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

Pen-y-ghent (& Plover Hill) 05/10/13

Having my walking season finale on a high hill seems like a great idea when viewed at a distance, but becomes a much less appealing prospect once you have felt the Autumn bearing down on you bringing mist, rain, falling temperatures and high winds above the 400m contour. It's the wind that's the killer, and the last trip I made has me feeling like I don't want to know what the winds of November might be like when the ones of late September were no fun, so the finale gets brought forward, spoiling the symmetry of the season, but that is less important then comfort, surely? Anyway, 3rd October marked my 20th anniversary since coming north to attend the University of Leeds, and what better way to celebrate that marker than to listen to every album that I bought in 1993? Or perhaps to also return to the scene of my first solo walk, some 11 years ago, and to partially retrace my original steps and to add Pen-y-ghent to the list of summits achieved in my official wandering career? Anyway, to the last excursion to the Dales for a while whilst the day still manages to promise a six hour window with minimal risk of precipitation!

Pen-y-ghent & Plover Hill  10.4 miles

Marsden to Hebden Bridge 28/09/13

With the end of the walking season approaching fast, it becomes important to get the long excursions off the slate as quickly as possible as a long walking day needs a guarantee of decent weather and sufficient daylight to get to the finish line before being surrounded in gloom. So late September is the last point in the year to make an attempt of 16+ miles, and that's the fourth time that I'll be topping that figure this year, the magic number that says 'this is a long way', and I do wonder why I have left it so late in the year to go from Colne to Calder, and how I've not been to Marsden in a whole year when I still have an all-areas Metrocard. You'd never imagine just how difficult it is fitting in all your walking targets, even when you go for the whole summer without taking any time out from the schedule, so it looks like I'm not going to fit in more than a couple of walks in this area before my right to 'free' travel expires, and next year I'll have to return to travelling with cash in my pocket, or learning the dark art of rural bus travel. Onwards, anyway, as I've got a weather projection of clear skies, prolonged sunshine and minimal risk of rain, so hopefully it's only the wind coming from the north-east that will provide the only climatic challenge of the day.

Marsden to Hebden Bridge, via Close Moss, White Hill, Blackstone Edge, Warland Moor 
                                                 & Stoodley Pike   16.5 miles

Saltaire to Otley 21/09/13

Autumn is upon us and as is the tradition, a ferocious head cold descends on me, only a 48 hour virus and one that I choose to work through to demonstrate what a trooper I am, but that means that the tank is going to be running low as the weekend comes around and the long walk from Marsden to Hebden Bridge isn't going to happen. Walking after a respiratory ailment is not a good idea, as recalled by leg #3 of the Calderdale way when a trek of less than 10 miles took more than 6 hours, so walking from Colne to Calder is going to have to wait, and as the last phase of the walking season is upon us, I think I can allow myself a short excursion to get in three high points between Aire and Wharfe.

Saltaire to Otley, via Baildon Moor, Hawksworth Cliff and Otley Chevin  9.8 miles

Bradford Millennium Way #4: White Wells to Bracken Hall 13/09/13

Self at White Wells

It may have only covered four walking days, but I'm glad that the final stretch of the Bradford Millennium Way has arrived, as this has proved to be quite a challenge, probably fitting in more metres of ascent than the Dales Way managed in all of its mileage, and even with a week off work to do it, I feel like I'm going to need another holiday to get over it. Still, if you only do on walk in Bradford district, uh, don't do this one, there are far friendlier tracks among the three valleys than this stretch, and I may have unreasonably maligned this district, but this trail does show off most of its good faces and convinces me that the council should change the district's name to something altogether friendlier or amusingly amorphous like Wharfeaireworth, for instance. Many points for putting in the effort to get people interested in the district, and the number of different circular walks attached should invite many more people to these hillsides, perhaps ambling during the week has given me the wrong impression and these paths actually buzz with life at the weekends. Onwards, anyway, the last corner of the trail awaits and a final day for this holiday on the Bradfordian hills with my sore calves and even sadder looking boots...

Bradford Millennium Way #4: White Wells to Bracken Hall  7.4 miles