Nenthead to Garrigill and back

Ash Gill Force

Well, that about wraps it up for 2015 - A good year for a Welsh backpack with JJ, lots of walkies with Dawn including Corbett-bagging in the heelans and also with JJ in the Cheviots, Wainwright's Coast to Coast with LTD and, of course, the North-East skinny-dip...   phew.. And much more stuff, adding up to 1459 miles, 250k feet of ascent and 141 tops bagged (Lucky did more than this!)

Sunny Nenthead

And it was off to a damp start to 2016 with a Wednesday-Walkers-Wot-Walk-On-Saturdays guided walk from the frankly soaked Nenthead car park to the ever-so-waterlogged Garrigill and back via the almost-in-spate South Tyne and Ash Gill Force a waterfall of some..er...force that can be walked behind for an impressive view of a roaring curtain of cream-coloured water.

Me and Lucky did a reccy a week or so before in roasting in weak winter sunshine. And it was good, if a bit sloppy underfoot.  This jaunt is, of course, mentioned in the previous post, so there's no need to drag up the fact that I kept getting lost eh?

Trying to switch on an ordnance survey map



Wandering behind Ash Gill Force

On the day, just four people turned up, plus Bailey The Dog. This was mainly due to a darkly sinister weather forecast, two attacks of coryza , or, maybe common colds,  and a social engagement involving anything not connected with driving over the Pennines to get really wet.  My Plan B, in the event of nobody turning up, was to attend a Knipe-based family gathering with some of the Scottish branches of Clan Knipe at the border fortress town of Alnwick. As for LTD, he refused to go out the back of knipetowers to chase Thomas, next door's ginger cat, which he does every morning unless it's chucking it down. His victorious ejection of Tommy from the back yard is usually celebrated with a dentastick and his breakfast. In view of the forecast and the fact that he shivers miserably when really wet, I left him at home snuggling smugly on a beanbag. My mission this coming week is to get him a better winter coat.

On the subject of getting lost, we did take the opportunity of the hill-foggy conditions to practise a little map-and-compass navigation. This went much better than I'd managed a few days before, it has to be said. It's a lot easier when you've given the map to somebody else... (just a  tip, there...)

Bentyfield and Whitesyke Mines by Garrigill Burn
 

Rob Cunningham has supplied most of the pics on this blog post, mainly due to the fact that my camera failed to recognise that any of the batteries I put in had any actual electricity in them. Thanks Rob.

I hope everybody enjoyed the jaunt. It didn't actually rain all day, preferring to drizzle, but there was some proper precipitation at for the final few miles.

Its a good walk, though and there's a map below for anybody else intent on trying to follow it. I made it 9 miles, everybody else said it was 10.

Ash Gill Force in sunshine