Round of Easegill

This is yet another of one of those Yorkshire dales 2000 foot tops walks, the tops in this case being Great Coum, Green Hill and Gregareth. These three grassy lumps are arranged neatly in a little horseshoe around the little dale of Easegill. Easegill, of course is much more famous for its 75km of caving system than for a soggy round of three grassy lumps but not for us today.

I picked up the brother from Kendal and whisked him off to some lane parking at a high road-end just next to Bullpot Farm. Bullpot Farm is the Red Rose Caving Club’s “hut”. Bullpot of the Witches being a pothole very close by….
But none of this for us. Instead, we had a damp trek through soggy sedges for just a bit more than a thousand fairly gentle feet to the top of Crag Hill, which was occupied by a party of sheep, and then on to Great Coum for lunch. I’d been here before, of course, and I repeated the egg butty lunch. I’m not obsessed by Great Coum or anything, but its on the round y’see.

Hill fog had cleared on our climb up Crag Hill but here it rolled in again. We descended to the County Stone, not loking at the extensive view that we couldn’t see due to the hillfog. The County Stone marks the old county boundary of Lancashire, the West riding of Yorkshire and Westmorland. It sports some graffiti which is clearly older than the boundary walls that meet there….

We plodded on to Green Hill and then to Gregareth, meeting with a very stroppy Swaledale (Swardle) ewe who stamped her feet at us and wouldn’t get out of the way.

I must say that if you decide to do this ridge, wait for clear weather. Its not that its difficult to navigate the place, its just that in hill fog and without the lovely view of Ingleborough, the ridge is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit dull. Its just too easy. You just walk alongside the wall…. and thats it.
We descended to the Three Men of Gregareth – three stone “men” or tall cairns..actually there’s now four of them.  Bruno dozed off here whilst we had a snack and a shelter out of the wind and drifting mist. I’m not sure how he achieved this as the stones here aren’t exactly comfy cushions…..

We descended further to Leck Fell House and then across the moor to Easegill Kirk. Unfortunately, due to the extreme slipperiness of the carb limestone (its always like this when its wet), we couldn’t explore the Kirk properly. I’ll be back, though – its a fine and interesting gorge…

An easy path took us back to Bullpot Farm…..
I think Gregareth could well mean Heather(y) Height.  by the way. There’s a fair amount of Welsh in the place names around here. Its just a guess…

We did 9 and a bit miles and 2000 feet of climbing.
There’s only seven Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops left to do. Can you guess what they are?

Taking an Egg Butty up Great Coum

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.