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
 |
| Ingleborough from Hunter Bark |
Alight the train at 9.50am, looking toward a modest sort of weather cast, and join up with the hard to count group of 19, led by M&A again, today featuring a German couple and their boy out to experience the full joy of the Yorkshire dales, with some hard to interpret anecdotes and observations from M, no doubt. Onward through the village, which is pleasant in the Ribblesdale style, but oddly unmemorable even though I've been through it on the A65 numerous times, passing the village square where various groups of Girl Guides seem to be setting up for a day in the hills. From the village, Green Gate Lane and later Edge Lane, lead to a steady 150 metre ascent away from the River Ribble up onto the moorland, and as walkers swap tales of recent exploits, the surrounding vistas open up. It's the first look I've really taken toward the Forest of Bowland, a wilderness that requires very great care and knowledge to be walked, and off to the south Pendle Hill rises and looks like a tempting walking prospect, though no one in the group seem to have ever been that way (turns out that its 16 miles from the nearest point on the railway, rendering it unwalkable to the mere mortal walker). Our future path for the day rises as Rye Loaf Hill and Kirkby Fell appear ahead of us and Ingleborough appears as the ascent continues, and M leads us to the top of the modest hill of Hunter Bark which offers an excellent viewpoint over the moor and to the many higher hills, and we get the first lecture on geology as M tells us about Gritstone country.
 |
| Stockdale |
Onward we go toward the day's familiar territory and along Lambert Lane, an ancient road it seems, we get explanations of hill farmers of yore built passages under the roads after the fashion of Hedgehog tunnels, but large enough to accommodate sheep and cattle, and also to watch out for the shift in the dry stone walls from gritstone to limestone. This means we are on the edge of the Mid-Craven Fault and M can be in his element talking geology, you can learn stuff on these walking jaunts, that for sure! Meet Stockdale Lane, and enter limestone country, but the group takes a detour away from the lane to take in the sights of Attermire Scar, and it's a lot less pretty when the sun isn't shining, with limestone looking grey rather than shiny white. The ambitious members plot a course over the top of the steepling Sugar Loaf Hill, whilst the more modest walkers take the low road and find a route through the burgeoning marshland to the path below the scar. That turns out to be very wet indeed, and my boots waterlog far too quickly, and then its soft going all the way back to the road, and we press on as it's mot good picture weather and we are promised lunchtime at the top of Stockdale. So retrace steps from my first walk, and Stockdale is still an interesting proposition when ascending, thankfully. This also is the first time when I feel the need to accelerate when heading uphill, going at a clip actually feels better than shuffling in baby steps, some of the ladies notice my change to an obvious turn of speed and I feel like a proper walker for the first time, rather than being the amateur of my first four months.
 |
| Malham Tarn |
Having glummed up in the stretch before lunch, the weather takes a turn towards the worse as we eat, so waterproofs are donned before we get hammered with rain for ten minutes as the afternoon stretch starts. The rain only lasts for two fields though, and soon enough we stop to get out of waterproofs as our leader has to shoo cattle off the track at the top of Stockdale. Stop retracing previously walked paths at Nappa Cross and we head northwards, and entertainingly, we are about two miles from our destination of Malham and remain at a similar distance for much of the second half of the walk as we circumnavigate the town. A long descent goes down to Cove Road, observing Fountains Fell and Malham Tarn in the landscape, as well as looking to Flasby Fell and Embsay Moor to the south, and I keep wondering how our path will take us to Gordale Scar, the day's ultimate feature, and the route will not be taking in the dry valley, so we get more new territory to walk. Enter the National Trust's Malharm Tarn estate, and there's fun limestone to walk amongst, and we descend towards Malham Tarn foot and the geographically hilarious water sink and after eight miles as the only people on the trail, the crowds come as a bit of a surprise. Having an ice cream van parked on the road by the gate is a bad idea, causing major congestion as the walkers, tourists and kids doing their DofE award all converge on a single point.
 |
| Gordale Scar |
We remain on the cross country paths to take us down through Broad Scars, but there's more marshiness to negotiate in this part of Limestone Country, and cue leaky boots all over again. Chat along with the other walkers, trying to emphasise my renewed enthusiasm for the fray, and its limestone scars and stone wall as far as the can be seen in the immediate vicinity, until a bathtub is found abandoned a healthy distance from the roads. Once at the road ourselves, our co-leader A departs us, feeling like she's having a brain overload and favours descending to Malham via the road rather than having another hour amongst the clints. We head to the fields above New Close Knotts because it's one of M's favourite places and one of Yorkshire's Great Hidden Views (TM), as the broad gash of Gordale Scar opens up beneath us. Certainly a destination worthy of a walk, and the size of the river valley, carved out at the end of the last Ice Age, seem so much more huge than it does when viewed from below, for some reason 65 metres appears to be a lot more looking down than it does looking up. The sun comes out for our moments up here too, so photography abounds, including M trying to stage pics for the FOSCL literature, and we have to depart this spot as we need to make for the bus out of Malham.
 |
| Ancient Field Boundaries, Malhamdale |
Onward down the steep face of New Close Knotts then, and M can point out some of the most ancient field boundaries in the county, before another ice cream break at the van on Hawthorns Lane. Naturally the path has to lead through the glade of Janet's Foss with waterfall and plunge pool, and then follow Gordale Beck all the way down to Aire Head before finally taking the path northwards to dodge the farmer cutting hay to arrive in Malham, which we had originally approached from the west, to finally arrive in it from the south. It's 4.10pm so there's plenty of time before the bus is due, and I'll still go for record pint-sinking speed with my serving of Golden Best at The Buck (the lesser of Malham's two pubs). I take time out to actually examine my boots, and discover that there are holes in both heels, and thus I could have explained all that leakage more than a month ago if only I had bothered to turn my boots over! There is a bit of worry being able to get everyone back to Skipton in a single trip as the crowd gathers for the bus, but there's no need for 'women and old folk first' as 19 bodies fit very neatly onto a 24 seat bus, and the ride away is nowhere near as depressing as the one from Kettlewell a month ago.
1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 251.1 miles
No comments:
Post a Comment