Swinner Gill and Rogans Seat

Just to say that the trap that this bird has been unlucky enough to come a cropper in, is a trap meant for stoats and rats. By reducing the number of stoats and rats, the numbers of red grouse and other ground nesting birds (but lets be honest, we’re really only interested in red grouse)… can be protected and increased, The bird in the trap is, of course, a red grouse. Its not funny. Well, its not funny for the grouse….

Anyway, moving right along – Today it was time to bag yet another of those Yorkshire dales 2000 foot tops. In fact – two – these being Rogan’s Seat and Water Crag. Rogan’s Seat’s main claim to interest is that it was once voted the most boring hill in England. I don;t think it is, and on this walk, I’ve set out to prove it.
I had to leave superdawg at home again, to protect the red grouse (snicker snicker……) and so, I was all on mysef when I parked the knipemobile by the bridge at Gunnerside.

A rather pleasant riverside path through meadows populated by this years lambs being fattened up – and a horde of Coast-to-Coasters on a low-level alternative coming the other way, all big packs and blisters. Its a nice path. Not exciting, but very nice.

Soon, I arrived at the foot of Swinner Gill and a steep track took me up to Crackpot Hall – a farmhouse devastated by subsidence caused by lead mining. From here, it starts to get a bit more exiting. A thin path takes the slightly more excited walker back into Swinner Gill. Normally, the route to Rogan’s Seat climbs steeply Eastwards on the Coast to Coast path and then takes an estate track across heathery moors to the little cairn on the top. The route is a bit dull, it has to be admitted.

But this wasn’t for us (i.e. me). Oh no.  We (i.e. me) followed Swinner Gill upstream into a deep gorge with overhanging limestone walls. This is Swinner Gill Kirk. there’s a Yorkshire tradition of calling deep limestone gorges “Kirk” – which, of course, means “church”. There’s no church or kirk, never has been. Its the gorge.

Its quite narrow and has knee-deep pools and small waterfalls and a dipper or two. It ends at a waterfall. No further progress beyond the waterfall can be made without a risky scramble, so I retraced and scrambled up the left hand rocky wing of the Kirk. This was quite good fun, and quite easy (otherwise it wouldn’t have been fun, innit..) – and a short traverse on steep bracken brought me back into the gill. More pools and waterfalls and short scrambly bits followed. It was all good clean fun. (It occurs to me that this would be an excellent scramble on a hot sunny day)

I did discover an old level next to one waterfall. I braved the drippy entrance but the way on was low and wet and muddy and I wasn’t equipped for mining, so I retreated. I noticed a boot print in the mud, though, so maybe it goes somewhere.

Even more waterfalls and pools and little steps followed till I was high up on the moor (where I found the unlucky grouse)
This is much better than the other way. But I joined the estate track  about half a click from the summit.

The summit has a small cairn on a peat hag. There’s quite a good view – south to Ingleborough and, even Pendle Hill, and North to Mickle Fell.
A fence is followed to Water Crag and the walking is mainly very easy with just a few soggy bits. Water Crag’s view Northwards is even better, being on the edge of the Stainmore Gap. its a great place to watch the A66….

Water Crag has a currick, a trig point and a circular stone shelter, which I rebuilt a bit. Its a cosy spot, out of the wind…
The next bit was rough. Gwan, ask me how rough it was…. Gwan.   It was rough – heathery then peat-haggy with no path at first, though, by handrailing the little beck, a few short sections of path did appear.


The beck leads into Gunnerside Gill which has good paths, a couple of nice limestone gorges but it’s main interest lies in the mineworkings. the place is completely devastated – absolutely ruined. It will only recover after its been iced over for a million years or so in the next ice age. But its quite fascinating. Its not pretty, but it is interesting.
I was soon in the bar of the Kings Head in Gunnerside with a pint of bitter shandy. The King’s head, by the way, has a sign outside which announces that kids, muddy boots and dogs are all welcome. Which is good.
On the way home, I broke the clutch in the knipemobile and managed to drive home from Barnard Castle without actually changing gear at all….  But its OK. It’ll be fixed in time for Peebles and my forthcoming Welsh hols.  It could have happened on the A5! When I told the dog, he said it served me right…..
Today was 13 miles and 1800 feet.

The question is – what will be the last Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot top. I am about to announce that there will be a Pie Blog competition with an actual prize. You’ll have to wait a couple of days. I have to get me clutch fixed first.

Great Shunner and Lovely Seat

We’ve been up Great Shunner Fell on a previous Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops walk (it was covered in snow) – but not Lovely Seat.
So, rather than just bag Lovely Seat, which can be done in half an hour from the top of Buttertubs Pass, I determined to make a bit of a walk out of it.

Unfortunately for superdawg, he’s not allowed up Lovely Seat till May 2015 and, such is the short life of even the most super superdawg, I fear that he’d never make it. So I distracted him with a handful of biccies in his molecky ball He has to extract the biccies from inside the ball, which he does by dragging it around the floor fairly violently. This is usually fairly successful.
So me and the knipemobile were dogless as we parked just outside Thwaite in Upper Swaledale.

Apart from a short section of path beside a tea-coloured beck, I followed the Pennine Way to the top of Shunner Fell.  This is typical PW, with lots of stone slabs. Its a gentle climb and, due to the perishing and energetic North-Westerly (a gift from Iceland for all the fish), a sweat was not broken into. In fact I had three layers on and me winter hat.
Shunner Fell and Lovely Seat have rather a lot of “beacons”.  On inspection, these turn out to be shepherds’ cairns. I doubt if this many beacons would have been required – although several hills in England do sport beacon sites, mainly dating from Spanish Armada and/or Naughty Napoleon times. But these aren’t beacons, they’re cairns. Somebody is avvin a larf.



Lunch in the cross-shelter was a shivery affair. I seem to have persuaded a coupe to climb Lovely Seat too, and they set off along the fence line to find the start of the Lovely Seat path at the top of Buttertubs Pass. I followed shortly afterwards and passed them just before the pass.
The Lovely Seat moors are, apparently, closed at the moment “at the land manager’s discretion”. That means grouse shooting. Its closed for four weeks excluding weekends.

Anyway, I soon made it to the top, realising about half way up that the reason I was climbing hills so easily today was that I’d forgotten to take my daily selection of various blockers and inhibitors…..  makes yer wonder….. 
The way from the top – which does have a seat on it by the way, although a better description would be “draughty” rather than “Lovely” – was to head towards a patch of light –coloured ground on the far horizon. This is the lead-mine wasteland above Gunnerside Gill, but a line directly heading towards this hits the bridleway from Thwaite spot on. This navigation strategy will be ineffective in hill fog and in these conditions, finding the bridleway exit through the intake wall could be an interesting navigational challenge. Heading North would probably get you home after a while…..

As it happens, I diverted to follow a deep gill with some small waterfalls and came at the bridleway from the West. Various lanes and bridleways lead back to Thwaite.
But what of Lovely Seat? Its an easy climb of about 500 feet from Buttertubs. The top is dry and grassy. North, South and East, though have miles and miles of mossy moors – the South and East being a grouse-shooting estate. Its a dog free zone.
Today’s walk was 9 miles and 2100 feet.

Monkeying Around Swaledale

I set off for Fountains Fell this morning. I was a little biut late due to having to rescue Bruno and Tammy from the claws of Tommy, next door’s cat, whom they’d somehow manage to corner in the back yard (not a good idea..) – then the petrol pump at the petrol station wasn;t working, then the roads were a bit flooded and all the local farmers had decided to drive around slowly with horseboxes – so by the time I got to Richmond, it was getting late.

I dredged up a plan B and went to Reeth where it was snowing.

Not a specially good start

But me and superdawg had a nice little trundle through the floods at Grinton (two feet deep) and over the moor to Harkerside, which has some kind of iron age defensive work on the top.

Harkerside earthwork

The path from Harkerside runs along the hillside for a couple of miles and has cracking views of Upper Swaledale. Eventually, after a draughty lunch of yesterday’s cheese butty and banana in a shooting butt, we crossed over the moor into Apedale. I really should have saved the banana for this bit.

Bruno killing some snow

Anyway, from the foot of Apedale we completed the circle (13 miles and 2000 feet of climbing).

It snowed soft, wet snow in short but fierce squalls on and off pretty much all day, but not much was sticking around. The only thing it really achieved was numbing one half of my face. Higher tops to the West and South were bright white under the hillfog, though – I expect FF had a nice white cover. (bugger!). Bruno likes to attack snow, and he did manage one short game of bite the snow I think it was beginning to freeze as we came down the road into Grinton.

Bruno, bell pit, Apedale beyond

Not Fountains Fell, though. Will FF turn out to be another Shelf (?Ledge) route? I won’t be having another go at it till at least February, cos I iz so bizzi, innit? I have a Christmas Tree to put up and dress tomorrow – its sitting in the back yard just now.

Apedale shooters huts

Anyway, if you’re ever in Reeth and at a loose end, this walk is a blast – easy walking, gentle gradients, easy navigation, nice views, no pub. Pity about the flooded path at the start.

The route on the map is anti-clockwise (doesn’t do arrows….)

More Visions of Swaledale. And some new holes

I didn’t nearly went to Swaledale today, I did went to Swaledale. We parked at the city centre car park at Muker (£3.50!!!) and wandered off to find a track which leads up to a little stone hut I’d noticed from a distance whilst walking on Kisdon a few months ago. (Incidentally, for non-dialect speakers, Muker is pronounced Myookah. It translates roughly as the shieling of the dirty cows wot’ll give you a good time anyway for the price of a pint of brandy. But that’s dialect for you.
Anyway, I located the start of the path fairly easily – turned out to be a pleasant grassy rake leading up through scrubby woodland of ash and hawthorn and birch and all of those natural trees of Northern woodland. This must be a fab place in high summer and I must return to it.
Eventually, I reached the little hut, which turned out to be a bit bigger than I expected, though ruinous and with well over a hundred years of sheepshit inside. Its purpose seemed obvious. It was a mine shop. This isn’t a place to buy mines or mine souveneirs, but the place where the miners lived during the week. And to prove it, there in the beck bottom, was a mine level. Some work was being carried out in restoring the arched entrance way.
Two blokes turned up just then and one explained some of the history of the place, most of which I failed to remember. But the gist of it was that it was opened in the mid eighteenth century, then closed in the early nineteenth and reopened for a mere three years in the mid nineteenth. So it had lain festering and falling apart for about 150 years.
We climbed up the gill – and shortly discovered a second entrance. I wondered whether or not the lower one was, in fact the wet level, to drain out the water, and this was the working level. A short distance uphill, behind a couple of boulders, lay the third, highest level. When the word “bugger” was shouted inside, it reverberated with distance. It’s a deep hole. I must go in it. Innit? I’ve emailed my hole-exploring pal about it.
Me and the dawg followed the path along the hillside over West Arn Gill and into Swinner Gill. This is as fab a bit of fellwalking as you could wish for. Its complicated with bits of “in”, and other bits of “out” – of gullies and scree fields, and the views of Swaledale are smashing and unusual.
We traversed the moor over to Gunnerside Gill and , in the spirit of the walk, I explored the steep Western side near Botcher Gill - and discovered a wheel pit and rediscovered scree running down it’s 50 metres of spoil heap. Very steep. Very good fun.
We walked down to Gunnerside then along the riverside paths back to Muker – thence to Richmond Co-op for more supplies for another walk tomorrow…


But then I saw the weather forecast… I may postpone for a day or so. The bananas will be OK I may have to eat the roast pork.

We did ten and a half miles by the way. Boots were fine.