Pennine Plans

Penyghent from Fountains Fell

I’m a bit of a Pennine person – dull, foggy, covered in tussocks….  and I was thinking about a theme for the blog (people may have noticed certain themes or projects at times, such as TGO training and planning and Hadrian’s Wall, for instance).

So my new project or theme will be to revisit (for I have visited them all before) all of the 2000 foot tops in the Pennines, starting where I originally started many years ago – with the Yorkshire Dales.

There’s another Pennine project I have in mind, too, but I will say no more (not that I’ve said much so far…) till other things come to fruition. Hopefully, people will find whatever it is interesting, though.

In the meantime, there’s the Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops. The Yorkshire Dales, I’ve decided are the valleys that lie between the A65 in the South and the A66 in the North and I’m starting tommorrow.

I was thinking of publicising which hills I plan to do and when, so that if anybody wants to join, they can do.  Probably a bit short notice for tommorrow, though.

Here’s the November hills.

Sunday 1 November Birks Fell starting at Buckden

Sunday 8 November Buckden Pike starting at Buckden – will include the subsidiary Tor Mere Top

Sunday 15 November The Calf and other Howgills lumps, starting at Cautley

Sunday 29 November Fountains Fell and Darnbrook Fell starting at Arncliffe

Tommorrow, I’ll be doing a very similar walk to one which appeared in October’s TGO – Wild Boar Fell, Swarth Fell (and Pike) and Baugh Fell’s two tops – starting at Rawthey Bridge just up the road from Cautley a little way.

Buckden Pike from the Birks Fell ridge

More South Tynedale Holes

I cudder gone to Dent with Mr Banfield and his party and walked to Ingleton in the rain, but , No – Brian had already booked me for this little trundle down yet another North Pennine leadmine.

Never go into a leadmine, folks, they is terrible dangerous.

But the sand-filled Knipemobile was parked in a puddle somewhere near Garrigill and we debouched to this little mine entrance which may well be Whitesike Mine or , possibly, Bentyfield – I’m not sure which.

Brian at the mine entrance

It was clear from the mucky water emanating from the hole and the open gate at the entrance that somebody was already inside. So we plunged forth down stone-arched passageways and, occasionally parts where there was just rough-hewn natural rock.

We crawled through a dig, held up by timber shoring and a bit of pipe and thence forward till the smell of fag smoke and the low rumble of voices could be heard.

Brian emerges from the crawl

We came across two diggers with shovels and a wheelbarrow – digging out the passage to make it bigger. Brian and one of the diggers smoked. The passage filled with bad air. (Don’t tell me smoking is dangerous 800 metres inside a collapsable lead mine)

Digger obscured by fag smoke (smoking is bad for you, children)

After a chat , we left and examined the various remarkable iron and flowstone-like formations.

Formation of iron stuff plus glove for scale

Brian pretends to look at some calcite formations

The sweet course was a short trip through a long culvert where the water was too deep for wellies and which came out in an ennormous hole with a waterfall and another culvert. We retraced and repaired to Nenthead for coffee.

Entering the culvert

The lower culvert

Whatever you do, don’t try this at home, folks, unless your life is an empty vessel like wot mine could be without an Eel Crag challinge…

The thing that strikes me about underground trips is that when you eventually emerge, blinking into daylight, no matter how driech it is, there's a warmth and overwhelming scent of pollen or grass or something, and there's the general hum of life and nature doing whatever it is that life and nature and stuff does.. Whatever it is, its a very friendly and warm and welcoming experience. I suppose its just life getting on with being life. Its great. Its fab. Its green and blue and sometimes a bit grey. Its the Pennines.

Incidentally, I appear to have gained Brian's wellies and, it seems, he must have mine.

Live Writer Test

Martin (Phreerunner – who’s that fat lad at the back?) Banfield recommended using this Live Writer thingy for the blog as he pointed out that my photos were all in a lump at the top of the blog and it looked crap. So here it is, I’m trying it out.

I need to play with it a bit more, probably

Dehydrated Food - A verdict

Well, some long time ago, when men were men and women did the washing up, I seem to remember writing that one rainy day I would do some kind of round-up on my findings with regards to the dehydrated food that I used on my Trans-Cumbria-Not-Quite-High-Level-But-At-Least-I-Tried-But-All-The Teasrooms-Were-Closed-And-It-Rained-A-Lot trip.
Just to recap, this took place last August during the monsoon period and went from Silecroft to Bowness on Solway via Bow fell and, during which, I ate principally dehydrated food bought on-line from Outdoors Grub Ltd. (although I seem to remember also buying a meal from Cotswolds in Durham – this may well have beeen some kind of dehydrated rice pudding. Sorry to be vague, but I’m getting on in years and the nurses keep stealing my underpants….

First of all, what of Outdoors Grub Ltd? Many would-be TGO Challengers, for instance may well be interested in the standard of service and delivery times and things. And other backpackers, too may be interested.

They have a website at http://www.outdoorsgrub.com/

This is easy to use and I ordered 11 items altogether and these arrived safely, together with a complementary choccy bar (I think it was a choccy bar anyway – mind’s a blank….)
The delivery happened a day or two later and I got two tracking emails telling me where the order was. So, I thought that the service was, in fact, excellent.
If I had any gripes, it would only be about the choice of sweet dishes which was a bit limited. This must have been the reason why I bought a rice pudding from Cotswolds, now I come to think about it.
I also supplemented my variety of sweet dishes by buying a small cake and scoffing that ravenously with some instant custard. This lasted two meals.
In addition, I had my traditional supply of cheap whisky and loads of mars bars, lion bars, jordan’s breakfast and othe r fruity oaty bars of that ilk. These, it turned out were quite a bit heavier than the seven dehydrated dinners.
Which brings me to the food.
This is what I took:
BeWell Pack n Go – Chile Con carne £4.85
Be Well Pack n Go Porridge with sultanas £2.65
Be WellHot Pack n Go cereal start with sultanas £2.65
Be Well Pack n Go Rice Pudding ?£2.65
Mountain House Chicken Korma with Rice £4.85
Real Turmat Beef and Potato Casserole £7.99
Real Turmat Game casserole £7.99
Adventure Foods Pasta Bolognese £4.25
Mountain House Spaghetti Bolognese £4.85
Be Well Pack n Go Thai Chicken with Rice £3.45
Mountain House Custard with Apple. £3.85

For each meal, I had three (as you were..four) course.

These were:

Cuppa soup – fortified with an oatmeal block or an oatcake
Main meal
Sweet
Coffee
Scotch
Snoozy sleepy cosy dreamz

Five course…..

Breakfasts were either whatever was on the list above or a couple of Jordans bars or a blow out in Wigton…..

What were the meals like?

Taste – they were all acceptable. The real Turmat meals were fabulous – just like granny’s cooking but without the cat hairs. The only problem one was the Mountain House Spag Bol which I left too long to rehydrate and it tasted a bit fatty…. But, in general, none of the meals were nasty or cardboardy or anything like that. Mostly they were very tasty and, well, surprisingly nice.

Ease of preparation – Just add boiling water, seal the pack and wait for however long it says on the pack. Sometimes you have to search out and remove a gel bag. It wouldn;t do to eat the gel b ag. The meals were generally OK if you put in too much water, and its easy to add more if you don't add enough. Stirring well was very important to avoid any lumps of dried food remaining.

Portion size/calories – Everything was sufficient and no extra carbs were needed to be added. The walking I did on this fuel was mainly slightly less than you’d do in the middle bit of a TGO Challenge, but could be described as reasonably substantial. I never felt weak or hungry. Martin Banfield gave me a butty at one point - he said I looked a little thin (note this , Sloman!)

Pack weight – The whole kaboodle added about 2kg to the pack weight. I didn’t weigh it all and I got rid of the packs, but if you were using this stuff for two or three days, the pack weight wouldn’t be particularly significant. I never weigh my pack, I just seem to know instinctively when its too heavy (being unable to pick it up is often a clue)

Time to prepare – Time to boil water and then to wait from between 2 to 6 or 7 minutes.

One pan? No pans were harmed except when I made custard.

Need to wash up? – Just the spork!

Value for money? – You can see the prices. They not really cheap and the Real turmat meals are, frankly, expensive. But they’re soooo nice. The set of dried food for a week cost me around £60 – which, when you think about it, isn’t really all that expensive.

I doubt if anybody would want to survive on dehydrated food alone for a whole week. You’re more likely to be carrying a couple of days, then having a pub dinner or similar. In a case like that, this stuff is convenient, tasty, sufficient and easy on fuel.

A massive breakfast in a café in Wigton, or Newtonmore, or Aviemore, or wherever, comes as a real treat afterwards, though and it seems normal to lust after a banana.

Happy scoffing.

I must try some of the other meals…….

Best: Real Turmat Beef and Potato casserole. Least best: Mountain House spag bol (but it wasn't that bad , really)

At Last! Eel Crag by the Ledge Route

There were ominous omens for this walk. It appeared, at first as though the curse of the ledge route was about to strike again. The MET office, at first, said “Little chance of rain” This soon changed to “light rain and strong winds” and then, a bit later to “heavy rain and gales” MWIS said “rain spitting in the wind and went on to describe, in blowy and scary detail about “ferocious gusts” of wind and an intimation that to venture anywhere near a ridge would be foolish in the extreme.

I called in the “Knipes Gambit” move. This is where the walker turns up in a different, less weather-affected place in reasonable travelling distance to the target hill and, if the weather proves fine (because it thinks you’ve gone somewhere else) - you can make a quick dash to the correct place.
Readers should note that this was not the first attempt to do this route and would, in fact, be the third within the year… (see, for instance, 3/9/2009 – Eel Crag You Jokin Innit?”)
In the end, by actually looking at the weather chart and ignoring the weather girl’s inane dribblings about it being a “wet old day” tomorrow, I discerned that the wet stuff shouldn’t arrive at Eel crag till well after lunch by which time target number one will be waiting in the bottom of the bag for target number two.. I might be wrong. It could be a gamble. But I called the walk “On”. I could have called it Dave or Norman, but no, it was “On”. No bimbling up Great Mell Fell for us. It had to be Eel Crag by The Ledge Route. Oooer.

Martin Banfield would be there, and two of R Kidd’s pals – Ian and Brian – so there were others to consider.

As it happened, it was a bit windy, furtlingly cold in the wind-chill department, but it only drizzled a bit just after three o’clock and it didn’t really start raining properly till I got to Penrith. There’s a lesson to be learned here. I must try to decide what it is.

But what of The Ledge Route? Well, its OK. It’s a good way to get up a hill – quiet, steep, a bit of a slog in places, good views, a bit of a drop at one point if you were to trip over your shoelaces…

We lunched out of the wind, monitored by a pair of ravens who were seen to investigate our lunch spot for scraps just after we’d left. As it happens, I’d contributed a few bits of Wensleydale in anticipation. (Cheese, not Hawes and Redmire….) and after paddling around the summit of the subsidiary top called Sail, we trotted off down a little corrie and bagged Outerside and Barrow – two little wainwrighty things which lurk in the undergrowth of the Coledale Round.

And so, after a short visit to the Coledale Inn, that was that. Superdawg didn’t attend as he really really hates wet and windy weather. Now he hates the weather girl and will bite her skinny old shins if he ever meets up with her.

8 miles and 3200 feet of uphill.

Why do BBC weather peeps use the word “old” all the time anyway? It will be a wet old morning, a foggy old night a windy old afternoon and a dirty old man looking through the window.

Thanks to Martin, Ian, Brian and John for the all the fun. I expect that Martin will likely blog something about this on his Postcard from Timperley blog at http://phreerunner.blogspot.com/