty worth seeing, the streets in between aren't really somewhere that I want to walk. There are only really three green corridors out of Leeds, and two of them follow the Aire and the paths on Leeds' canals, and canal paths look ideal for summer walking, nicely level without too much remoteness and presenting an opportunity to get plenty of miles onto my 1,000 target without too much strenuous activity in a summer that doesn't seem to know if it's going to be hot or wet. So, for the first time since my nocturnal ramble of August 2011, Let us walk out of the City of Leeds...

Leeds to Saltaire, via the Leeds & Liverpool Canal path.  13.7 miles

Rumination: 1,000 Miles

The evening of 22nd June saw one of the most singularly extraordinary rainstorms I have seen since December of 1996 (when it rained solidly for a week, and the roof of my house leaked) the sheer volume or water that came down finished off just about any interest I might have had in walking the following day. It was also prudent to stay in that weekend as I might have been needed for emergency flood relief as my friends in Mytholmroyd had been updating Facebook with anxious reports of the river rising and then having a flood in their kitchen. It turns out that it was nowhere near as bad as it sounded, but 'kitchen under water' sounded immediately alarming to me, at least. So another weekend didn't get walked, and I felt pretty miserable for it, especially as the day turn out to be pretty nice after the deluge of the previous night.

Three Dales: Horton-in-Ribblesdale to Kettlewell 16/06/12

Dropped a Saturday on the 9th June, not least because I was bloody well knackered after doing more than 50 miles over my long week off and then returning to work, so when the next weekend wheels around, I wasn't going to miss out, I was walking no matter what, and anyways it was the last weekend of spring and that would surely mean a good long day for walking. Three Yorkshire Dales in one day, seemed such an inviting prospect too, until my weather eye watched the BBC weather site giving progressively worse predictions for the coming weekend. Well, thinks I, I've not had a day of walking in foul weather, how bad can it be? Let's just say, writing this might well induce post-traumatic stress...

Active June: Day Two

Three Dales: Horton in Ribblesdale to Kettlewell.  13.2 miles

Shipley to Ilkley via Rombalds Moor 04/06/12

Ever since hatching the idea of 'walking as pastime', there has been one walk that I have always had on the slate and never gotten done, and since 2007, I haven't had the excuse of transport costs to dissuade me from doing it. That walk is the trip from Shipley to Ilkley across Rombalds Moor as it's a journey into spectacular bleakness that isn't a day's excursion away and it's a relatively modest distance on a well-defined path too. Probably cowardice on my part for leaving it aside for so long, but how it got missed off my to do list for the first three active months is something of a mystery. So let's go out for Jubilee Bank Holiday Monday, and do my bit for Britain by patriotically engaging with the countryside. Active June? Yeah, why not?

Active June: Day One

Shipley to Ilkley via Rombalds Moor.  9.2 miles

Garsdale to Sedbergh 02/06/12

So our break away comes to an end, and that's a shame for the obvious reasons, and for the fact that Kirkby Stephen has a mini walking festival coming up for the Jubilee Bank Holiday. We're not paying for any more days away though, and we pack up and express our gratitude to the owners of Manor Lodge before we head away. Just to make the end of the holiday that bit more depressing, the weather has taken a turn for the cold and foggy as we drive off down Mallerstang to the start point of my last walk of the week away, to Garsdale station where my parents can drop me off and I can assure them that they should have no trouble at all with filling 5 and a half hours with a ride out to Windermere so Mum can can get her obligatory visit to the Lakeland store.

Spring Jollies: Day Seven

Garsdale to Sedbergh.  10.3 miles

Lammerside Castle & Wharton Hall, plus Great Asby Scar 01/06/12

Day Five of my jollies didn't feature any walking as the spring rain pounded down and my four mile round trip from Tebay to Blease Fell, on the edge of the Howgills and above the Lune Gorge, was substituted with taking in the scenic parts of the M6 and A6, culture at The Museum of Lakeland Life, the Abbot Hall Art Gallery and the Parish Church in Kendal, and shopping at K Village and Tebay Services. So Friday is upon us and it feels like we're running out of holiday, and having absorbed most of the guides to short walks in the vicinity, I had better pick a route and get my boots primed for another early start...

Spring Jollies: Day Six

Lammerside Castle & Wharton Hall.  6.6 miles
  plus Great Asby Scar. 3.6 miles

Smardale Gill 30/05/12

The last week of May had been my planned holiday week since taking the same week last year, so the appearance of two Friends of the Settle & Carlisle Line walks in the immediate area during my week away was a very neat bit of happenstance, the sort of coincidence you often wish for and never get. Especially useful is the fact that the first of them goes to somewhere that I had been planning to walk ever since I chose Kirkby Stephen as my holiday destination, as Smardale Gill has landscape and industrial heritage and the walk promised us a bit of nature too, "For the Botanists" the FOSCL leaflet claims. "Sold!" is my immediate thought to that premise.

Spring Jollies: Day Four

Smardale Gill circular. 11.7 miles

High Force to Low Force 29/05/12

One of our pipe dream walks from long ago, courtesy of IH, was to take a bunch of us in two cars up to Cow Green reservoir and walk the Pennine Way path down Teesdale to Middleton-in-Teesdale. It never came to pass of course because the distance seemed like a long way, and the fact that the drive from Leeds would be way too far to do in a day. However, sights along the way of that walk appeal to my parents so for day three of my jollies, so we take the scenic route over the B6276 from Eden to Tees, for a day in the wilds of Teesdale.

Spring Jollies: Day Three

High Force to Low Force.  2 miles

Great Shunner Fell 28/05/12

Picking a summit to walk solo is an interesting business, you want one with a decently marked path, you don't want any walk that is too long, challenging or remote and you want somewhere that feels worthy of the trip, and has a view. That knocks the likes of Wild Boar Fell, Mallerstang Edge and Cross Fell from the list of choices and puts Great Shunner Fell right to the top; it has the Pennine Way over it, the whole stretch is 8 miles, with 350 metres of ascent, and ends at a pub. It's also 12 miles from Kirkby Stephen and would be a challenge to do walking from the Settle & Carlisle line, and it has a view. So get an early start so my parents can drive me to the start point near Thwaite, bouncing up Birkdale and down to the head of Swaledale, and the hot weather continues so the pace does not need to be too quick, I'd measured the walk at 11 miles and guess 5 hours to the other side.

Spring Jollies: Day Two

Great Shunner Fell: Thwaite to Hardraw.  8.5 miles

The Kirkby Stephen Viaduct Trail & Croglam Castle 27/05/12

A mini heatwave descended for the end of May, to neatly coincide with me taking my spring holiday in Kirkby Stephen with my parents. I chose Kirkby Stephen as it's a useful gateway to the north-western corner of the Yorkshire Dales and would be straight-forwardly accessible if I'd been forced to travel alone, and the week of choice neatly coincided with two FOSCL walks in the immediate area. So we travelled up on Saturday, the 26th, directing my parents over the A66 and the splendid bleakness of Stainmore, to take up our week's residence at Manor Lodge, which was all you could want for in a holiday home (apart from a lack of wi-fi), and to take stock of the town. To me it feels like a town lacking a constituency, in that other towns around the Dales, like Settle, Ilkley, Richmond and Leyburn attract tourists from the major conurbations nearby, but Kirkby Stephen has no major populations to draw from, and Cumbrians are more likely to hit The Lakes than the Dales or the Eden Valley. I characterise the town as 'hanging in there' because it feels like its peak has passed but still seems to have life left in it, and has plenty going for it if you are willing to invest time in the area. I should become an advocate for the upper Eden Valley, because it really is quite wonderful, and this town has its best face on in this week, dolled up for the Jubilee and basking in spring sunshine.

Enough chatter though, on to Sunday, and Walking!

Spring Jollies: Day One

The Kirkby Stephen Viaduct Trail & Croglam Castle.  4.6 miles.

Menston to Harewood via Otley Chevin 19/05/12

Leeds does not want for urban parks, but it does lack a good country park. I've already said that Golden Acre is under-sized and lacks wildness, and the likes of Temple Newsam and Roundhay have scale but seem too well tamed. My hometown, Leicester, has Bradgate Park, a former country estate in the heart of Charnwood Forest's Granite Country, that has hills and rocks and miles of trails amongst the bracken, and is also one of the most popular free outdoor attractions in the whole country, and yet Leeds, a city of many hills, really wants for something similar. So for today, we'll be heading for probably the wildest place in the entirety of Leeds District, Otley Chevin and its Forest Park, as it's a place that can't really be ignored in this young walking career.

Active May: Day Four

Menston to Harewood via Otley Chevin  11.7 miles

Tailbridge Hill & Nine Standards Rigg 12/05/12

You may have noticed a distinct lack of summits in my walking so far, so it must be time to make up for that. It's odd to find that when you mention that you have taken up walking, people tend to wonder what you have been up rather than where you have been, and you have to explain that there's quite a distinct difference in discipline between walking up and walking along. I might have walked over 100 miles but people are unimpressed that I haven't done the Yorkshire Three Peaks yet, actually, I'm disappointed that I haven't summitted any of them so far, but Ingleborough had too much snow, and I had too much upset stomach for Whernside. Anyways, I've got my Spring Holiday on the immediate horizon and I need to get a bit of ground knowledge in before then, so onward to Kirkby Stephen!

Active May: Day Three

Tailbridge Hill & Nine Standards Rigg.  12.3 miles

The Calder Valley & Birkby Bradley Greenways 07/05/12

Trying to make sense of the National Cycle Network is a frustrating business, as it is being created on a piecemeal basis as Sustrans gain funding and access to necessary lands, so today's stretch is part of the grand scheme of National Route 69 (dude), but it's hard to envisage it as part of a coast-to-coast path when so much of it remains in the planning stages. Even factor in the other sections in West Yorkshire and it's almost impossible to work out how it is all going to fit together, hopefully time and progress will prove my interpretations to be wrong, but for today this is just a stretch from Dewsbury to Huddersfield featuring a viaduct that I hadn't previously heard of!

Active May: Day Two

The Calder Valley & Birkby Bradley Greenways - Dewsbury to Huddersfield.  9.8 miles

Sowerby Bridge to Mytholmroyd, plus Bonus Stroll 05/05/12

Ever since my closest friends moved to Mytholmroyd in 2006, I've been entertaining the idea of walking there or back, but that plan has a couple of major drawbacks, most notably the fact that it is a really long way. Morley to Mytholmroyd is 19 miles, by the direct route and 26 by the prettiest, and doing that I'd probably be in no state to socialise if visiting or having to walk off the hangover from the previous night if going home. Walking back to grab the train at Mirfield looks like a possibility, but there are virtually no trains on a Sunday, my favoured travel-home day, and doing that on a Saturday after the work/booze mix of Friday does not appeal all that much. So if that walk does ever get done, it will probably be done in pieces, starting today, kicking off Active May.

Active May: Day One

Sowerby Bridge to Mytholmroyd via the Rochdale Canal path  4.2 miles
 plus Bonus Stroll  2.8 miles

The Spen Valley Ringway 28/04/12

From leaving the end of the Greenway, to getting to the bus stop in Oakenshaw, the day takes a decisive turn for the worse as the passable weather turns to an apocalyptic rainstorm which goes on and off for the remainder of the day. A normal day would have me beating a retreat, but the last 2 miles of today's walk is the part that I'd really be looking forward to, so I wait for the 268 bus and get sodden, and then have to work out where I have to get off the bus as we ride out of Cleckheaton and into Liversedge, diving off by Royds Park and hoping that I'm in the right place.

Active April: Day Four, part 2

The Spen Valley Ringway - Liversedge to Heckmondwike  1.8 miles

The Spen Valley Greenway 28/04/12

If you were given an interest in railways in your early years, there's a good chance that it's something that you never quite got out of your system, regardless of the fact that you stopped trainspotting and attending open days in your teens. You'll still hop on the occasional preserved line, and take note of developments on the national network, as well as displaying levels of interest that would still tag you as a gricer to any observer. That's the case with me at least, and the casual browsing of the internet led me to the discovery of this day's pair of walks through the Spen Valley, aka the Five Towns, aka the land where the names couldn't sound any more Yorkshire.

Active April: Day Four, part 1

The Spen Valley Greenway - Ravensthorpe to Low Moor  7 miles

Leeds Country Way #6: Robin Hood to Bruntcliffe Crossroads 21/04/12

There was supposed to be another trip out to Mallerstang on the 14th, but I woke with such an intense feeling of indifference to the idea of walking that I decided that it was best to not try to go out, it's probably not a good idea to try to walk when you are not feeling it. But hey, don't you think I might have earned a weekend off? And so the Leeds Country Way seems to roar up to its conclusion, but there had been a bit of a wait for this last day, and this is the day where the route description seemed vaguely written and the path felt circuitous just to fulfil the 'Country' part of the equation. Notably, the start point of today was only 3 miles or so from where I live, but I'd go on to walk nearly 13 miles before I got back home again.

Active April: Day Three

Leeds Country Way #6: Robin Hood to Bruntcliffe Crossroads  11 miles

Self at Robin Hood, below the M1 bridge

Leeds Country Way #5: Swillington Bridge to Robin Hood 09/04/12

Easter Monday morning is as grim as you'd like, a steady rain puddling outside and me sat at my window wondering if this is going to be another walking day lost. Disappointed, I eat my packed lunch and revert the day back to non-walking setting, until I notice a distinct easing off in the weather around 11.30 am and decide to make for the trail, as it's not a long day on the slate, and I think I can make my target finish of 4.15pm what with there being a Sunday bus service for the bank holiday.

Active April: Day Two

Leeds Country Way #5: Swillington Bridge to Robin Hood  8.8 miles

Self at Swillington Bridge

Leeds Country Way #4: Barwick in Elmet to Swillington Bridge 07/04/12

So onward, full bore into Active April, with another five days of walking on the schedule, and the early Summer of late-March has already passed, and we're back in the midst of a regular Northern Springtime. Starting with the long weekend of Easter, an opportunity to take down a significant portion of the Leeds Country Way, the first half took no time at all, so the second half ought to be a breeze! However, It's an odd thing to discover that catching the 64 bus from Morley to Barwick, takes longer than it would riding the 51 to Leeds and then boarding the 64 half-way. Such are the vagaries of public transport, I suppose.

Active April: Day One

Leeds Country Way #4: Barwick in Elmet to Swillington Bridge  9.9 miles

Self at Barwick in Elmet, at the Maypole

Rumination: Active March

Active March did not get the day 6 which was anticipated for it as I'd found that extra reserves of enthusiasm could not be found for any of the other days of my week off, really too much hot weather for that time of year. More significantly, the last Saturday of the month fell by the wayside when I had planned to join the FOSCL group for a jaunt from Dent to Ribblehead via Deepdale and Whernside. That morning I had woken up with a rather uneasy feeling in my stomach, and had to make a swift decision on going out or not, choosing not too proved to be absolutely the right choice, as about an hour later, around the time I'd have been travelling through Bingley, I was really really glad to still be in my own home and not on the train...

Leeds Country Way #3: Golden Acre Park to Barwick in Elmet 28/03/12

A week out of work gave me an opportunity to test my stamina by fitting extra walks into my week but I hadn't counted on the early arrival of Summer at the end of March. I've often joked that Britain only really has two seasons, shifting between Winter and Summer, with Spring and Autumn only being transitional periods, but even I was stunned at how short the transition was this time. I even delayed my walk by a day in the expectation that it might cool down, but instead it turned out even warmer. A solid 25C at the day's height, and I walked the entire day without a jacket, which I wouldn't do again until this weekend just passed (18th August)

Active March: Day Five

Leeds Country Way #3: Golden Acre Park to Barwick in Elmet  13.8 miles


Self at Golden Acre Park (I should have started the LCW with my beard trimmed short so it could have grown

as I went around the trail, ending with me looking like a mountain man when I finished!)

 

Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen via Mallerstang 24/03/12

When you awaken in Morley under a dense pall of fog, (on the first weekend of Spring, mind you,) you have no reason to expect the day to make a significant change in weather. You feel that the day may clear into one of those sunny, yet cool and crisp days, but it would still be necessary to dress for
winter, so the thermals go on, reminding yourself that it's always cooler in the countryside and you are bound to feel it once you've been in a pretty remote location for 6 hours or so. The day remains foggy as my train takes me north up the S&C line, until we travel up through the clouds at the top of Ribblesdale and sunshine takes over. Disembarking at Garsdale, I expect cool and crisp, not brutal heat...

Active March: Day Four

Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen via Mallerstang 11.7 miles

Leeds Country Way #2: Bradford Road to Golden Acre Park 17/03/12

Only a couple of days into my walking routine, and I'm already starting to project my walking times, sat on the #72 bus, looking to a 9.30am start, with tea break stop at Apperley Bridge, lunch at Horsforth and a 3pm finish at Golden Acre Park, certain that my body can endure the rigours of all this walking.

Active March:  Day Three

Leeds Country Way #2: Bradford Road to Golden Acre Park,  11.3 miles

Self at Bradford Road

Leeds Country Way #1: Bruntcliffe Crossroads to Bradford Road 10/03/12

Taking on a long distance path can seem immediately intimidating, the matter of distance and remoteness clouding your judgement of your abilities, this is why I still can't come to grips with the idea of attempting the Pennine Way. So, it's a very good idea to find a circular path as your first, especially one which can be neatly divided up into unitimidating chunks, all of which are readily accessible by public transport (with a Metro Card making it free of charge!) No long journeys to start points or costs of accommodation here. the Leeds Country Way might not be one of the classics, and may lack dynamism and cache, but it's on the OS maps and it passes within a mile of where I live and that's what counts. It's been my walking target for 2 years, and its 62 miles to be taken in six pieces, so let's get going!


Active March: Day Two

Leeds Country Way #1: Bruntcliffe Crossroads to Bradford Road.  7.8 miles

Self at Bruntcliffe Crossroads

Gargrave To Settle via Malham 03/03/12

The initial plan for 2012 was a plan of three months of walking to conclude with a planned holiday at the end, figuring that I'd need to have my walking legs well tuned for a week away. Each month was given an "Active" tag, and was to feature walking on every Saturday and available bonus day, and I rallied moral support and encouragement on my Facebook page from those surprised by my desire to get exercised and those who have their own healthy schemes. Trips to the Dales and an assault on the Leeds Country Way were to make up the bulk of the opening stretches and then stock was to be taken as Summer loomed (It's a known fact that hot weather and I are not good friends).

The initial 1,000 miles idea did not come into my thoughts at this time, only coming to mind when I took time to reflect at the end of June, but after polling my Facebook friends and getting precisely one response, I made the decision to count all my walks and that is why I will be blogging in retrospect until I catch up the five month backlog. I'm not a swift writer, so this might take a while...

Active March: Day One

Gargrave To Settle via Malham.  14.6 miles

Opening Stretches 2012

The major problem with New Year’s Resolutions is that you are trying to do something which requires physical and mental effort through the two worst months of the year. Making actual progress with new diet or exercise regime is always going to be a test when you only have 8 hours of light daily and its cold all the time. So when I resolved for the New Year, to get regular weekend exercise and shed some weight (having pushed close to 75kg, post-Christmas), I gave myself a start date of 3^rd March, so that the joys of Spring might be in the vicinity, at least, when I got going. The date wasn’t one chosen arbitrarily, as I’d picked up a leaflet advertising walks organised by the Friends of the Settle & Carlisle Line, and that was the earliest one that stood out for me. Before that I thinks the days will be too short and the risk of extremes of cold too high. Serious planning was also delayed by what felt like an impacted wisdom tooth and I couldn’t set any exercise or holiday plans down when there was discomfort in my present and the risk of oral surgery in my future.

Introductory Thoughts 2011

Catching a train shouldn’t be a personal revelation, but that was how it seemed in February 2011. The good peoples of Northern Rail and WY Metro combined to provide cheap rail tickets in the winter months on the Settle & Carlisle line and that looked like a good way to use a day of holiday in my week off post-Superbowl. I went only to take the ride to Carlisle and back, but riding up Ribblesdale and taking pics made me realise that there is a lot of glorious landscape within a couple of hours of home and I had failed to give it proper consideration for the better part of nine years. I was no longer confined by my lack of personal transportation or funds, and I was free to do whatever I wished with my time, if I so wished. Of course, no walking was forthcoming, this journey led to the discovery that Carlisle is on of the under-rated towns of England, with far more history than you might expect, and that it has my favourite second-hand bookshop too, namely The Bookcase (yes, better than Barter Books of Alnwick!).

Introductory Thoughts 2010

My New Year’s resolution for 2010 came to naught, but it was the hatching of a significant plan, walking the Leeds Country Way. I’d studied the maps and downloaded the path guides already, and thought that 62 miles was not an over-awing distance when there are regular points to catch public transport, for which cost wouldn’t be a worry with my super-awesome Metrocard. The difficulty was I couldn’t figure how my body would react to 12+ miles of walking in a day, I guessed I’d need to do it in the middle of a week off work, with a couple of days to psych myself up beforehand and days afterward to recover. There was surely no way I could walk a stretch at the weekend and then go do a regular week of work. Predictably enough, I managed to convince myself that it wasn’t possible, for I didn’t have the stamina required and I would surely have other things to do with my time off, so it never happened, but the idea was out there.

Introductory Thoughts 2009

The good start of 2009 sadly didn't set off the active phase that it should have, and it had started well. The favoured winter touring grounds around the West Pennine Moors with my Sis and family took in the Reservoir paths at Wayoh and Turton & Entwistle, and the country park at Rivington, and a yomp up to the Peel Tower/Monument at Ramsbottom and as this was all done in the fiercest of Winter cold, I felt good for the spring, but somehow thing didn't come right.

Introductory Thoughts 2006 - 2008

It is a major regret of mine that my elder sister lived in Settle and Kendal between 1997 and 2004, and I never seized the opportunity to take on the walking scope that such residences offered. Especially regrettable seeing as her partner, Dr G, is an outdoors-y type and had turned her from being a somewhat sedentary character like myself. In those years, all I can recall is jaunts to Hawes and Malham which didn't involve much exercise, and trips to Scout Scar and Kendal Castle on a couple of Christmas Days.

Introductory Thoughts: 2002 - 2005

I like to walk. I seem to have become a largely solitary man, and I'm at an age where I need to get as much exercise as possible, certainly more than I'd get by sitting at home every weekend, and walking fits the bill for pastime and exercise. 2012 has seen me start on regular walking exploits, but it has taken me a whole decade to go from my first steps out for it to become a regular activity, so before we go further, a few bits of background story are needed...