Armboth Fell – Wainwright or Birkett – Which is best?

The idea for this little trundle was to bag the Birkett top of Armboth Fell – as opposed to the Wainwright top. Non-baggers will immediately see the strong links between hill bagging and train spotting here. I expect that most Wainwright baggers, for instance, will be unaware that there’s a difference and, what’s more, will probably have bagged the Birkett top and not the Wainwright one by mistake – cos it’s obviously a bit higher and has a liddle liddle tweeny tweeny and cute cairn on a slab.

Does it matter, though?

Not really.

So anyway, as a starter, and taking advice from a tweet by John’s pal Ria to park on the main road and not allow United Utilities to exploit me to the tune of seven quid (SEVEN QUID? – We’ve been here before , I think.

Me and the Dawg (the surviving Dawg) pottered off down the shoreline road for , well, quite a way, and then took the steep path up onto Armboth Fell. This path goes to Watendlath, apparently. At the top of the path we traversed the heather hillside for the bagging of Fisher Crag – another Birkett, and rather a fine one at that, with a little easy scramble to the top and a fine view of Thirlmere and Helvellyn. We tarried quite a bit here because it was almost warm in the sun, and the view….

Then it was time for the Armboth Fells. We bagged both Birkett and Wainwright to be sure, but tarried not here due to the seeking breeze from off Ullscarf’s snow and battered West over the frozen bogs to join the fence to High Tove. Bruno found various patches of snow and ran from one to another , eventually getting himself excited enough to have a bit of a bark.

The bogs below High Seat were unfrozen. this was causing a party coming the other way some difficulties. Me and the Dawg, experienced in North Pennine boggy bits, trotted across  using only the skulls of departed ramblers stuck in the deep peat as stepping stones to drier land. nobody ever celebrates the sacrifices some people go through to ensure the Pieman has dry boots. (sniff)

We got to the top of High seat, where there’s a lovely trig point and a twin peak with a “man” on it. This is not so much a “man” as a “cairn”. We sat for a bit. I finished the coffee and chocolate and stuff and Bruno scampered around some more snow patches, having a little bark every now and then. This set off a movement down below  - no, not another attack of gastro-enteritis, but a herd of around half a dozen red deer, invisible till they moved. Spooked by the dog, they left stage right, in a hurry. Bruno didn’t notice till later, when, on his lead for the safety of the deer and for his own sake, he finally got a whiff of their scent.

The path down by raven crag was closed for the chopping down of trees, so a long diversion was taken around the sides of The Benn.

Quite a nice day, really – almost spring-like, but the ground still frozen, as was Thirlmere, although it had thawed by the time I got off the hill.

We did eleven miles and 2700 feet of upness, which is probably quite good TGO training, I would have thought. Its a start, anyway.

The little car park with the seven quid charge had two cars in it by the way. The roadside verges had eighteen. I wonder if it will ever occur to the accountancy-driven utility and National Park bodies that , say, a three quid charge at a car park could well increase their car parking income significantly. Whereas at the moment, it would seem , 90% of drivers seem to prefer a free verge to a greedy milk-the–motorist charge.  They could double their money by charging a bit less than half. Worth a shot anyway.

A Bit of Canine Trauma

Up until five o’clock tea time yesterday, there were two dogs at knipetowers. Now, unfortunately, there’s only one. The old veteran matriarch, Tammy had to be put to sleep and that was the end of that.

She’d been definable as “geriatric” for about two years and, gradually and bit by it, she lost most of her hearing and eyesight and, eventually, her bearings, and would stand in one place, indecisive until encouraged in a particular direction.

So, at tea time today, when superdawg had his daily scoff, the same rituals took place. These rituals were instigated some eleven or so years ago to prevent conflict between the two pooches at teatime. Bruno – driven almost entirely by the search for food, more food, snacks and steals, would push his way into Tammy’s dish and receive a severe and noisy punishment from the old dog. After a short while, it seemed that Tammy was eating deliberately slowly in order to ambush the pup and have yet another opportunity to put him in his place. The strategy we adopted was to throw a handful of doggiebix down the hallway for Bruno to hunt and catch – thus distracting him from Tammy’s dish, and, in turn, foiling Tammy’s evil machinations.

After a turn around the back yard, Bruno would check Tammy’s now empty dish.

Now Tammy has gone, but Bruno still has the same routine – biccies down the hallway, back yard, check Tammy’s dish. I suppose he’ll always do that.

The next Knipe pooch will arrive whenever it becomes time to retire Bruno from the hills. He seems to have a lot of energy still in him, though. He’s a little bit slower and his attempts at big stiles sometimes fail, but he’s got a fair amount of time to go, I think.

Ah, well, never mind. Poor Tammy.

Digging Out Gibson’s Cave

Unnervingly or alarmingly attentive readers may remember that back when it was chucking it down big time, I failed to walk the path from the Bowlees pickernick place car park to Gibson’s cave/Summerhill Force due to a sloppy landslip that had smothered the path to a depth of a few feet.

Any road up, I recently got the opportunity to go and help dig it out and yesterday, along with a van full of big blokes called Ron and two lasses called Adele  the huge mudslide was attacked, along with the trees it had brought down with it and a brand-new spanky (if a bit muddy) path was cut through the chaos.

Actually, it was a bit overstaffed at the diggings, so me and one of the Adele’s went and cleared the mud and winter compost off the paving outside the toilets, washed it, cleared the gutters, washed some signs, knocked another signboard into position and picked some litter. A local chap walking his dogs went off for lunch and returned with a stepladder (not his real ladder, but his step-ladder) and a bucket for the clearing of the gutters.

So, it was quite a successful “do”.

Apologies for getting everybody’s name wrong by the way, but I have a really bad memory for names caused by three years on a Casualty reception being bombarded by names, all of which were processed but not remembered. Either that or I just have a bad..er… 

Anyway, the Ranger-type in charge and van driver was Jennie, not Adele as previously mentioned.

So, if you’re visiting Upper Teesdale and happen to call in at Bowlees for a wee, and/or a cuppa at the currently being seriously done-up visitor centre and cafe and you decide to have a little walk up to Gibson’s cave – and you should, cos it’s very nice, think of the blood, sweat and cheese sandwiches of the Rons and Ronettes and hum to yourself “Met him on a Monday and my heart stood still Adele-Ron-Ron-Ron-Adele-Ron-Ron and Mike.”

Fourteen Miles in Wensleydale (Seven Pounds to Park!!)

 

It should of been tsk.. have been fifteen miles, according to my “Get your arse in gear for the TGO Chally” plan, but even the extra distance caused by parking some way away from the pay and display machine at Castle Bolton which wanted SEVEN whole quids of my own personal beer money for leaving the knipemobile there for a few hours, I somehow failed to reach the magic number (15) and only managed 14.3.  Welllll  Dhuhhhhh….

Never mind. After dumping the car on a verge outside Ripon, we progressed easily in a roughly westerly direction from the Castle. The Castle had been slighted by Oliver Cromwell’s men , but not very well, and the car park had been slighted, nay, rejected by me. I must try to stop banging on about this or it will seem that I have some kind of obsession. But I mean, SEVEN quid…!

Anyway, there’s a very nice bridleway which goes from castle Bolton (with the outrageous parking charges) towards Askrigg, where they don’t charge at all – and guess which village has more visitors, eh? Go on, answer me that one!

And after about five miles of this pleasantry, we turned, brutally, uphill into the snows of Woodhall Greets (where' we’d been before on Boxing day and during this episode, which is recorded on this very blog, we were pleased to note that Askrigg just has an honesty box for parking charges into which I deposited a whole pound. Maybe a bit mean, in view of the market rate around here.)

The snow was hard and a bit bumpy and eventually, as I followed the bridleway, it gave way to a mix of snow, heather, tussock, juncus partially frozen sphagnum bog and ice – which was quite hard going. After a short walk on the “road” (in inverted commas ’cos its not really a road at the moment, its more of a series of frozen snowdrifts – don’t try to go this way in a BMW cos you won’t get anywhere; park it in Askrigg. Don’t park it at Castle Bolton.) we began a long trespass over Whitfield Moor which, in places was pretty rough going and we slowed down quite a lot. Bruno is starting to feel his age, I think, unlike me, obviously.  On this bit, each time I stopped for a breather, he curled up into a ball and went to sleep – and groaned when we set off again.

We passed Aberdune Tarn – a frozen puddle with it’s own glacier and followed a mile or so of dead straight fencing, eventually, and with some relief, turning up at the bridleway into Apedale.

Much better going got me to Dent’s Houses in about half an hour. I went inside, noted the stove and the flushing toilet and signed the visitors book whilst allowing Bruno the honour of watching me finish off my coffee and a rather nice chocolate chip bun.

Not too long after this and we were back at C…. B…. with the Stupidly H….P…Ch….s

The car was some distance away…

Dammit. A mile short. Where did I go wrong?

Here’s a map.

Adventures In Bigland

Everything is big in Bigland. As you can see from the photo above, even yours truly can become really really big, although why there was very little effect on superdawg is a mystery.

After having had a really good sleep and eaten all my breakfast this morning (this makes you big and strong by the way, according to my Mum who, now I think about it wasn’t very big, but was quite strong…), I loaded the Dawg into the knipemobile and headed off to somewhere quite near Ulverston. As the old OS map has it “Here be Bigland” where everything is BIG.

Some of Bigland contains a Wainwright Outlier – one Bigland Barrow, disappointingly short of one huge wheelbarrow, but containing a large herd of small cows (belted Galloways) – who appeared docile and uninterested in Bruno, which was nice; a large tarn or lake and a concrete bunker thing on legs.

Next was the vairy pawsh Bigland Hall, where the Very Tall go to ride about on horses, shoot things, do fishing and get rat-arsed at night. Just next to Bigland Hall is a small but perfectly formed HuMP – one Grassgarth Heights. Now Grassgarth Heights is easily reached from the Cumbria Coastal Path except that it is well defended by lots of signs indicating that the presence of The Public is Not Wanted. Nevertheless, somehow, I suddenly found myself on the summit of this Grassgarth Heights. It has a very nice view of Bigland Hall. I expect the Big people were having a snooze or something as they didn’t notice me and the dog up the hill. Maybe Grassgarth is not, in fact their hill at all, but somebody else’s; somebody who doesn’t want Big People up their sheep pastures. I don’t know.

I returned to the car which was exactly where I left it, and went to Lindale – a small village a few miles away on the other side of a huge traffic-calming measure aka some temporary traffic lights protecting a tree-pruning ceremony. These lights took a full half an hour to pass. This in turn reduced my intended bag of hills from four for the day to three.

Hill Three was outside Bigland, in More Normal land. And it was called Dixon Heights – another Wainwright Outlier listed in his book as Newton Fell (South). It has a ruined pile of rubble on the top, some ponies and a heron, fishing hopefully in a small pond which, I would like to bet, has no fish. I hoped to point this out to Mr Heron, but he flew off.

I am now back at home and have returned to my usual dimensions. Thank you for enquiring.

I like the name “Dixon” by the way. Dixon’s ice cream van used to visit our street when I were but a sprog, nearly twenty years ago now [koff] The driver (presumably Mr Dixon) had a hand bell. You had to find your mum with her purse for a tanner for a cone….  and the ice cream ran down your arm to soothe the itchy scab on your elbow and if you didn;t concentrate, the dog snaffled the whole thing from your hand.    Anyway, Dixon Height is a fab place for half an hour’s break for those driving a long way to get to Wasdale or somewhere like that. Fab place, actually….