Long Walks - Wild Boar Fell, Swarth Fell and Mallerstang Edge

 Sometimes the MET Office get the weather forecast wrong. No, really...  Sunday's forecast for the Western bits of the  Northern Pennines was for patchy rain in the morning turning heavier - very heavy, in fact, in the afternoon. This would, in fact, go on all day. Above is a pic of Li Yang giving a yoga lesson near the summit of Wild Boar Fell. As you can see, it's not raining. It didn't rain for the rest of the day, apart from an hour or so of very light stuff mid-afternoon. I almost cancelled.......  Y'see, when the forecasters cry wolf, you tend to lose a bit of confidence until one day....

 Today's plan was to park in the minty parking area near The Thrang (marked as a pub on my old map, but it's not a pub) The parking area has a fine supply of wild, or, at least, feral mint. Just sayin'. So that's where we parked - me, Li Yang, Diane, David, Lucky The Dog (LTD) and Bailey the other dog.

 The route, should you wish to try it (and it's worth trying by the way) - goes up the bridleway to High Dolphinsty, no dolphins, no sty, and then up on to Wild Boar Fell, diverting away from the edge to visit the trig point which has been rebuilt and also now sits in a lovely new shelter. Back to the edge, which is followed as far as desired, then over to the boggy col or bealach below Swarth Fell

Swarth Fell has a bijoux cairn and there's a bit of a path to Swarth Fell Pike where a vague path to Aisgill Cottage can be followed to..er....Aisgill Cottage. Passports will not be required as the border with North Yorkshire is not crossed, unless you've gone a bit wrong, in which case tha mun get some dialect lessons....... 'ear all, see all say nowt etc. etc.

 And then we visit Hell Gill Force and follow the track and paths to Hell Gill where a gentle but insistent grassy and ever-so-slightly soggy ridge heads up to the crags of Mallerstang Edge  - Raven's Nest and Hangingstone and High Loven Scar's to appear eventually and with aching legs by this time at Gregory Chapel where there is nobody called Gregory nor is there a chapel about 900 feet higher than Hell Gill.  Here, it started raining and we had second lunch. (all Long Walks have two lunches) And here, LTD snuggled down between some rocks and had a snooze, whereas I had a banana and a Lidl Goats Cheese bready thing and some warmish coffee. And some nuts....

 The next bit is easy walking along the flattish ridge over High Seat to High Pike and then down the lovely ridge over The Bells and eventually to Nateby where the pub advises that it welcomes muddy boots and muddy dogs. But we have no time for this and, being strictly teetotal on Sunday afternoons we join the field and riverside paths back to the start, only being mugged by cattle just the once.

 Today's walk was 21 miles and 3800 feet of up. This is probably about average for one of our monthly long walks. October's is likely to be around Wet Sleddale and Shap and so on. It'll probably be wet. Whether or no Li Yang will provide further yoga lessons remains to be seen.

In other news, I've just applied for the 2020 TGO challenge and next year, if all plans come to fruition, I'll be walking with JJ again and Margaret aka Beryl (we all walked together back in March in Ayrshire) In the light of this I might even get around to writing a blog post about the 2019 TGO challenge wot I did with my son.
And in even more news, it's that time of year once more when half a thousand people or so run naked and screaming into the North Sea at Druridge Bay at dawn. This year is unlikely to be an exception, and the only unusual aspect could well be the timing of electrical storms which are appearing in weather forecasts....  but......