Great Shunner Fell

Anybody who’s walked up the Pennine Way may not recognise Great Shunner Fell in its winter clothes – but they will probably have the long slog up from Hardraw imprinted in their souls, specially if it was raining when they did it.

Today’s walk is even yet more in the series of Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops. I’m doing the ones easiest to get to from our house at the moment. This is the theory. But as I battered along the A68 this morning I came across three cars each with their own free parking spot in the ditch. Each one had somebody stood next to it feeling a bit sorry for themselves and one had the rescue vehicle about to reveal the damage. I decided it might be best to slow down a bit, and go down by the A1 and the main road into Richmond instead of my usual Dere Street and country lanes thing. It was, apparently, quite slippery.

So I was a bit late at the Ropemakers car Park in Hawes.

Me and superdawg followed the Pennine Way up to Hardraw, where a toddler in the kissing gate first described the lubbly doggy and then pointed at me and said “Old man” – and repeated this several times until his mum was convinced. The cheeky little beggar. A hoody in the making, hanging about at strategic spots making disparaging remarks about the ever-so-slightly – more senior generation.

Unbothered by these insults (badly brought up little…!!!), we continued up the PW, having first an encounter with a white and black sheepdog who was distracted from rounding up the sheep for a breakfast of turnips, for an invitation to Bruno to have a bit of a play. I don’t believe the shepherd was over-impressed and he did some shouting and a bit of whistling and the junior collie ran off to chase some sheep.

As we climbed the South Ridge (!) of Great Shunner Fell, we came eventually to a kind of frost-zone where the grass was covered in hoar frost – and then patches of deep, hard snow – but only hard enough for a dozen or so steps on the top before the next one (at random) would let in one leg up to the knee. A bit irritating (but not as irritating as having your way blocked by an urchin whilst he shouts insults at you – but lets let that drop now and call it water under the bridge, eh?)

Two lasses appeared out of the fog and explained that they’d turned back due to losing the path and the snow higher up was getting difficult. They refused an offer of a joint expedition (probably a good move) – and I continued ever upwards, following footsteps on the snow.

Then they stopped. One set of footprints clearly had second thoughts and turned back. I’d followed the two girls’ route and was now on a blank snowy, foggy and flat moor.

So I navigated. I’ve had the dog specially magnetised for just such an emergency and if I input a grid reference into his left ear with a promise of a bit of my cheese butty in the other, he can find a footpath in a flash. And so he did. It was mainly under several feet of neve most of the time, and it was apparent that nobody had been beyond this point for a few days – but we got to the top in the end and Bruno got his reward and I got my coffee and banana on the frozen snowdrift in the summit shelter.

To vary the descent, we followed the fence which denotes the parish boundary down to the Buttertubs Road. I found that by walking near the fence the snow was hard enough for very quick progress for 80% of the time, but whenever I did plunge through, it was quite a jolt and there’d be a soft patch of, maybe 20 yards before normal progress was restored.

We reached the road which had been ploughed and gritted and had a few bits of traffic, and we followed this downhill towards Hardraw, turning off at a footpath to investigate a group of two dozen cairns of all different sizes.

And so, by lanes and short bits of footpath, we returned to Hawes, still in daylight, which is a sure sign of spring.

In better conditions with more daylight, a return by Lovely Seat is a good way back. Dogs are banned from here, though (as they are from today’s route from the summit to the road) – so my advice is to put pointy ears and long whiskers on the dog and tell the gamekeeper that its a cat. Cats are OK. But not dogs.

We did about 12 miles and 1900 feet of uphill. The weather forecast was for light rain and snow at high levels. It snowed about ten snowflakes altogether.

But how would I descibe the ascent of Great Shunner Fell?(for those who’ve never been up it and are interested)

Its easy – just a gentle uphill stroll, really. The path is normally pretty easy to follow and it can be magical on a sunny day in early summer (say June…go on, say June….) – specially if you enjoy larks, pipits and curlews. The walk over to the Buttertubs road is tussocky and rough and, normally fairly boggy.

Camping at Kingussie

Like births, deaths and taxes, some things are entirely predictable and, so it is with the TGO Challenge message board.

The first predictable thing is that there will, at several points through the year, be a message from Roger Smith with the simple title of a Challenger’s name. This message is opened with a certain amount of trepidation because it will be the announcement that a fellow challenger, and, therefore, probably a friend, has died.

The reaction will be a series of posts from Challengers recanting a few tales and memories about whoever it is that’s passed away. Challengers can be such a nice bunch of people at times.

It is, unfortunately a function of the age profile of TGO Challengers that one or two, or maybe three will ramble off to meet their maker each year.

Just recently, it was the turn of Nan Lyle MBE, a wonderful woman from Hawick, small in stature, but big in achievements and genuinely well liked and well respected. If Nan had been your Mum, you’d be very proud indeed.

The second predictable thing is that there will be a serious row or two on the TGO Message Board.

Now, i must admit that I do enjoy reading a good old row on a forum and I have been guilty in the past of trolling the trolls a bit. They don’t like it up ‘em you know – but you have to be either fairly subtle, or just call ‘em a troll….

What appears to have happened in this year’s row is that a couple of  Challengers, lets just call one of them “Tim”, for argument’s sake, asked if anybody knew where they could camp in or around Kingussie. A reply soon came forth that Glen Tromie was a good place.

Then some anonymousness, by the unlikely name of Orla Gogg, made a joke that it would be possible to camp on another Challenger’s bowling-green-like lawn, as he had done once in the past – and ruined the grass in the process. Lets call this other chap “Derek”, just for the sake of a barney.

It was obviously a joke and, I would have thought anyway, not the kind of thing to start the dogs barking. The inference was, of course, that everybody should turn up at Kingussie and wreck Derek’s lawn, sleep in his beds and drink his whisky. A gentle bit of ribbing, and quite funny.

Derek took it in good part even though he is very well known for his “unfortunate” outbursts on occasion – outbursts which usually lead to the most flying fur and ripped ears in the TGO kennel. Sometimes his attacks on individuals can be quite vicious. He is a grumpy old mongrel. Everybody knows it.

So, “Tim” (original poster), pops up and says something to the effect that this was a serious question and he expected that people would treat it seriously. Stick duly poked at farmyard dog.

This is a sharpened stick. The mongrel, once curled up and snoozing in the sunny spot by the midden has been prodded and reacts with a sharp little nip at “Tim’s ankles. “Why don’t you just look  at a map?” snaps Derek – using Tim’s own word – the word “seriously”, in fact, just to add a bit of infected saliva to the nip. (Note – If you’re going to have a pop at somebody on a forum, use some of the other person’s own words – its really annoying)

At which point the kennel door is opened and a ripping, snarling attack is launched and our veteran mongrel is overwhelmed by growling houndry consisting of  members of the same pack as those who were being so nice about poor Nan a couple of posts above. Derek’s ears are ripped and there is fur and blood flying in all directions.

“Ir wuz me!” protests Orla Gogg, our Albanian princess. “C’mon, don’t bite Derek, it wuzz me!”

But the pack is in full cry. They’ll have none of it. Derek’s fur flies.

Our Derek, at times, may not be the nicest pooch and he’s left himself vulnerable to this kind of thing by his behaviour in the past. He hasn’t learned when to keep his virtual gob shut – and, being an old dog, its probably too late now.

That’s the problem with dogs, though. Curled up by the fire and shaking a paw, licking your ears, sniffing your groin - they’re lovely, cuddly, friendly animals. But in a pack – they’ll rip yer to bits.

This dog fight seems to have finished now. I’m not joining in, not on the message board anyway. You can lose your identity in a pack.

Normal Service Resumes?

I wonder if its now possible to resume my little programme of collecting (or recollecting) the Yorkshire dales 2000 foot tops, following reasonable progress on Drumaldrace recently. The snow seems to have either mainly melted or become hard enough to walk on. Or maybe I’m just being  over optimistic

I’m going to give it a go anyway and, at the same time continue with some more local winter-suitable walks in Weardale, Teesdale and maybe just over in Northumberland

So, the next couple of weeks, hopefully at least, looks quite like this:

24 January – Great Shunner Fell from Hawes

28 January Middlehope Moor from Cowshill

31 January Great Knoutberry (aka Widdale fell) from Dent Station. I’m considering catching the 10:34 am train to Dent Station from Garsdale Head Station and walking back in a linear kind of way. If the conditions are really good, I could start walking from Ribblehead.

A tentative start, but if this works, I may try to do some more stuff using the Settle- Carlisle line – for instance, a nice summer walk may well go from Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen over Mallerstang or Wild Boar fell and there could be interesting opportunities around Horton/Settle/Penyghent/Ingleborough. 

And worrabout Dent to Ribblehead over Whernside……

Anyway thats as far as the current plans go. I’ve also booked myself in to an Over the Hill Club weekend in the Cheviots at Mounthooley.

I feel an exploration of Hen Hole and Bizzle Burn coming on…..

Trying the snow at Burtree

I arranged to meet Brian somewhere up the Pennines for a quick play in the snow and our cars met on the snowy A689 just past Killhope Wheel.

We finally met at Cowshill in an area of extensive lead mining – a likely place for some steepish but safe snow on which to practise climbing up and sliding down and climbing up again.

And then sliding down.

I had hoped that the snow would be dead ‘ard, like, but this was not meant to be, in fact it was a bit soft. This meant that you had to work a bit harder at sliding down since when I lifted my legs in the air (I had me crampons on) my bum was a better brake than my ice axe.

We had a long chat at one point with a couple from a house up the hill – who had things in common with Brian in particular. Theyt pointed us to a waterfall which was pretty and had some significant lumps of ice dangling next to it which I levered off to form a nice iceberg in the beck.

And that was pretty much that.

It was another foggy day and the thaw, apparently, continues very slowly. It was snowing slightly every now and then and the road west of Killhope was starting to get “interesting”.

The message for anybody seeking hard snow is that higher up, where there seems to have been much less of a thaw (it was still minus 1.5C), the snow hasn’t stiffened up as much as at lower levels where its as hard as a hard thing strengthened by extra hard stuff.

No, unfortunately, its a bit soft.

This trip wasn’t quite long enough to count as a walk, so I haven’t. Nice to have a play in the snow, though.

Tonight we visit Bishop Auckland Town Hall with a box of matches and some candles to see Isla Sinclair (good game, good game) – yes folks, its Burns Night once again here in Co Durham. We have a different Burns night to everybody else. This is Colin Burns from Spennymoor, not yer Rabbie. Still, there’ll be Neeps and Stotties as per tradition and somebody will play the drainpipes and witter on about mice and stuff. I might have the odd sweet sherry, I’m not sure yet.

Collier Law and North Pennine Snow Conditions

I’m trying to catch up a bit on all the things I postponed when the weather was against me. It seems to have relented a bit, so me and superdawg rushed off to Stanhope, a few miles up Weardale for this little walk up Collier Law. I shortened the walk a little to take account of rough going underfoot and the fact that I dawdled too long over me porridge this morning.

We parked on a patch of ice next and walked up more, steeper ice through the old limestone quarries and along a bit of Crawleyside Edge to the old incline

Bruno pensive on Crawleyside Incline

I was struck by how much harder the snow has become in the last couple of days. We’ve had more slow thawing and two frosty nights – around minus one or two last night, for instance – and this has had a significant effect on the snow. Its actually a nice, hard neve in places and steps had to be kicked up a couple of steep bits.

Later, it seemed to be a bit softer and was letting me in an inch or two, and occasionally, at random, up to knee deep, which was irritating – but overall, its pretty hard and can only get harder under current conditions.

There’s a road under that snow somewhere

We followed the old railway incline to the top of Crawleyside Bank and then along the access road to the wireless station on the top of Collier Law. This was mainly under quite deep snow and visibility was , maybe 50 metres or so, so I was quite glad that they’d put snow poles beside the road to mark out where it was – otherwise, there’d have been no landmarks at all, apart from the dog, who isn’t marked on the map.

We duly arrived at the summit amongst very big drifts and a grouse which had come a bit of a cropper and was now headless, plucked and consumed amongst stained snow.

Collier Law Wireless Station blockhouses and snowdrift

Air accident investigation in progress

It was much too exposed a spot for sitting about eating, so I dropped down towards Stanhope on a track not marked on my map and then through a patch of deep and soft snow to an open shooting hut which provided a good shelter for the scoffing of Lancashire Cheese butties and a Boost bar.

Bruno uses Xray vision to discover whereabouts of cheese butty. Don't look into the eyes!!!!

The track brought us back to Stanhope and the Dales centre cafe for coffee and a scone.

Stanhope Market Place

We covered about 7 miles and 1200 feet of uphill. This snow’s not going anywhere much at all, but it bodes well for a walk on higher things, which could provide some quite fast and easy walking just now. I’m going to have to see what I can do about this – it seems a shame to waste such an opportunity. The time for quick and easy walking on hard neve is now, folks. Get it while it lasts.