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Sunday 16 November 2008

Mickle Fell
















I met Mike from go4awalk again – this time at a little village called Hilton, just next to the impact area of the Warcop Army training range. This place is used for training the troops to fire various types of things that go bang, and its only possible to do the walk we did when things aren’t, in fact, going “bang”. Or even “crump”.
It was a cracking day for it, cold and sunny with views from Teeside to Ingleborough – which is a long way. We started off on a bridleway, passing a notice full of dire warnings, and up a little valley and over some moorland to the derelict trig-in-a-shelter on the other top of Little Fell. The main top is a little way over to the North and is marked by a puny cairn of carboniferous limestone.
The views towards Mickle fell from the edge of this hill are notable – very wild, peat-hagged and, well, er..wild…
We got to grips with the final slopes of Mickle fell by using a handy ATV track that went in the right direction. Mickle Fell summit is marked by a large and venerable cairn – suitable for it’s position as the highest point in the North Riding of Yorkshire, and, of course, Yorkshire itself, and also the highest point in the current County Durham – almost recently renamed Durham County, or Durham and Darlington County, or possible something else….
We followed small streams and green strips through the rough ground down to maize Beck, which we handrailed to the bridleway back to Scorsdale. Scorsdale is a fab, wild and rocky slit in the scarp and it was a bit unfortunate that it went dark as we descended – but lucky that we’d just hit a good track just as the light was switched off. I used a little wind up torch that I got from a local pound shop (guess how much it cost) It has 2 leds and is very bright and I didn’t need to wind it up. I’ll use adminfairy’s headlight next time, honest. I expect it would have been better than the pound shop thingy….
I think we did about 14 miles.
More walkies tomorrow, unless it really, really rains…

2 comments:

Becky Boo said...

You could use all your little lights and your new spangly head torch and be lit up like a christmas tree. I wonder how many people call the police saying they have seen a strange lit up beardy man like creature coming down the hill after dark!?!

Mike Knipe said...

Cheeky monkey - you get no supper.