TGO Training by Tarras Water

It won’t have escaped your attention that me and Dawn are having a crack at the TGO Challenge this year – starts in not very many days… oooer…..   and it becomes important to have little backpacking trips for the training of the mind and body into the rigours of ..er… backpacking trips.

So, last week, I parked the car in the Kiln Green car park in the Meikle Toun aka Langholm and after buying a couple of award-winning pies from the award-winning butchers shop, me and Dawn blundered off up the excessively steep slopes of Whita Hill which seems to have all of twenty-seven closely packed contours between the bottom and the top. Luckily, it also has a little well with an iron cup on a chain and some very nice water.  It also has a nudie man running up and down. We tried to ignore him. he looked a bit furtive…

Other furniture  on Whita Hill include a huge obelisk to somebody or other and an odd and rusty memorial to Hugh Mc Dairmid – a  renowned poet, known to his friends as “Chris”.

Our route for the afternoon was short, though and we only had to descend the other side of the hill to Little Tarras Water, finding a spot sheltered from the half-gale in a sheepfold. Its not a brilliant place for camping, though – its either bumpy, prickly or soggy, or all three.

We ate the pies. Dawn had brought peas. I tried JJ’s suggestion of one of those little puddings in a plastic tub, boiled for a while and then by adding custard powder to the boiling water – spotted dick and custard. this ensures very little movement from the prone position for several hours. I’d taken a supply of rum for a change, and this helped in this respect, too. It was also a very good libation for looking at thistles.

A fox barked through the night and the moon came out for a while. In the early hours it began to rain and by dawn (small “d”, the other Dawn has a bog “D”) it was drizzly and mizzly and we set off in the late morning. It wasn’t the weather for getting up and we hadn’t got too hard a walk to do that day.

Wednesday’s route was also reasonably short and during the night I’d rejigged the route a bit so that we could get back to Langholm by Friday lunchtime(ish) so that there would be no panics about Dawn catching her train at Kirkby Stephen on Saturday. When I say rejigged, what I really mean is that I buggerred it up as far as a training walk is concerned and the days would be fairly short….  So, we wandered up by the Tarras Water – a very fine dale containing a few farms and a couple of cottages and not much else. This is Langholm Moor – an area where grouse moor management is deliberately benefiting the Hen Harrier. This is good news for Hen Harriers, but veyr bad news for crows judging by the number of Larsen traps. Its a very boggy, soggy and tussocky place, though and flat, green camping spots are thin on the ground.

We camped in yet another sheepfold (still windy!) on better ground high up the glen. Yet another fox barked at the darkness..

Thursday saw us struggling through deep heather, tussock and bog over the col between Arkleton Hill and Pike fell and , after a brief excitement with a deep gully, we were soon on tracks down to the settlement at Mosspeebles, just by the A7. The A7, as it happens, has a pedestrian route all the way to Bush where we joined a track heading up Meikledale and then the very beautiful Wolfhope Burn. Wolfhope Burn’s beauty is enhanced by  sporadic natural woodland of hawthorn and ash which will be an absolute delight later in the spring. At it’s head there’s a fine, open corrie with a burn of clean water and good camping. Still windy, though, and the number of sheep carcases along the burn and the sides of the dale was noticeable. We were supposed to cross the col into the valley of the Rig Burn that night, but decided that since we’d found a nice spot to camp, and we didn’t know what it was like over the hill, that we’d stay put. A cold and frosty night followed. Dawn had some excitements which only she is allowed to report on….  A fox barked once again (Different fox, I suspect…)

Finally it was Friday and we had to get back to Langholm. We crossed the col, cleverly avoiding having  heart attacks by zig-zagging up the steep slope and, after a brief encounter with more tussocks, bog and heather, we soon on an unmapped and very wide built track which came high up the glen to meet us. This is either for forestry or for wind turbines. The investment in building this road must have been enormous. Either way it’s an eyesore….  but it did make our life a lot easier

There’s a bunch of new roads around here and some apparently new forestry and ue to the easier-than-expected movement we were soon passing the sheep sheds at The Rigg and then passing new plantations of holly, we were yet sooner on the road at Westerhall. We followed the road past Burnfoot and Henwell is increasingly heavy showers and followed the track though the Buccleuch estates back to Langholm

Here, I called the police. That is to say, I rang 101 and got Police Scotland who seemed to know who I was and what I wanted before I’d said very much at all. In fact, when I rang them on the Wednesday, they told me my home address and phone number which they’d “remembered” since the time I rang them from Moffat on the first Moff-peebles walk. Since I got accused of abandoning my car in order to go into he forest to top meself whilst on a 3 day walk at Kielder, I’ve formed the habit of telling the local police what I’m up to and the fact that I’ve left (aka abandoned") a car somewhere and when I’ll be back and so on. they don’t seem to mind this at all and, in fact, the Police Scotland operators are always really friendly and helpful, so its never been an onerous task.

We did about 30 miles.

Its a very nice area by the way. You should go. its nice an wild and a much better place to be on an English bank holiday than the madhouse that is Cumbria. At least you can have a wee in peace up here…

And the pies are really good.

Nothing can go wrong….

Are we ready for the TGO?  I can’t speak for Dawn, but I’m never ready. I don’t really know what you have to do to be ready. Success is never guaranteed, but given reasonable luck, reasonable weather and a bit of day-to-day management and the avoidance of sinking into a deep depression, geographical or psychological (i.e. we travel in hope) – and a small supply of cheering rum , or similar – we have a fair chance, I think..

Competition to Win an A-Z Adventure Atlas

 

Obsessive readers may remember that around Christmas time there was a short promotion on the pieblog, and also on one or two other blogs for a discount on A-Z Adventure maps. Some may remember that I had a little epic back O’ Skiddaw whilst using one (nothing to do with the Atlas, it was more a case of duff navigation in thick weather)

Any road up – there’s now an easy to enter (and to win, if you know where the hills are…!) competition via twitter here : Competition to win an A-Z adventure atlas

I quite like these Atlases as it happens – apart from the huge spondoolies saved on buying the OS maps, they’ve got a handy index of obscure places with grid references and the atlas is a nice size to fit in a pocket or a map case.

You’ll have to be quick, though…. only a few days to go before the competition closes.

Today’s pieblog pictures of from me and superdawg’s very recent walk in the North Yorkshire Moors during which we bagged the very lovely Heads – a sub-HuMP , no less, and had a bit of a strollette around the moors. I go to NYM regularly, about once every five years (I hate the complicated drive from here to there…)

there will be a short gap in blogposts shortly whilst me and Dawn have a trundle around the hills of the Borders just a bit North of Langholm. I understand that there’s an award-winning pie shop in Langholm. Hmmmmmm   pies…

Stop messing about and click the link for a go at the Adventure atlas competition…..!

 

Stanhope Denes and the Bit In Between

I think this is the third time this walk has been done as part of the Durham County Council Guided walks programme.

On Wednesday, I met 25 peeps, including the stewards Maria, Eric and Compulsory Dave at the Fossil Tree in Stanhope in mizzly rain. As soon as we set off, though, it stopped raining and all we had to contend with then was the howling gale.

Two walkers – Robert Cunningham and Graeme Ferguson have sent me some pictures, so I’ve used many of them here in the blog post. If anybody else wants to send pics of guided walks, I’ll try to include as many as possible. No prizes, though …. at least, not yet  (!)

Stanhope Dene comes first, of course, and this went reasonably well until we hit the slope failures just above the mines. These broke the group up nicely and we were running just a bit late, so lunch was declared at the East Whiteley Burn. This is often a bit sheltered, and, quite a nice place to combine yourself with a cheese butty and some chocolate. It was a bit draughty today, though….

Stanhope Denes has a few signs of spring – some daffies and a primrose or two lambs in the fields– a chiff-chaff and some kind of raptor wheeling around and calling – lots of greenery in the form of newly sprouted ransoms, a bit of frogspawn and multiple dead rabbits. Anything that eats carrion is in for a bit of a meaty bonus following that long and extended winter, I think….

The slope failures, up and down diversions and the long, heaving slog up to the CtoC railway line took it out of several walkers (including me), so it was a relief to get into the Park head cafe for a nice, hot cuppa.

Deep drifts , and then, a day or two later…..

The snow enjoyed so much by superdawg on the reccy a few days earlier has almost all gone…

Turning South, we hit the headwind, so there was little respite from hard work until we finally hit the shelter of Shittlehope Dene. Instead of wind and contours in here, we just had slippery mud and a fallen tree…..

There was some staggering to be done on the final march into Stanhope. Since we’re British, of course, heads were held high and The Bonny Moor Hen had just a bit of extra custom. We do like to support local businesses, innit…?

Quite hard going today, really…..   thanks to Robert and Graeme for the pics, and to the stewards, and the proprietress of the Park head cafe and the landlady of the Bonny Moor hen, and the ordnance survey for the maps, Sainsbury’s for the fair trade coffee in me flask and Lancashire for the cheese in me butty.

9 Miles. (Hah!)

Wainwright Outlier Bagging Is Just Wrong – High Lights and Low Lights

AKA Blawith fells and Bethecar Common

The other day (I’m on a blogpost catchy uppy thingy at the mo…) me and the dawg decided that it was time to go and bag a few more Wainwright Outlying Fells and, since most of my remaining ones are in the South Lakes, I colected th bro on the way and orf we jolly well went to a muddy and severely sloped parking spot just the other side of Blawith Knott. This, we bagged in fairly short order, it being not very far from the parking spot and there being a lively, some would say over-enthusiastic, maybe mischievious following wind wot pushed us up it. Its a very nice hill as it happens, a bit rocky just like proper Wainwrights often are, and with a cracking view of bigger Fells over there ------>

Since Tottlebank Height isn’t all that far away from Blawith Knott, we strolled over and bagged that one too. Going well so far…..

We wandered Eastwards as a cloud, noting various crowds of daffodils on the way, down to Cockenskell and along paths and lanes to Water Yeat where, for the injured, there’s a box of first aid stuff fixed to a wall. More paths and lanes took us to High Nibthwaite (no parking, don’t park here, just bugger off and park somewhere else will ya…) and then steeply  up by Caws beck and then an almost-scramble using a short rocky rake to the dramatically-placed cairn on Brock Barrow and thence, by a short ramble, to the summit. For some reason, this top is listed as “Unnamed (Top o’Selside)”. This is odd since it seems to have a perfectly good name of it’s own. Never mind.

A broad ridge heads North-East and this contains our final two Outlying tops for today – Low Light Haw – a little bit pointy and High Light Haw – odd holes in the summit boulder, both of which are charming and with equally nice views as al the other tops around here. We went no further, mainly because I’d already bagged the other tops around here and also since it was a long way back to the tilted car park.  (Except to say that there’s a very inviting top a bit further North-East called Arnsbarrow, apparently ignored , or at least missed by Alf (what’s that lass doing with my pipe?) Wainwright.  I should also add that Wainwright’s route of ascent of the so-called nameless Brock Barrow is too full of gorse for comfort and a better route heads off to the North (left) a bit higher up the hill. This heads towards an unlikely-looking slab which is avoided by a short step up and a brief but exciting traverse of a short rake. Wainwright also advises drivers to park by the phonebox. All I can say is, i wouldn’t try this if I were you. I get the impression that parking is a bit of an issue in the village ever since the bacon slicer at the shop at Broughton was done-away-with and all the locals have to think about nowadays is identifying those cars which are local and those which aren’t.

Shudder included Arnsbarrow, really…

Our return was a ramble to High Bethecar, Stock farm sheepdog pup decided barking frenzy would be better timed when we were well on our way), Hill Park Farm (manic spaniel made feint attacks on Bruno at first, but wriggled when stroked) The Red Lion at Lowick Bridge, Everard Lodge ( mongrel pup wanted to play), the Cumbria Way, Kiln Bank and Tottlebank farm.

All of this return ramble was resisted by a strong and bothersome headwind, so arriving back at the car was a bit of a relief

11 and a bit miles and 2000 feet of up.

Five tops ticked – only 8 to go…..

Here’s a map

A Race Around Baldersdale

This one took a bit of doing…. I think I did two reccies before finally deciding on the route. The I did another reccy a few days ago, in the company of superdawg in deep but thawing snow and finally, we did the County walk on Sunday. Nine of us set off, including me and the stewards Janet and Steve…. but, after all those earlier patrols, I abandoned the route half way round and announced a march up the road to finish it off.

It was, in fact, howling when we arrived. Warm, but howling. Once again, I was a bit surprised that anybody turned up, but six maniacs walkers did, so we set off directly into the teeth of an Atlantic gale which sprayed us gently but generously until lunchtime, when it stopped for lunch.

Basically, we battered up the Pennine Way to Race Yate, where the huge snowdrift , so much enjoyed by Bruno a few days before, had all but disappeared. After this, we turned left and had a brisk walk down Race Yate Rigg, pushed along by an enthusiastic tail wind, and then a plodge through the juncus to West Loups’s where, since the red flag was not flying on the firing range, we took shelter in the ruins (after first examining a very nice cup and ring marked rock, helpfully covered over with stone flags by Ranger Neville, apparently)

At West Loups’s both the troops and the storm had a ceasefire and we had just a little period of warm sunshine to dry things out just a little bit..

The wind blustered on and soon the driving drizzle returned too and as we turned the corner to West Briscoe we were hit by a fierce headwind that had sneakily turned from a Southerly to a Westerly.   This was starting to be hard work, and  the stinging rain just a bit painful and so, I decided not to fight with the mud and the exposed shores of the reservoirs, but to keep to the hard surface and return by the road. I think this shortened the route a little bit…. but not much… I think it was probably quite a bit easier. I think I detected some relief amongst the customers who’s four quid for being pushed around for five hours whilst being sluiced with cold water was starting to run out.

It seems, from chatter, that several of today’s walkers intend to come on Wednesday’s walk at Stanhope. The weather forecast looks, at first sight, horribly familiar.  But there’s a cafe half way and, I daresay, that if we throw money at them, they’ll produce hot tea and cakes. or whatever…

Most of the pics are from the reccies – I need to get a new camera before the TGO. This one is declaring independence and insists on turning itself on and off and not storing absolutely everything that I snap. Which is a bugger. (technical photography term, try not to worry about it…)

Bruno enjoyed the reccies, though – specially the snowy ones.

In the meantime, I’m off to the Lakes.

This is the map of the one of the reccies the final version goes  a bit East of West Briscoe

 

The Herring Road –The Way of the Silver Darlings

The “silver darlings” refers not to the effete softies from over the Pennines who engaged in this jaunt, but to the silvery-hued shoals of herring who, all smoked and dried were packed into baskets and carried by fishwives across the moors from Dunbar to Lauder for sale to the farmers and good people of Lauderdale as part of their winter food supply. Strictly speaking, I suppose you could say that we went kipperless and in the wrong direction and only 25% female – except that people going West to East would, of course, be kipperless having sold all of their kippers.

Apparently, some Lauderdale locals were so desperate to get their hands on a nice smoked herring, that they went and collected their own from the port at Dunbar. And later, demand for herring became so high that carts were used and the road became braided into several different routes and the one that remains is just that – one of several.

And so it came to pass that Me, Judith, JJ and Alan met up in the distinctly unfishy Thirlstane castle campsite at Lauder, erected our tabernacles in the shade of some forestry and went off to raid the Toun for scoff and beer, returning, reasonably soused a bit later to find frozen tents which didn’t thaw out till well after breakfast. (Brekkies supplied by the cafe at the leisure centre and very nice it was too…)

We were supposed to be following Girthgate and the Lothian Edge to Dunbar, but  mutiny from whingeing  troops seemed to indicate that this was considered Too Hard and a Plan B was to be pulled out of the Plans drawer. In 2007 ish , on a previous pre-TGO training walk, me and Becky had walked the Herring Road which is a day shorter than the totally kippered Plan A, and so this was to be our walk. According to the sign in Lauder, it’s 28 miles. I think it’s probably 29, but never mind. There’s definitely something fishy about the distances on the many Rights of Way signposts.

And so, devilishly early in the blindingly sunny  morning, around lunchtime, we set off in a general Easterly/North-Easterly direction past the manorial pile of Thirlstane castle and on up into the sporadic snows of the Lammermuir Hills. Magnificent views of the Cairngorm-like lumps of the Cheviots were had. The snow was deep and soft in places and we were lucky to have Alan in the front, charging off making boot-sized holes in the snow ideal for the team to follow.
We lunched briefly by the bridge over the Lythe Water (cracking camping spot, but too near to Lauder to be useful). Here, pies were served by JJ.

The was now much deep and soft snow to be battered through and once again, Alan didn’t seem to notice it. I followed, gratefully. We ploughed on , up to the moor tops and along to Twin Law. Here, there was a notebook in a tin and some sweeties. JJ wrote something in the book and I ate the sweeties…
Not too long later, we joined a new road, complete with wind farm construction traffic and found a slightly bumpy and/or soggy area of gently tilted tussocks around Twinlaw Ford across the Watch Water, which was full with snowmelt, but still clear and clean.

A cold night followed during which one of my socks froze and a large quantity of my whisky supply mysteriously disappeared. Bla Band provided the menu.
Then it was morning – a grey a mizzly one. We rejoined the road, going astray a bit after missing a turnoff hidden under snow. the fact that the road wasn’t marked on the map didn’t help much. But it was just a short and  temporary misplacement and , after crossing the Dye Water we were back on track. My impression was that there was a bit more snow here and it was deeper and softer… Alan soldiered on in front… and soon we’d crossed the 400 metre ridge and were brewing up by the Kilpallet Burn.

WE only had 8 miles to do that day, so, by half two-ish we were camped by the Writerspath Burn on the lower slopes of Spartleton, surrounded by electricity pylons on one side and a dangerously loaded snowslope on the other (I found a small avalanche had happened just by the path whilst attending to a visit from Mr Bladder. Me and Becky had camped in the now soggy and ruinous sheepfold by the same burn six years earlier.

The night was less cold, but it snowed in the early hours and the early morning scene was desolate. We had eleven miles left to Dunbar and soon, after yet another snowy plod, we were navigationally tangled in the Chrystal Rigg wind farm – some 80 turbines and service roads built helpfully on a peat bog. None of the roads appeared on my map, nor on Alan’s GPS thingy. And the forestry marked on our maps had been felled and shifted away. Some guesswork was employed and, after further snowy struggles, we emerged over the brow of a hill to a view of the Firth of Forth and the far Lomond hills – a jewel of a view.

The likeness of this walk to a TGO Challenge lies in the final few miles of lane walking – firstly on quiet and deserted roads, then a commuter village and finally the A1 roundabout and estates and street of Dunbar.
We noshed in the Cafe Central , collected the knipemobile and some keys and repaired to our bothy for the night. I won’t say exactly where this is, since the opportunity to use it will probably never arise again and it would only make you seethe with jealousy and frustration for you to pine for the luxuries of a coal fire, central heating, electric lighting and cooking, hot showers, en-suite and soft beds – and a strange stick that made rain noises….  And it was free.  We left it as we found it, apart from the extra bottles in the recycling….

But what of the Herring Road?  Its a fine moorland route with a history. Fit and determined walkers would do it in a day. Fairly fit hikers would do it in two days, except that there’s no accommodation on the route, so you’d have to camp – and the camping spots are unevenly spaced.  A high camp on Twin law in summer could be nice, although you’d have to carry water for a fair distance. But the windfarms…..   Bits of the landscape have been permanently altered and, frankly, wrecked. Somebody should be ashamed about this.

But we like Dunbar and we like Lauder. The people are friendly and there’s food and drink to be had…
I might do Plan A later in the year….
Other blog posts about this are here:
Judith’s Tales of Herring-Do
Alan’s lauder to dunbar herring road part 1   lauder to dunbar part 2
John’s JJ's Kippery tail...er..tale..

Interlude - The Boy with Tape on His Face

There will now be another one of those short gaps. This time, I'm off to Dunbar in the morning to catch a train to Edinburgh and thence a bus to Lauder (I said LAUDER!) where several spaces are booked on the campsite.

This is a TGO challenge training walk which should take three, or possibly four days. We have scoff for four, but we're hoping for three.

"Us" includes me, John , Alan and Judith - potentially a spectacularly well blogged route, should we arrive at the other end.
Due to deep snow cover (we think) our first intended route of some 70km over the moors to Dunbar seems over-ambitious and so, its more likely that we'll plod the Herring Road, with possible added loops to Dunbar.

Survivors will be taken back to Lauder and shot... apols... returned to their car for the fleshpots of Cheshire.

In the meantime, wish us luck and enjoy this short clip of a boy with tape on his face.

I mean, what could go wrong......?

Helvellyn – Where’s me Crampons?

I caught Bruno studying one of those Outdoor Leisure map things. “You’re to old and fat to be able to go up a proper hill nowadays” he says (He’s in a strop for getting the blame for scoffing one of the grandkids white chocolate Easter eggs when all along….) “Why don’t you blow the cobwebs off that unused ice axe and dig the crampons out of that drawer full of odd socks and go out and see if you can still deal with a few contours?” He said.

And so it came to pass that the knipemobile was parked on a hardened snowdrift just to the right of the King’s Head at Thirlspot, a spot picked explicitly for the bagging of Brown Crags – a Birkett sticking out of the side of Helvellyn/White Side like a little pimple. I’d brought the ice axe and the khatooola spikey things (not really used in much anger as yet) and my trusty old crampons just in case the khatoolas couldn’t cope and we stumbled off up the slippery snow towards Fisher Gill. I put the khatoolas on quite early. The snow was hard and icy and the evidence of other people’s slips was all around.

The snow was a bit patchy, mainly consisting of a huge and steep patch and some pretty drifts in the gill. We battered upwards, turning off near the top to bag Brown Crags. A Birkett with a very nice view.

Onwards and upwards and we hit the main snowline at about 650 metres. At this point, Bruno went a bit daft again and started charging about and chasing little snowballs that rolled down the hill. There was much windslab, but luckily not to deep and, maybe, not too steep and we were soon (well, fairly soon anyway) at the top of White Side where we joined a bit of a throng destined for Helvellyn. Bruno charged about all day, which accounts for why he’s now been asleep for six hours…

The top of Helvellyn has a huuuuge cornice and lots of icy snow and the khatoolas coped nicely with ice and even more nicely with hard snow. So I didn’t use the crampons which were still strapped to the back of the pack.

I lunched in the shelter with a chap from Mungrisdale and a bloke who had just climbed up the East face from the tarn. (see scary pic of him about to top out) But my bum was cold (I’ve been having trouble with this particular pair of undies in the elastic department, which isn’t very elastic just now and some of the more upholstered parts of the pieman anatomy used for sitting on were getting quite chilled. So I left.

Me and the Dawg descended the steep and icy snow of Browncove Crags, down to Helvellyn Gill, where, due to the sunshine blazing off the snow, it got quite hot (It felt hot, but it was only about 6C) So I stopped to take a layer off. This is where I discovered the loss of my beloved crampons – still in the shelter and seen by a chap who caught me up. Bugger. Bruno had curled up asleep at this point, a sign which I took to mean that a re-ascent of Helvellyn was out of the question. (This is just an excuse by the way, I couldn’t have climbed back up again….)  Luckily, the khatoolas coped with everything.

For those intent on high level TGO Challenges, and given that the amount of snow we have at the moment is unlikely to disappear completely by early May – a pair of khatoolas in the pocket would seem to be a safe and relatively lightweight solution.

Apart from the tragic and careless loss of my crampons, though, this was a superb day to be up The Lakes. The dog was right. The route wasn’t long, though – just 6 miles and 3000 feet of up.