Stanhope and Shittlehope Denes and the Bit In Betweens

I’m aware about the constant repetition of the same walks in the pieblog, so, by way of a change, and just to re-emphasise my utter lack of imagination, this post is about two walks up Stanhope Dene and down Shittlehope Dene wot I did six days apart but substantially by the same routes.

This, by the way, is also the same route I did two or three times last year and which was, on the last occasion, joined by TGO’s peripatetic editor of walks in other places who gave me my Leg End plaque for ten TGO crossings a couple of years ago. Ten TGO crossings plus an intended eleventh, plus the half crossing in 2001 during the Foot and Mouth debacle may well also show a determined lack of ideas about where to go walking. And the walk appeared in TGO mag, so there’s no need for me to bang on about where it went…..

Anyway, last week, me and superdawg parked in the Dales centre, wandered up Stanhope Dene in icy drizzle, used the right of way which crosses and recrosses the beck, just to see what it was like (wet and slippy), up to the CtoC railway line where it was doing the snowy equivalent of drizzle, on to Park Head, where it started to blow a hoolie, down the incline where the blizzard started, along Crawleyside Edge where I couldn;t find shelter for me cheese butty and the dog was shivering, and down Shittlehope dene which was a bit more sheltered. This was a reccy for the proper walk which happened yesterday.

In between, it snowed quite a bit, the electricity at knipetowers went off and various vehicles had to be abandoned to snowdrifts along the Crawleyside road.

Yesterday, ten people turned up and we did the walk again. It was the same route, apart from going around a certain slope failure and calling in at park head cafe for a cuppa and a hot beef sandwich. There were sloppy old snowdrifts and just a little drizzle, but, in general, the conditions were much more benign. In the woods, there were primroses and violets and wood anemones and in the fields the spring lambs were butting each other and jumping around for a laugh.

It was nine miles, or eighteen if you do it twice. I’ll not be back here for a while. The sheep are getting suspicious.

Its quite a good walk, though, and there’s a cuppa in the middle.