Pendle Hill 27/09/14

If I hadn't planned to head over into Lancashire for this weekend, I'd almost certainly have spent all of it in bed, as my activities last weekend left me feeling like my battery was almost completely flat after 5 days of work, and mix that in with far too many nights of restless sleep and agonising pains in my neck, and heading to Bolton for a weekend with My Sister's family seems like a very poor idea. However, September is Completion Month, and I had planned for this visit for nearly two months so such considerations need to be cast aside as this is the last opportunity for the weather to still look decent as I make for the hill that has been on my target list for all of the last two seasons, always proving an elusive goal. Younger Niece needs to get up a hill under her own power too, as Elder got out with us last year, and whilst they have both done more physical activity in the intervening time than I managed in my entire childhood, Younger is still to achieve a summit without being carried and she's now at a similar age to when Elder topped the Coniston Old Man. So cast aside the physical problems, gather yourself some fortitude and let's get on the shortest of trails for a Saturday afternoon, not walking a recognised long distance path for the first time since July, and that means the first trip in nine without the reader having to look at my grinning mug as they read of my exploits here.

Pendle Hill, from Barley  4.2 miles

Upper Rivington & Anglezarke Reservoirs 10/05/14

Even as a n adopted Yorkshireman, it seems a terrible and unnecessary cliche to perpetuate the theory that it always rains in Lancashire, because being on the windward side of the Pennines really should make so much difference, but the sad truth to me seems to be that I cannot coordinate a visit to my Sister and her family with an incidence of good weather. This has been a pretty decent year so far, no particularly rough weekends for weather, and mid May should manage to look decently clear, but the first rotten weekend of the year comes down to scupper my plan for a trip to Pendle Hill, and I'm already getting the feeling that this particular destination is going to prove somewhat difficult to obtain. Still, circumstances for my visit play against me, with my nieces having weekend morning activities which take them out of circulation, and they do enjoy their cycling and swimming trips, and my Sis and I aren't doing ourselves any favours when both mornings are needed to sleep off the drinks from the previous night, so the excursions plan for the weekend has to be scaled back, to fit in a stretch between the rain showers.

Upper Rivington & Anglezarke Reservoirs  7.5 miles

Tingley Viaduct & Ardsley Reservoir 27/04/14

Taking the whole department out for drinks could have been an expensive business if all 26 staff had turned out, but thanks to shifts patterns, absences and unavailability, a wholly more manageable 8 folk turned out which ensured that a drinks order could be made without recourse to writing things down, but I'm still baffled as to how many people thought they were celebrating my 40th birthday already. Maybe my choice of words on the e-mail invite, notably 'in a spirit of egalitarianism in my 40th year', was a bit confusing, but no matter because a seven pint session went on with a whole lot of nonsense talked and laughter echoed around, plus a couple of old faces rejoining the crew and everyone getting off for their last ride home. So predictably, Saturday is scrubbed with a hangover and no real awareness of what the day is doing until late afternoon, but even with it being a notional weekend off, I could use the stretch to work off the beer, and to make some space for the epic post-hangover bacon sandwich, so Sunday morning demands a supposedly short stroll to find a couple of the hidden highlights of the borough.

Tingley Viaduct & Ardsley Reservoir  8.6 miles

Rivington Park 08/02/14 & Entwistle Reservoir 09/02/14

I am not one to be sold by advertising, as most of it washes past me in a 'Don't need it / Never wanted it' way, but every so often something will capture your attention, as it taps in to your interests in an almost specific way, as if it were directed to you personally, and that is exactly what Land Rover's #hibernot campaign has done for me. I'm not sure if this is a campaign to sell more off-road vehicles to the suburban middle classes, or if it is a genuine attempt to promote outdoor activity in winter, but the ad perfectly captures what the many tangents of being outdoors in the least clement of seasons can be like, and the associated website does seem to be doing its best sell the idea of enjoying this 'grey and pleasant land', despite being pretty horrible to navigate (we don't all use tablets, you know). So whilst February fails to offer long days and clear passages of pleasing weather, the idea of #hibernot seems like a good way to enjoy the season before Spring finally makes its breakthrough, and as an excess of rain has knocked Pendle Hill from the immediate target list, some low key expeditioning will be handy as I end my week of NIW by staying with My Sis and family on the fringe of the West Pennine Moors.

Rivington Park 3.6 miles, & Entwistle Reservoir 2.6 miles

Grassington Moor 13/07/13

For the first time in my walking odyssey, we meet a day when I actually considered not walking on the grounds of it being too hot, rather than too grim or wet, and having gone to bed for a night of restless sleep brought on by excesses of heat and a rough headache, walking prospects for the Saturday looked grim. On rising the following day, my mood was much more resolute, mostly because of the realisation that we are having a proper hot and clear summer for the first time since 2006, and it would be wise to make the best of it as we might go another seven years before the next one. Plus good long days are needed when you are still delving into upper Wharfedale, and whilst Grassington Moor is a much vaguer upland mass than the High Moors previously explored, I'm sure that my investigations will show that there is still plenty to see up there, so get the bag loaded with liquids and set out for the High Moors in the heart of Limestone Country, on the hottest day of the year, taking with you the idea that you might well be insane to do such a thing.

Grassington Moor, via Hebden Ghyll & Bycliffe Road: 12.6 miles

Barden Fell & Simon's Seat 06/07/13

I quite unexpectedly got sun-burned on my trip over Whernside, surprisingly as I'd barely seen any direct sunlight, but I noticed when taking a shower afterwards and finding that it stung my cheeks and ears a lot more than normal, and sure enough, lower half of the face (due to consistent hat-wearing) is looking distinctly pinkish. Work colleagues greeted me with 'Where have you been that we haven't?' and 'Are you going to try to even it out next weekend?', so I must have been looking unusually healthy! Anyway, after that experience of light frying on an otherwise unremarkable day, we've hit that rare point in summer where the clouds disappear, the wind drops and the temperature soars, the sort of weather which we haven't seen since 2006, I think, and I had better slather on the sunblock and don the sunhat and the most lightweight clothing possible and prepare myself for a whole day of seasonal warmth in the gritstone country of Lower Wharfedale.

Barden Fell & Simon's Seat  12.1 miles

The Old Man of Coniston & Dow Crag 30/0513

The first encounter I had with the idea of hill walking came my way as far back as 1980, when my family was holidaying in Wales, as my parents suggested we might take the Mountain Railway up Snowdon and then walk back down, a plan the 5 year old me famously nixed with the phrase 'I'm not wasting my legs!', and so it came to pass that I only did two country walks of any duration in my childhood, and didn't achieve my first summit until the age of 27. However my nieces have both gotten to the top of various big hills already, having summitted Catbells and Skiddaw respectively before they were even six months old, but all trips so far have been on the energy of their active parents carrying them, and we all think that it is time that they got to the top of their first Lakeland Fell under their own power. Younger Niece isn't massively impressed by the idea, and at age 5, I can't blame her, but at 6 and a half, Elder Niece is game, so a course is set to Coniston for four of us to have a wander into the Furness Fells.

The Old Man of Coniston & Dow Crag.  6.3 miles

The Windermere Three Peaks 26/05/13

Even with me out on my holidays I had no intention of walking on a Sunday, as I'd already had six days of activity preceding it and was in need of a rest, but with another excellent day of weather projected (and two rotten ones following it), I couldn't waste it just with food shopping, a good book and dinner preparation. Plus, with the four ladies of the household all on a cookery course and Dr G out cycling, I was left with only my Dad to entertain, and he'll be needing an afternoon nap, so that'll surely give me a three hour window to get in the sights around Bowness-on-Windermere. A delve into Wainwright's 'Outlying Fells of Lakeland' illustrates three hills around the town that should make for good viewpoints, and I'll plot a course and head out for that straight after lunch, at least I would if I could find my phone. I cannot find it anywhere, so I can only assume that I dropped it somewhere between Gap Wood and Sedbergh, and that wasn't a smart thing to do when walking in unexplored territories...

The Windermere Three Peaks: Brant Fell, School Knott & Orrest Head.  7.3 miles

The Morley Circular 02/02/13

The 2013 walking season was due to kick off on 9th February with me meeting up with the FOSCL group for a walk over Ingleborough, but as some unseasonally sunny weather greeted the first Saturday of my week of being NIW, I made the decision to get out one week early. Not that there was huge pressure to make an excursion of it, indeed in all of 2012's ambling, I never really did anything close to home other than joining to Leeds Country Way as it made its way past Morley. So this was a good time to rectify that, and to wrap up in my underused winter coat, down fleece and thermals and head out to the end of Station Road because most of my walking excursions had started out from Morley railway station to various parts of the West Riding, so today I will very literally start my walk from there.

The Morley Circular.  10.3 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.

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

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

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.

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