Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops – Buckden Pike

The forecast for today was for a frosty morning and a sunny day with light winds.

As I poked my head through the curtains, I could see a rain-lashed Crook. I let the cat in. He was soaked and was muttering something darkly about the Met Office. The TV this morning announced weather warnings for heavy rain in NE England. I drove to Wharfedale through several deep dubs of water. It was till chucking it down as I set off on the walk.

Buckden Gill

The intitial probings went badly. It soon became apparent that any bare rock was as slippery as buggery. Only those deeply involved in buggery will appreciate just how slippery this can be – or so I’ve been told.

The route goes up to an impasse at a waterfall, backtracks a bit and then leaps up a little gully and along an exposed ledge for a bit. It does this twice.

The scramble that rejected me

Me and Superdawg got to the gully, which Bruno attacked with gusto and , promptly slithered off and almost tumbled down the hill. A second attempt went bravely wrong in a similar way. A third attempt, with me halfway up the gully for a push up the bum nearly had me off as well. A retreat was called.

We climbed Buckden Pike by an old trackway – then a path up to Buckden Gavel Mine – a hole I’d been in a couple of times many years ago and involving such fun as igniting snowdrifts with carbide and demanding three pints of bitter in the Buck Inn two minutes before closing time, whilst covered from head to toe in orange mud. (This wasn’t me by the way)

Buckden Gavel Mine entrance

We achieved the summit of Buckden Pike. It were right foggy on the top and quite sloppy. The old path from the top used to cross the wall and head South for a War memorial. This has now been diverted and a new path with new stiles handrails the West side of the wall which, despite being pretty boggy is much easier than it is on the other side of the wall.

Buckden Pike sloppy summit

Looking over the wall

We got to the Polish War memorial. The tale of how this came about is given here http://www.buckdenpike.co.uk/ Its well worth a read, but , basically a WW2 bomber crewed by Polish airmen came to grief at this spot in a blizzard. There were initially two survivors, one of whom crawled through the blizzard with a broken leg and a head injury to the inn at Cray, following the footprints of a fox. The second survivor succumbed to the blizzard. The memorial was built by the survivor and a service is held there by Keighley ATC and scouts and cubs and so on from Airedale. A bronze fox is mounted to commemorate the role of that animal. Read the website, though – its very moving stuff.

War Memorial

The Fox

The memorial and the help and funding from local people and the annual service reflect well on local people and local yoof in particular.

After a short visit to the memorial (missed the service by about an hour) – I wanted to bag the subsidiary top called Tor Mere Top (appears in the Bridge list) and also go down to Starbotton by the bridleway over Knuckle Pasture. With a bit of navigational shenanigans, I managed both. The path contours around the head of a great corrie and has been engineered long ago to service lead mines on the hillside. the mining here is very old and there are lines of bell pits as well as the usual spoil heaps and levels.

Bell Pits

On the way, I came to Tor Dyke – an ancient Brigantian anti-Roman defence, and on top of a mound which is probably artificial (being a qualified archeologist – I’ve see many episodes of Timeteam and quite a lot of Blackadder) – I found a large stone with some carvings on it. These were what appeared to be a number 8, and cross and a circle with a dot in the middle. I wonder what they mean?

Carved Rock

From Starbotton, we just followed the Dales Way back to Buckden.

12 miles and 2000 feet of climbing and, it eventually brightened up. I only actually fell over once, but in a fairly spectacular and very muddy kind of way. Some owd yows (translation = sheep), held up cards with numbers on. I got 9.6 for style, but only 3.2 for dignified recovery due to blasphemy and the use of horrible but unusual swear words, some of whoch are probably physically impossible for all except skilled ballet dancers. Bruno just laughed.

It was my birthday today as well. I got two cards. This is one more than last year, so I'm obviously starting to become more popular. The last time the wife sent me one was three years ago. I suspect that the magic has gone.....

Birks Fell and Horsehead

Buckden and Buckden Pike

This was the second walk in the Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops project.

Birks Fell is the highest part of a long ridge that runs from Knipe Scar (thats right, worra cracking place!) near Kettlewell – to Cosh Knott , some mnhmmnnnn miles (can’t be arsed to measure it) – bit its a long ridge anyway.

Birks Fell is 2001 feet above sea level. It was ever thus, except that fairly recently, the Ordnance Survey published a map saying that the top was 609 metres. This is less than 2000 feet by..er…..a bit. And then somebody else said that the highest part of the ridge was somewhere else. A survey reinstated Birks Fell as a 2000 footer and the top of the ridge, so let there be no further dissention or even discussion about it. Its probably important.

Birks Fell Tarn

I was supposed to go up here on Sunday, but a fierce gale with lots of rain got in the way and me and superdawg turned up at the Buckden car park a bit late (11:00 am) this morning.

It appears that all of the leaves have now left their trees and it is now winter. It was quite cold (7.5 degrees according to the car thermometer – and just 3.5 degrees at the top of Kidstones Pass on the way home. And the wind-chill in the mornin g was nithering to say the least, although it calmed down a bit in the afternoon. UpperWharfedale seems to be having a rest. There’s very few people about, the pub at Hubberholme was closed, and there were only one or two cottages in Buckden with lights on in the evening.

Birks fell Summit Cairn

The walk went well enough – it was a bit windy, and there were showers, and the wind chill was perishing… but we got to the top without much in the way of excitement. The summit cairn appears to be a newish one and is in the top of what appears to be a man-made lump of the local peat. No wonder its the highest point – some bugger’s been building up the top.

We lunched. I ate willie cake (very nice) and PEK and tomato butties, Bruno dribbled a bit – and we scooted off. The walking is very easy if you stay next to the wall – its level and mainly dry – it does get very boggy in a few limited spots – but we were soon loping off over the moors and bagging the very fine top of Horsehead – fine for its view of Penyghent and Ingleborough.

Horsehead and Dog Sitting As Instructed

Soon, we dropped down to Langstrothdale, where is went a bit dark and started chucking it down.

River Wharfe Langstrothdale

We followed the Dales Way back to Hubberholme, where the pub was shut, and took the road back to Buckden.

This is a good old bash along the tops – easy walking, easy navigation, easy women.

No, not the easy women , actually.

13 miles and 1700 feet of climbing.

Camera still taking pictures….

I saw no other walkers at all today, and when I finished, mine was the only car in the car park.

If you want peace and quiet – go on a damp Monday in November.

Next walk in this series (although, not necessarily my next walk) is Buckden Pike on 8 November 2009 (my birthday!) 9:30 am Buckden Car Park start - some mild scrambling is involved...

Great Whernside in the frost

It was minus six degrees somewhere near Richmond this morning as I drove down to Kettlewell. Seems to be shaping up for a wintery winter...

Me and superdawg and my nephew had this little wander around Great Whernside on what seemed to be a very short day. We took a bridleway on the South side of Dowber Gill, a route that I'd never climbed before despite many, many trips up this hill. From the end of the bridleway, we could walk most of the ridge of Gt Whernside to the trig on the top, where there were lots and lots of people with their dawgs. No other super dawgs, though. It was all very frosty and cold and the air was fairly clear - and there was just a little frozen snow around. Some othe r nearby Pennines seem to have had a bit more...

Anyway, we could see the Lake District hills, and steam from various cooling towers somewhere in Yorkshire (not Drax, surely??) and a nuclear-explosion-type cloud over Teeside. I was assured that no such explosion has taken place today, though as many people would have noticed it and, likely, would have reported it to the appropriate authorities.

We came the short, steep and frozen slippery way down the hill and back to Kettlewell via the Park Rash Brigantian earthworks/defences - aka Tor Dyke - all the while putting the world to rights about the benefits of sitting about on the hills listening to skylarks and pipits and stuff - something I must make time for next summer.... the consequence of all this talk is that I failed to take many pics.

Home earlyish cos it went dark again.

Used me birthday gloves....