Snow Melt Defeats Reccy – Shock Horror Probe

Some time ago, I agreed to lead a handful of guided walks for the Durham County Council summer programme and today’s plan was to take advantage of the thaw and go and reccy a route at Stanhope. This is Rangering. As I would be by myself, I would be The Lone Ranger.
The idea is that there’ll be a Durham CC guided walk which will take place on the same weekend as the Backpackers Club AGM. A good plan… maybe.


So me and Tonto, me and Superdawg set off from Stanhope and climbed up through the old quarries and the dripping snowdrifts to Crawleyside Edge. So far so good, a fine start with a bit of a high-level wander along a gritstone edge.
Sloppy slushfull fields followed which were quite hard work for a while, then, after a stride over an angry beck into what appears to have been a hidden pond (Bruno chuckled), we contoured along a high path overlooking Stanhope Burn.

The burn looked quite unpromising for a crossing, I have to say. And on closer inspection it seems that it was roughly just over knee-deep and running very fast. We followed it upstream, past a big stream junction to a braided flood. We probed. We were rejected. Further upstream looked no better. I had coffee and a cheese butty and some of my special flapjack wot I made….  

We probed a bit more. A crossing could be made, but it would be a  cold and deep paddle of about ten yards. There would be wet trousers and socks for quite a while afterwards – and there was more slushy snow ahead. We abandoned the idea and struggled up through the soft stuff to the CtoC cyclists route on the old railway track. This was underneath a large snowdrift.

At some point on the way back to Stanhope, I redesigned the guided walk route completely. There will be no paddling. We will enjoy Stanhope Dene in all it’s springtime glory, have a cup of tea at the Park Head cafe then float along Crawleyside Edge to Shittlehope where there will be rude schoolboy jokes involving incontinence, funny noises and smells.
Speaking of which, one of the walk stats is that Superdawg  had four craps. This was two more craps than I had crap bags for. Some craps were kicked into hidden spots. Sorry. I don’t know where he gets it all from.
The we’ll all go home for our tea and we’ll tell our mums all about what happened. Next time we might come across some smugglers or robbers or something.
I did 8 miles and 1100 feet. This was a bit less than intended.
Bruno ate 12kg of snow, thus advancing the thaw by 6 minutes by the way. Just another climate stat for you there. They might be interested in that in Mexico. As for me, I’m about to go and magically change 75 cl of vino collapso from Crook Boozerama into water….

Weardale Salmon Run and a Cave

Stanhope Dene

Brian called to swap wellies the other day and mentioned that on his way home he was going to watch the salmon jumping at Stanhope. This gave me the idea for this little trundle.

Every year, just about now, the salmon queue up in the weir at Durham and wait for rain. When it does rain (note its been raining a fair amount just recently) – and there’s enough water in the River Wear, they make their way upstream and into the little tributaries to mate, spawn and die.

To get up the Wear, and, specially up the little tributaries, they must jump over various obstacles to meet their ultimate fate. This can be quite a sight – some of these fish are quite big.

A good place to watch this is a pool with a small waterfall on the beck in Stanhope Dene. Here is a comfy spot to sit and the fish are often no more than a couple of feet away. If you were a brown bear – you might be able to nab a few…

Salmon pool

And so, me and superdawg journeyed to Stanhope and walked up through the woods to sit and drink coffee by the pool and fall, and, straight away, it became clear from the thrashing of fins and one or two plops and leaps that the pool was chock full of salmon.

I tried my best to photograph the buggers jumping up the fall and failed every time. Then they stopped jumping, except whilst I was pouring myself another coffee – then there was mayhem till I picked the camera up and it all stopped again.

The best I could do is on the short video – at approximately 19 seconds, a fish appears in the nearest of the flows of white water, has a look and decides not to bother. You have to be quick to see it. Just after this two very large fish were seen slipping quietly downstream. I thought I heard some fishy sniggerring. I swear I heard a little squeaky voice say "That's it, I'm gonna jump!" followed by a fishy chorus of "Don't do it, Kevin". You have to be tuned in to nature, y'know, like wot I iz.

After an hour or so, I gathered up the dog, who was busy collecting stones a bit upstream, and we clambered off over the moor to the Crawleyside incline – an ex-railway line to Sunderland – and along the very pleasant Crawley Edge and down the unpleasantly named Shittlehope Burn to have a look for the cave – which we found.

The Incline

This is in a deep limestone gorge which would be fun to explore sometime. Brian would enjoy this place.

Shittlehope cave

We finished off with a little riverside ramble and back home for a coffee

8 miles and 850 feet of uphill.