Attermire – Not a Wainwright Outlier

The plan for today was to go and bag The Pike – one of the two remaining unbagged Wainwright Outlying Fells that I’d resolved to compleat (sic) in 2013. It became clear, on the outskirts of Kirkby Stephen that the weather forecast for Cumbria was correct and a fine wind-driven drizzle of the Very Wettest Kind was likely to make a trip to the fells of Dunnerdale a remarkably unpleasant experience. Bruno, sat in the back of the car, agreed.

We got to Kendal and almost set off for Dunnerdale when a new plan was made. We decided that it might be drier at Ingleton, and, maybe Ingleborough would be a good place to go. The fact that we didn;t have maps for the Yorkshire dales was dismissed as a minor problem. Penyghent was mentioned, then , maybe, Fountains Fell, all of which seemed possible. Then Ria mentioned the caves at Settle and, in particular, the Hoffman limekilns, which I’d not visited, but had heard about. So we went to Settle.

We set of in just in dry conditions, which eventually resolved itself into a light drizzle. The Bro decided on a lightweight approach and left his pack and butties in the car. No maps, no butties, a thin plan, short daylight, hillfog…..  heart conditions…. 
 

Anyway, it all went very well. We located Victoria Cave and , then Jubilee caves, where we lunched inside , out of the drizzle, then the erotic boulder at Winskill and Cattrigg force, inspected from the top to save energy [koff…] and Stainforth and then, finally, the Hoffman Kilns.


I was impressed by the kiln – a huge abbey-like gallery, very dry inside and a perfect place for a pickernick on a draughty day, or, maybe, a discreet bivi, perhaps.
We finished through Langcliffe and along the Pennine bridleway.

The last two Wainwright outliers will have to wait till 2014, it seems. It’s too far to go there now and my vision is for the Pike to fall to the Pieman’s ticking pencil on a blustery, cold, bright and sunny day in April when the daffies are flowering….
The Attermire walk was about seven and a half miles. Of course, we’d been to Attermire dozens of times before, going back forty or fifty years, mainly without maps, occasionally, as youths, not completely sober, and sometimes armed only with a hundred and fifty feet of rope and a rock-climbers guide to Yorkshire limestone.
And we only got a little bit damp..