Today, with superdawg loaded in the back, I squirted the knipemobile down the M1 to Crowden and met up with Tony Bennett and his girlfriend Christine for the bagging of Black Chew Head, the highest point in Oldham and a Dewey – and a walk up Black Hill and back via Westend Moss.
Tony did the TGO Challenge this year with his pal Steve and I first met them lounging with bottles of beer in a hostel in Newtonmore.
The TGO Challenge has a habit of increasing the number and quality of my hillwalking partners and so it appears that its happened again. I do like to walk with lots of different people. Cos they’re all different, innit?
Anyway, we followed the Pennine Way Northwards up to Laddow Rocks, where a number of rock climbers were setting themselves up for a rock climb. I wrote about my experiences of Laddow on Doodlecat a while back, in my trip report of my 2006 Pennine Way walk. For anybody with time on their hands its at http://www.doodlecat.com/mikeknipepw/index.html
From laddow, we crossed a little bit of rough moor to find the top, or at least some of the tops of Black Chew Head. Its one of those places where you stand on one spot and decide that it’s a bit higher over there. When you’re over there, it looks higher where you’ve just come from, or somewhere else. Or both. So we passed over them all.
Thence, back on the Pennine Way up to the summit patio of Black Hill. Black Hill gets greener and less black every year. What caused this? When I was alive, there was no grass at all. Not a blade. It was all sloppy sucking slutch. Not any more.
We pontificated a bit about this and then headed back to Crowden over Westend Moss and Hey Edge.
The eta van on the road to Barnsley had knocked off.
Back up the M1. Its 117 miles from our house to Crowden but takes a bit less than 2 hours to drive. I must get down here more often.
Tony did the TGO Challenge this year with his pal Steve and I first met them lounging with bottles of beer in a hostel in Newtonmore.
The TGO Challenge has a habit of increasing the number and quality of my hillwalking partners and so it appears that its happened again. I do like to walk with lots of different people. Cos they’re all different, innit?
Anyway, we followed the Pennine Way Northwards up to Laddow Rocks, where a number of rock climbers were setting themselves up for a rock climb. I wrote about my experiences of Laddow on Doodlecat a while back, in my trip report of my 2006 Pennine Way walk. For anybody with time on their hands its at http://www.doodlecat.com/mikeknipepw/index.html
From laddow, we crossed a little bit of rough moor to find the top, or at least some of the tops of Black Chew Head. Its one of those places where you stand on one spot and decide that it’s a bit higher over there. When you’re over there, it looks higher where you’ve just come from, or somewhere else. Or both. So we passed over them all.
Thence, back on the Pennine Way up to the summit patio of Black Hill. Black Hill gets greener and less black every year. What caused this? When I was alive, there was no grass at all. Not a blade. It was all sloppy sucking slutch. Not any more.
We pontificated a bit about this and then headed back to Crowden over Westend Moss and Hey Edge.
The eta van on the road to Barnsley had knocked off.
Back up the M1. Its 117 miles from our house to Crowden but takes a bit less than 2 hours to drive. I must get down here more often.
We did 11 miles and 1600 or so feet of ascent.
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2 comments:
Ooh - That's what it looks like from Ladow Rocks then! Yawning, spinning, dirty great drops! AAAAGGGHH!
When I was there on my Lejog I could only see about ten feet in any direction, fortunately (due to the fog, not my myopia) - Just as well really - That's a big scary drop! And I don't like big scary drops.
So that's another couple who won't be doing the Chally again then Mike? You cannot go around scaring them off like this. It's bad form.
Sorry about the slow response Alan, but I been away, see?
Anyway - Laddow - thats the chappie. Nearly killed me back in 1984 when I tried to climb the "Long Climb". I would mhave falen off but for the friction caused by the 49 points of protection I'd placed.... (this is 48 too many by the way)
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