Borders Backpacking, Moffat – Peebles Day 1

We met at the Rosetta campsite in Peebles – Me, Alan, Laura, Judith and Louise – four bloggers and a sailor and a completely different set of Moffpeeblers than those who had endured the Peebles-Moffat walk last September.  The previous set of Moffpeeblers were all pretending to be ill or busy, or generally hiding behind the sofa. There’s many an Englishman (and girly) now abed would count themselves accursed they were not here, though, so once more unto the Moffpeebling hills, once more.

And so, as is traditional, we attended the Bridge Inn for beers  and also  Franco’s Tragicatoria next door for pasta and nutrition before a bit more beer back at The Bridge. I should point out that I had already bagged a little HuMP that day – Mountbenger Law, on my journey North so I was specially hungry and thirsty.

None of this delayed our transfer to Moffat in the morning for brekkies at the Rumbling Tum  before embarking on our search for the Southern Upland Way, which we found exactly where it was supposed to be.

The walk progressed without much in the way of tragi-comedy, apart from a suspicion at one point that we were a bit lost – but we panicked not and ate Laura’s liquorice sweeties for sustenance and battered on out of the forest and into the hills. The scenery improved.

We got to Ettrick Head where the Southern Upland Way creeps off for shelter down the very lovely Ettrick valley. We, on the other hand, took the uphill and windy option and struggled up our first “Donald” – Capel Fell where expansive views of the Moffat Hills with their great and beautiful corries opened up suddenly raising hopes of a cracking walk ahead.

We plodded (it was late in the day) – over two more Donalds – Smidhope Hill and White Shank before arriving at Bodesbeck Burn – a wide and soggy bealach at the foot of Bodesbeck law for the evening camp.

I must admit that, for me, the post-dinner evening is a blur. Apparently there was snoring AND singing at the same time, a skill about which I was unaware. I became vaguely conscious of a snipe drumming and wheeling about during the night and the specially bright moonlight, but it was 14 hours before Mr Bladder got me up in time for day 2 – an account of which follows after I’ve had some more caffeine (i.e. in a minute or two) (account is of day 2, not Mr Bladder…)

Measurements of the walk will vary and, I expect that there could be up to four blog accounts of this walk. I measured today at 12 miles and 3100 feet of climbing. This will probably be different to everybody else’s…

Quite good fun so far…..!

 

Intermission

For no reason other than  a bit of love

A Little Light Bagging Around Easedale

I met the bro and his pal Ian on a wind-swept and drizzly layby on the A591 just out of Grasmere in the approximate direction of The North Pole. Weather forecasters couldn’t decide whether it would be just showers or rain in the morning or if it would be a breezy old morning or what. In the end it rained till lunchtime.

We climbed Silver Howe. This was very steep. My legs were in “heavy” mode. maybe if I discarded 10 kg of wobbly fat it would be easier going uphill. I’m very fond of the wobbly fat, as it happens, since I have acquired it expensively in various drinking dens and shebeens throughout County Durham and parts of Yorkshire. Its a serious investment. It seems that its very fond of me too, however.

We progressed painfully uphill (see above) and a bit painfully downhill (knee) – and we bagged the little 414 metre Birkett Lang How, then the 411 metre Birkett Swinescar Pike. Or maybe we did them the other way around. Anyway, whichever way it was, at this point, the sun came out and the beautiful Langdale scenery revealed itself from it’s wispy nighty. Shame on it for getting up so late. Must have had a good night last night…

Anyway, after a bit of lunch including some dozing in the warm sun, we went on to bag various Castle Hows, just in case one of them was a Birkett, which, indeed, one of them was.

After visiting the Wainwright top of Blea Rigg – one of his strange summits which isn’t on the top of a hill, we descended past the daundering camping spot of last April and rambled along the shore of Codale Tarn, trying to remember where we’d camped back in 1981 whilst the inner cities of England battled it out with their local constabularies and Mrs Thatcher wasn’t for turning.

Tarn Crag followed (another Wainwright not on the top of a hill) and a pleasant wander down by Sout Milk Gill brought us back to the fleshpots of Grasmere.

It were grand.

It were windy.

My legs hurt.

8 miles and 2400 feet of heaving this adipose cadaver up contours which are much too friendly with each other for their own good.  Nice views, though…

Station to Station Ribblehead to Dent Station

Bright readers will already have noted that the title of today’s blog post includes the words “Dent Station” and not just “Dent”. This is because Dent Station is absolutely miles from Dent. They should have called it Dent Head or Dentdale…

Anyway, as the weathergirl declared that  today would be a sunny old day, following a chilly old morning with a stiff old breeze blowing a substantial windchill up an old geezer’s old trouser legs, I suggested to the dog that we could go for a walk instead of doing any of the other things on the “list of things to do this week”. I’ll probably do some of them tomorrow.

So we went to Dent Station and caught the 10:07 to Ribblehead and walked back again.

We had a little visit to Thorns Gill, mainly because its appeared on other people’s blogs (e.g. Dan from Earby) and I’ve never been. so we went. I liked it. Its a good place to be on a hot summer day, I should expect.

We completed the loop and returned to the road, mainly to find the start of the Roman road to Bainbridge. There’s a more direct route from Gearstones to Wold fell, but why make things simple? So we marched up the roman road three abreast, waving our swords and saying “hail” and stuff like that.

The problem with this walk so far (apart from the stupid amount of road walking at the start) (and the strange off-road loop) is that every time I took a photo it had Ingleborough in it. Ingleborough draws the attention unfairly. other attractions such as the viaduct or the pretty traffic lights at the road works, or the cute and potentially delicious new born lambs don’t get a look in. Its all Ingleborough, Ingleborough, Ingleborough.  Anyway, peering at the ground, I noticed that the path was made up entirely of fossils and dog’s feet.

Crinoids. 

No, really…

So, by way of a change, I got lost. Y’see, the OS have got this path from Kidhow Gate which ends at the old boundary between the West and North ridings of Yorkshire. As the path goes through the North, its not a right of way. Then it pops back into West, where its legal again. The problem with it is, of course, that its a complete figment of a fevered imagination. There’s a very old wall marking the boundary – probably a little more than 200 years old, i should expect. And there’s no crossing point. So I didn;t cross. I followed the old county boundary till I was forced to hop over a wall and.. just a little way down the hill… I found a path. A new path. A new path with “bridleway” signs. I followed it all the way back to Kidhow Gate. Bugger. I followed it downhill again past Jam Sike ( a small beck), down to the Dent road.

Then, along the road a bit, I expected another bridleway that looses its legality at the county boundary, but found a new bridleway, with a new surface, and a continuous line to the top of Arten Gill.  Its all good stuff, but all the maps I’ve seen, including on-line ones don’t have these paths properly mapped.

The walk along the Cross Wold lane which contours across Gt Knoutberry is a sheer  high-level delight on soft and springy turf with extraordinary views of Dentdale and .. Ingleborough…

We finished after seven hours of Dales fun.  We did 16 miles and 2100 feet of uphill. the map doesn’t show the random wanderings, but concentrates on the comfortable route for people who don’t like climbing walls.

 

Station to Station Horton in Ribblesdale to Ribblehead

Nobody messed with the clocks and the 10:52 train from Ribblehead to Horton was on time.

The main challenge was that it was chucking it down. In fact it chucked it down till I got high up on the slopes of Ingleborough, at which point, the hill fog started to lift, revealing a strange white shape on the hillside about four hundred metres from the path. Despite the fact that my specs were in my pocket, I formed the opinion that the strange white lump could be an aircraft where I’d never seen an aircraft before, so I sploshed off for a look, hoping that it wasn’t occupied by anybody.

It was indeed an aircraft and an, apparently fairly recently crashed one too. Luckily, there was nobody in it. (An internet search afterwards revealed that it had crashed on 21 March and that the two occupants had been injured and rescued by the cave rescue organisation). The plane was heavily damaged and the cockpit was crushed, so it seems miraculous that an individual could survive.

I returned to the path and slogged up on to Ingleborough for my pheasant, orange and brandy pie wot I’d bought at the farmers market in Barnard Castle yesterday. Bruno, and somebody else’s pet dog both offerred to help, but I struggled through.

After this, I did a quick bit of light navigation and wandered off towards Swine Tail and Simon Fell, joining up with a couple of walkers who were making up their walk as they went along, in a commendable style, in my opinion.  They’d decided to head for Ribblehead and then to road-walk back to Horton. They were in training for a go at the Yorkshire Three Peaks in the summer, so a bit of distance was just the thing.

We walked on to Park Fell, where the sun came out and they altered their route (bless ‘em…) on realising that the intake wall would lead them to Alum pot and Selside and a much shorter road walk.

I carried on Northwards, finding unmapped paths which ended in the quarry at Ribblehead which has a short nature-trail-type walk.

This was the 32nd time up Ingleborough for me, not counting one day in 1984 when we searched the place for somebody who was somewhere else and bagged the summit several times.

Today was 9 miles and just over 2000 feet of climbing. the knee is not specially happy. It doesn’t seem to like steep downhill contours.

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