Yes folks, its time we did yet another of those Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops. Its been a while.
I went to Dent, where the dentists live, paid £4.50 at the car park (note: park by the bridge cos its free….) and allowed superdawg to pull me up Flinter Gill. Flinter Gill is very steep but it has a wishing tree, a limekiln and a view indicator, which indicates the view.
There’s no water in Flinter Gill. This has nothing to do with the drought. It hardly ever has water in it, cos it all sinks undergound high up the gill.
Anyway, we finally got up to Green lane and followed it for a while, till it noticed, then we pretended to be tying our shoelaces. I think it knew, though. We turned off up another lane and came to the moor where it started raining a bit. It wasn’t supposed to rain. the rain was supposed to be in North East England, which is why we were doing a walk overlooking Morecambe Bay. It wasn’t very heavy, though.
We reached a cairn which had been on the horizon but wasn’t any more. It was a big, old, well built shepherd’s cairn. It has a cracking view. This also meant that we were near the summit ridge. We wandered over to the trig on Crag Hill and hid behind the wall out of the rain to scoff the egg (and tomato) butty, a banana and a double decker (choc bar, not bus….).
The summit of Great Coum is just a slightly higher bit of grass near a wall junction. There is no cairn. Two other cairns appear not to be on the highest points, but nevertheless have nice views.
I descended by the eastern arm of the Great Coum itself. Its not so great, really. I’ve seen better ones. I suppose that if it’s the only Coum you’ve got…. anyway, its a pleasant way down and has a neat little peri-glacial moraine which , today was an effective windbreak and made an ideal spot to sit and count the sheep for a while. I counted twenty eight. Bruno made it thirty.
Various lanes brought us down to Dentdale. At one point we came up behind a chap with an industrial strength strimmer, clearing a bridleway. We waited for him to notice us, rather than risk an unpleasant strimming accident. He let us pass into the jungle he’d not go to yet. A bit further on, the path was cobbled, but covered by a stream. Even further on there were stepping stones. We had a paddle and played a game of throw a stick in the water and bring it out again and throw it in again and bring it out again and……
The Dales Way brought us pleasantly back to Dent on a riverside path through haymeadows.
We did eight miles and 1800 feet of uphill. It were grand, despite the spitty-spots of rain.
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