Advice For Auld Codgers On Keeping Cool And Safe In Hot Weather

The car temperature thermometer warmth indicator thingy was reading 27C today, and this was at 620 metres (ish) at Killhope Cross on the Durham/Cumbria border. This is quite warm for 2000 feet.

The advice on the radio was that this hot weather could be dangerous for yer Old Codgers and that they should really be trying to find ways to keep safe and keep cool. This mainly involved shutting all the doors and windows and sitting naked by the open door of the fridge sucking a mivi whilst wearing a wet teatowel on the hairdo. (Do they still make mivis – if not, Soleros are very nice)

Brian, though had a different idea and this was to do the South Tyne Plodge  once again with his old kneecap so he can repeat it again on a future warm day with his new kneecap. By immersing one’s venerable bones in the River South Tyne, they would be kept cool and safe and, when the heatwave is over (Tuesday), we phogies can return once again to trying to keep warm by shutting all the doors and windows, wearing three cardigans and some woolly socks whilst sipping hot cocoa and watching Corry and Jeremy Kyle on the telly.

The sky, though, had a few towering clouds and the forecast was for thunderstorms  - and – AND , mind you, the square corridor of rock that holds the River South Tyne from it’s junction with Ash Gill for, maybe a mile or so downstream would be a bad place to be in any sudden flood of the type often found during or just after a thunderstorm.  It’s pretty much inescapable for a distance and, this lead to a certain tension in the proceedings. But we kept an eye on the sky and an ear out for a rumble up top.

Two cars are needed for this trip – one parked at Garrigill and the other at Ashgill Bridge. Which is what we did.

We descended into Ash Gill and had a series of little swims in the waterfalls and deep pools that lead down to the Tyne.

The rest is mostly walking on slippery cobbles, but with the occasional deep bit. It is, however, an intensely beautiful place on a warm summer day. It’s also well populated with dippers, who seem to display an interest in intruders and the pools are full of darting fish – probably trout, I suspect, and lower down, there’s a healthy population of blackfly and horseflies who delight in taking a chunk out of any bare skin. I have noticed, though , that skin that’s cold from a dip in a deep bit is ignored by these evil ravenous  beasties. Another option is to wear a wetsuit…

Just beyond a stone footbridge, we entered a short gorge where the river is wide enough to touch both sides with outstretched arms. The gorge is deep and the water is specially deep. And black. And slow. This is the best bit. A little bit scary. But the water was reasonably warm (tested at 16C with a greenhouse thermometer)

The final few hundred metres is a trial of slippery cobbles, finally emerging at the ford at Garrigill. Meanwhile, back at Pietowers, the sky was flashing and banging and the power was off as the storm meant for me at Garrigill missed me by about 25 miles.

Arf!!

This is the third or fourth time we’ve done this plodge. Hopefully, we’ll both live long enough to do it again.

The Ash Gill/South Tyne Plodge starts at Ash Gill bridge on the B6277 Alston – Teesdale road a bit South of Garrigill and ends in Garrigill city centre. You have to be able to swim!

Finally – Big thanks to Juan for the donation to Mind through the virgin money-giving site – good for the health of the karma, Juan – there’s a link here click here for karma enhacement  for anyone who needs to lose a pound  or two….

 

A Few Glen Lyon Corbetts

June seemed pretty busy, but I’d put on my List Of Things To Do, a visit to Marilyn/Munro Section 2 for the bagging of one or two Marilyns and, since Corbetts are also Marilyns, any hilltops visited would get a really Big Tick.

So, stopping only briefly at Fort Linney, Dawn’s seaside hideaway, to collect Dawn (obviously), we spent the next severalteen hours battling traffic to arrive , eventually, at the Cruachan campsite about three miles East of Killin City Centre. Cruachan campsite is huge and, when we arrived, empty of any other tents. This was good.

Our bagging campaign started on the Monday with a gentle introduction to the delights of the lower lumps around the North-Western edge of Ben Lawers. This mainly included Meall nam Maigheach 779m (Never bag anything you can’t pronounce by the way), with it’s two outlying lumps Meall Luaidh 778m and Meall nan Eun 635m. Unfortunately, I made the schoolboy bagger’s mistake of climbing a hill I’d already climbed – the Mhaigheach one. Dhuuhh.  Never mind, Lucky and Dawn got three ticks and I just got two.

These hills are a bit Pennine, to be honest. That is to say they’re grassy and peaty and heathery but with extra Butterwort and a few deer skeletons. We kept an eye out for Brian, a missing Jack Russell. Everybody was looking for Brian, apparently. Back at the car, a shepherd, lusting after our parking spot, expounded his theory that the dog was “long gone”. We hoped not.

This expedition, in gloomy and overcast conditions, took just three miles and 900 feet of up. And whilst most of the “Up” was quite steep, overall, an easy introduction.

Tuesday dawned blue and sunny and a bit sweaty. We pointed the knipemobile over the slightly scary bealach into Glen Lyon and marched off from the Meggernie Estate car park at Innerwick up the extensive estate road that leads to the very last steep bit up to Cam Chreag’s lovely ridge.

We battered our way up this, stopping only to allow Lucky to eat some snow and have a little bounce around and we were soon on the top of Corbett #2 Cam Chreag 862m. Cam Chreag’s summit has a few sheltering rocks in which to hide and scoff cheese and tomato butties whilst gazing at the superb all-round vista of snow-flecked mountains and big lochs.

We retraced to the bealach which holds a large tin hut, in which there is a table and benches, but it’s a bit mucky inside. Dawn waited and had a little explore whilst me and Lucky marched off to bag another Meall nam Maigheach 741m – this one not a Corbett, though, but which has a cairn on a slab and a specially cracking view of Rannoch Moor.

Feeling fairly smug so far….

This walk was 9 miles and 2400 feet of upness.

Wednesday morning dawned to the sound of rain on the fly. This went on till ten o’clock-ish. I’d contracted an episode of Caledonian drizzle lassitude and couldn’t really be arsed going very far – so we went to the Falls of Dochart, thus fulfilling Dawn’s current interest in snapping waterfalls. The falls are quite impressive, though and we killed time around Killin by following a railway path for a bit, lunching in the dog-friendly Cappercaille restaurant and having an exploratory mooch or reccy up Glen Lochay during which it failed to rain much more but always looked like it might start at any minute.

Thursday was our last chance to bag another Corbett, so orf we jolly well went back over the scary rod to Glen Lyon and, once again, marched off from Innerwick up the Kirk Road which leads to Rannoch. This was a right sweaty do and, at one point, I had to steal Lucky’s new dog Buff (more about this later…!), so I could wear it to stop the sweat stinging my eyes.

We couldn’t find a path onto the ridge and all exits from the estate road seemed to be defended by steep and deep and very rough tick-filled heather. Not the kind of place to venture on a warm and sweaty day like this.

Eventually, we had to strike off uphill and Dawn did a fine job of finding the easiest was through the Calluna Vulgaris and, eventually, we emerged almost uninjured on the little knobble of Meall Glas 713m, but not a tick.

A line of fence posts took us to the summit of Beinn Dearg 830m, and Corbett #3. It was cold on the top and threatening to rain, so we spent little time there and lunched briefly (steak pie for me!) a little way down the hill out of the wind.

The Corbetts guide advises that the walk along the ridge of Creag Ard would be nice, so this is what we did. And it was.

We returned whence we came after 8 miles and 2200 feet of uphill.

And that was that.

I suspect that Dawn may have rediscovered her Highland bug following this trip.

And since I managed to bag absolutely none of the hills on my List Of Hills To Be Bagged, but repeated one and managed two different ones, I’m obviously going to have to go back for another go. Every cloud has a silver lining (unless its a cloud of midgies with a blood-lust)

Its a while since I had a purely hill-walking/bagging visit to the Highlands and, whilst the bag for this trip wasn’t huge, it’s a good start. So – in the words of Crichton … “Smug Mode!”

Crook’s Cold War Bunker

At a meeting of guided walks leaders at County Hall the other night, somebody called Ian asked me if I knew of a Royal Observer Corps bunker at Sunniside, on the hill above Crook. I didn’t but it seems an ideal place for an observation post because the view from up there is enormous.
A Google search this morning provided a list of all the ROC posts in the UK with their grid references, including the one at Sunniside, helpfully labelled “Tow Law”.

So, after lunch, including the ritual snooze through the second half of the Politics show, me and LTD wandered off to have a look. Its quite a nice walk, and a bit longer than this week’s doggy walks have been due to yours truly having had an attack of Man Flu and been laid up without whisky till today.
And we found the bunker, just next to the road to Tow Law in a little wire mesh compound looking just like the bunkers in the pictures on roc heritage posts map
The Tow Law post operated from 1958 to 1991.

I had a little poke around inside the compound which wasn’t locked but I didn’t go into the post since it involved a  20 foot climb down a ladder and I had LTD with me and he would have had to be abandoned up top.

The post isn’t in a very good condition. There’s hundreds of these poists in the UK according to the map but nevertheless we should be looking after these things a bit better, partly because they’re part of our history, and you never know when we might need them again (!). But mainly because they’re part of our history. And we can save future archaeologists the bother of digging them up if we preserved them a bit better.  Tow Law has had some damage.

The Tow Law post is also on private land with no right of way going to it, so I did a little naughty trespass to get there. There was no stock in the field, though, and there are no obstacles between the nearest public footpath and the stockade, so no damage or harm was done. Here's a quick 16 second view of the..er...view from ROC Tow Law

Simonside–A Guided Walk

Me and Dawn, plus LTD, did the reccy for this severalteen days ago in cool and cloudy but ultimately sunny conditions. Yer actual walk was for the Wednesday Walkers, a splintering kind of group of Durham County Council punters , stewards and walk leaders who do longer walks on Wednesdays when the Durham County Council programme has no walk. And Saturdays. They walk on Saturdays too.

And this was Wednesday Walkers Walking on a Saturday and Not In County Durham At All.

Me and Dawn (plus LTD) had a pleasant trundle around the 12 mile route and nothing much happened apart from LTD suddenly discovering that he can detect mice and voles and other small carbon-based life forms, probably by some combination of smell, sound and predicting the kind of places such carbon-based life-forms are likely to be and then pouncing on them and eating them, or, if prevented, just killing them or maiming them in a cruel but otherwise playful manner.

I must get a large supply of worming tablets.

On the day, thirteen people and an additional dog turned up (I’m allowed a dog when leading these walks as they’re not Durham CC walks) and we progressed around the circuit in a safe and dignified manner with no significant death toll or the involvement of any air ambulances or anything like that.

The route, for those interested in such things, leaves Lordenshaws car park, with the additional option of the bagging of Garleigh Hill if you’ve turned up a bit early. This adds a mile. The walk progresses along the fine and bouldery Simonside ridge, with cracking views of the Cheviots and Pennines, steeply down to collect Tosson Hill then across the moor (watch out for small carbon-based life-forms) and through the forest, returning along St Oswald’s Way back to the start. St Cuthbert is often depicted as having St Oswald’s Head under his arm, in fact, although he’s definitely not been heard to sing “Oh Ganny Goy” whilst drinking a glass of water whilst carrying this head. “Gottle of Gear” as St Oswald once remarked.

The Simonside ridge is an easy trundle, mainly on hard surfaces with superb views at a distance and lots of rocky interest close by. Anybody who enjoys a bit of a scramble would enjoy a bit of a scramble on all those rocks. The forestry bit is slightly dull, but the return over the moor is fast and easy and wide-open enjoyable rambling. People who hate skylarks and meadow-pipits will be in hell. Everybody else will be having a fab time.

Lucky The Dog Does Glaramara

Having recovered from the mild attack of Lurgy, and it being a lovely, sunny day AND having a lone Birkett Thorneythwaite Fell to bag, I decided to point the knipemobile once again towards Cumbria and nick off to Borrowdale.

Unfortunately, due to funereally slow drivers on the bendy roads, four or five sets of roadworks with traffic lights, two tractors and a tour bus, it took me two and a half hours to get to Seatoller and then, THEN, readers, I had to pay seven quid to park. SEVEN QUID!!

So, it was with a certain amount of grumpiness that me and LTD (Lucky The Dog) marched off in high dudgeon to the base of the ridge that leads up to Thorneythwaite Fell and, ultimately, Glaramara.

Now this ridge is rather lovely, so , unless you want to have a bit of a whinge about the closeness and sheer number of ten metre contours, and who wouldn’t, it soon puts the curmudgeon and his innocent pup in a much better mood.

And so, we were soon sitting atop Thorneythwaite Fell, a spikey little nobble just next to the path and boasting a fine view of Borrowdale and Skiddaw. Lucky relaxed by rolling about and I had some coffee. Job done.

Glaramara’s scrambly bit

We progressed up the ridge which is now more gentle and we were soon faced with The Scrambly Bit up to the summit of Glaramara. There’s an option to divert around this little rockstep, but I was keen to see if me and a pup, an often wriggly pup, could get up here in one piece (that’s one piece each, we’re not welded together, innit?) Lucky was enthusiastic and leapt up the first step, almost falling off but I put him on a little ledge, told him to sit and wait, and he did. We repeated this method three times until we were past the steep bits and could scramble more freely. It all went very well. Lucky’s attendance at Crook Dog Club on Wednesday evenings has paid off!

We didn’t stop on the top but pressed on over several subsidiary lumps, notably Looking Steads, Red Beck Top, and High House Tarn top before stopping for a rest and a little paddle and a snooze at one of the little tarns, set in a rocky and sheltered slot just off the main path.

The hill was noticeably quiet, being midweek, I suppose – it seemed at times that I had the whole of the place to myself and, even the birdlife was unusually quiet – just a few meadow pipits here and there, and a couple of low-flying RAF jets…..

After a suitable interval during which I failed once again to disconnect Kylie’s bra strap we stirred from our sun-kissed slumbers and toddled off to include Allen Crags before descending back to Borrowdale on the Red Beck path.

It had been hot. We called at the Riverside Bar for a shandy and made a slightly quicker return trip back to knipetowers.

The walk is 8 miles.  And here’s a map.  I like this route. It’s not to be rushed, though, cos its full of nooks and crannies and a sunny and slightly breezy day in June would be the perfect conditions. You’ll forget about the slow drivers and the traffic lights and the seven quid parking charge….

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