Rumination: Time, Gentlemen, Please

No, I don't have another day in my legs. Four weekends have now passed since my last day on the trail, and I think it's fair to conclude that the 2013 season is finished. My birthday week, two weeks ago, should have signalled the end, but I'd held out hope that a fair day over the subsequent weekends would provide me with a day to act as a finale and to get in the last plotted walk for the season on the West Riding's High Moors, but no such luck. The weather chose not to smile on me and my body did not greet any available day with any enthusiasm at all, and so the season is done, and so am I.

Mytholmroyd to Haworth 26/10/13

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

Marsden to Mytholmroyd 19/10/13

A weekend drops from the schedule because of foul weather, and it couldn't have come at a better time as work is starting to leave me feeling perpetually run down and I need a spare day to recharge for the coming week and to focus myself for the final push of the season, as I've got three more trips to fit into four weekends and only two weekends of 'free' travel left. Another trip out from Marsden is in order, doing Colne to Calder again, and I set out an hour later than planned, hoping to have allowed time for the early morning mists to have cleared, and feeling like I owe Kirklees district an apology, because in all these month of having rail access to anywhere in West Yorkshire, I have made only two trip into this area, and both of them have been focused on walking out of it. No journeys have been made in the direction of Slaithwaite, Meltham or Holmfirth,  and I didn't once ride the line to Penistone, plus obvious targets like Castle Hill and Black Hill avoided my plotting, and I'll have to make my promise to make it up to the district and wander into the unknown paths of Kirklees next year, where my attention will hopefully focus in a direction that isn't north and west.

Marsden to Mytholmroyd, via Slaithwaite Moor, Moss Moor Edge, Blackwood Edge
                                               & Great Manshead Hill.  14 miles