A Pennine Journey Worrif

I should explain what a “worrif” is before I begin. Worrif the sky fell in. Worrif one morning we all woke up and we’d turned into Chinese. (This doesn’t apply to those people who are already Chinese…) Worrif God made a mistake…
Worrif I did this Pennine Journey thing?
But first, a short debate.
For those who don’t know, which , no doubt will include many of my colonial readers and those who aren’t English,  there is a chap in English hillwalking called Alfred Wainwright (dec’d). AW, as he is often known, wrote and illustrated a fine set of guidebooks to the English Lake District which became very popular. He also did a guide to the Pennine Way and he made up a Coast to Coast walk which many people follow. He did the same thing for the Howgills and for the Yorkshire dales limestone country and, when he got famous, there were TV programmes and glossy coffee table books. He seems to have kept himself mainly to the North of England as far as walking is concerned, which is why I referred to him in terms of “English” hillwalking. He seems to have had no impact at all on Scottish or Welsh walking.

After Alf died, a group of people formed the “Wainwright Society” who’s aims seem to be to worship and promote “The Great Man”. This is the bit I have a problem with, not that it will bother anybody in the Wainwright Society. I suspect that one or two may be making a bit of money out of links with “The Great Man”, but mainly, they seem to be raising money for charity – which is good.
Now then. In 1938 AW walked to Hadrian’s Wall from Settle. the he walked back again by a different route. Then he wrote a book about it and, in true AW style, put it away and there it lay till he got a bit more famous at which point it was published. I got a copy for my birthday in 1987. Its an interesting book and the first half is well written. The second half seems a bit rushed to me…..

But anyway, it was , perhaps, inevitable, that somebody at some point would make up a modernised version of the walk.
In this case David and Heather Pitt designed the walk and members of the Wainwright Society drew maps, walked the walk, and so on and now there’s a guide. Proceeds from the guide will go towards waymarking the route and the Great North Air Ambulance.
But what of the route?
I couldn’t order a copy of the book because the order form from the website is gibberish, but there’s enough information on the website to determine how the route goes.
Its not rocket science and much use is made of existing LDPs.
But you can look at the website and determine the route for yourselves.

Walkers will find some parts of it horrendously busy – specially the Yorkshire Dales bits and Hadrian’s Wall. The Pennine way, which is used quite a lot, isn’t what it used to be as far as traffic is concerned and some parts – e.g. Weardale and the Western scarp of the Pennines could do with a few more pedestrian tourists.
I expect that some small businesses along the route will feel the benefit, and this seems to be one of the stated aims of the producers, though why this should animate them escapes me for the moment.

And - the aims of the WS have apparently been amended to include the following:
“To foster and enhance AW’s standing on the field of long distance footpath walking.”  This strikes me as very odd indeed. It begs the “why?” question…. I really don’t get this. But I’ll leave that there – its nothing to do with me, really.
But, despite my reservations – as above, plus the places on the route which are busy enough already, and you could find better ways than those chosen in some places, and it doesn’t really follow AW’s route, but it gets fairly close…..   I’m strangely drawn to the idea and , well, worrif I had a go at it…
I might just do a local section. I could drink beer at the Hare and Hounds at half time. Maybe have me tea there….
Thats the worrif. Worrif I get hooked…..  Worrif I find myself applying for membership of the Wainwright Society and start smoking a pipe and grumbling at women……   nah……

Links:
http://www.penninejourney.org.uk/
http://www.wainwright.org.uk/
http://hareandhoundswestgate.blogspot.com/
The last one is the most important.

Fountains fell and other plans

 

Its probably a good idea just to go over current walking plans, so that anybody who’s interested can do whatever it is you do when you’re interested in something.

There’s a theme running about climbing all of the Yorkshire dales 2000 foot tops. This is going well just now and the next victims to the Knipe boots and paws are Fountains fell and Darnbrook Fell this coming Sunday (29th)

I’ve also just decided a new theme for the winter, which will be local County Durham walks. this is my contribution to saving petro-chemicals and also my own petrol money at the same time. Walks will either be very doggy friendly or , at least, discrete. the dog is coming with me anyway. They’ll be easy for me to get to if it snows a lot, too….

There’s a couple of additional walks in there too, as special Christmas offers….

So, here’s the programme for the rest of November and for December:

27 November Elephant Trees from Wolsingham

29 November Fountains and Darnbrook Fells from Arnclife

6 December Slit Vein, Rookhope from Westgate

8 December Crookrise and Cracoe Fells from Embsay with Martin Banfield

13 December Dodd Fell Hill from Hawes

22 December Winter solstice Dead Stones howff from Killhope Cross (time tba)

24 December Drumaldrace from Semer Water

27 December Fell Head from Tebay

31 December Middlehope Moor from Cowshill

Everything starts at 09:30. If it snows a lot, or the roads are very icy or something, it may be a bit later.

Some of the walking will be after dark, so lights will be needed

Wild Boar Fell Swarth Fell and Baugh Fell

This is the first of the Yorkshire Dales Hills walks. A walk very similar to this one appeared in October’s TGO magazine written by Ian Battersby. But I didn’t copy it, I made this up myself….

Cautley Crag from Ravenstonedale Common

Anyway, we parked up at Rawthey Bridge and wandered on to Ravenstonedale Common. After the shock of suddenly discovering that I knew where I was, I decided, as there wasn’t much else to amuse myself with, apart from plodding uphill over the soaking mosses, to have a bit of navigation practise. So off I went on short legs and then one really long one designed to bring walker and his trusting dog to Sand Tarn. The surprise was that it worked, despite my assumption that I’d missed it.

Sand Tarn is pretty much hidden from below and lies on a little shelf just below the trig point. Its a grand spot – it would make a good wild camping spot.

Bruno had a paddle, I stuck me feet in and they turned a funny blue colour and started hurting, so I pulled them out again smartish.

Sand tarn on its shelf

And so we reached the summit and had a little wander around the edges before stopping by a collection of cairns for an early lunch. The views from Wild Boar Fell today stretched from somewhere North of Gretna to the middle bits of Airedale – and Morecambe bay and much of the Lake District hills.

wild boar fell’s cairn collection

After an egg butty and various other delights, we squelched off to Swarth Fell and Swarth Fell Pike – an easy but sloppy traverse. Even sloppier than this, were the moors to the South which lead down to Rawthey Gill Foot – an ideal place to have another lunch…..

The River Rawthey is a noisy little stream just here and it could have been due to this that it struck me just how quiet the hills were today. There were times of utter silence – just the tinnitus….. and then the RAF hurtled over and over at Warcop ranges, somebody blew something up…. and a sheep bleated and a slug farted and my left boot squeaked….. But apart from that, it was fairly quiet….

We handrailed Swere Gill and Brocken Gill which brought us up onto the big top of Baugh Fell – quite close to its summit – Tarn Rigg Hill. I expect they call it Tarn Rigg Hill due to the fact that its a ridge with a lot of tarns on it… dhuhhh….. Baugh Fell, of course is Very Old English for Dirty, Squishy Flat place. And it is very sloppy in parts – it even scared the dog at one point and he’s in his own little world most of the time (he thinks he’s out hunting wildebeest..)

Knoutberry Haw with a view of the Howgills

But there are good views, and we splattered across tot he West top – Knoutberry Haw and then, as time was pressing and it was starting to get a little dark – over the big, empty shoulder to drop down to the Rawthey again just a little to the Right of Uldale House.

We followed a bridleway back as the daylight petered out. I snapped one pic of the autumn trees before the lights turned off. We abandoned the bridleway and followed an ancient track signifed by a little cut on the hillside and a strip of soft rush

This walk was 15 miles and just over 3000 feet of ascent, and a lot of ruches and sphagnum. Its a good start, though, I think.

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....