Skiddaw by Ullock Pike

This was another of Martin Banfield’s collection of Bill Birkett’s Great British Ridge Walks, in this case number 20, Skiddaw by Ullock Pike and descent by Birkett’s Edge.

And what a fine spring morning if a bit fractious on the roads and a bit mizzly and misty at first. But as we (me, Bruno, Graham and Martin) climbed up on to Ullock Pike, the cloud top over Skiddaw gradually cleared and there were sunny patches in the fields below.

Edit: Can you see Jimmy Hendrix in the Skiddaw Screes in the picture above? He's in the snow just above the scree and right in the middle in the top third..... He may have melted by now...

We bagged Carl Side, which Bill Birkett seems to have ignored for some reason, although it does have a very fine view of Keswick and Derwentwater.

From here, the next bit looked tricky. Some people, high up on the slope up to Skiddaw, seemed to be having some difficulty with the steep snow, and a couple with a dog seemed to have turned back. A brief committee meeting was held and it was unanimously agreed in a unanimous kind of way that we’d go for the zig-zag path to the right of where the people were struggling because the snowline was higher, so there’d be less of the slippery stuff. Martin lent me a walking pole and orf we jolly well went. It wasn’t all that difficult, really. The snow was grippy enough and steps didn’t really need to be kicked. Bruno ate much of the snow anyway – so , soon we were on the sunny and snowy summit of Skiddaw.

The snow was thawing quite quickly and it won’t be very long till its retreated just to the edges and the gullies. There were a few small bare patches on the summit.

It was much too cold for sitting around up there, so, we had a break a little down the North side in the sun.

Bakestall and Birketts Edge followed where the supply of snow ran out. In trying to get superdawg to walk to heel instead of pulling me all over the place in search of snowballs and kicked-up snow, we broke our retractable lead. It was a bit old anyway, and so, it looks like Bruno will be getting a new lead and harness for his birthday, whenever we find out what his birthday is. His harness is a bit old and frayed too. We’ll make no mention of the old and frayed nature of the bloke holding the other end of the lead.

We only got lost a little bit on the way back to the car and I shouldn’t really mention it, so I won’t – and soon, we were back at the car and battling once again with others on the A66.

According to the book, the walk is 13km and 1030 feet of ascent. I could only make it 930 metres though.

Cracking walk – Thanks to Martin once again for the idea and Graham and Martin for the company and thanks a bunch to Bruno for the broken lead.

Stop Press Late Edyte and all that kinda thing.... Martin;s version of this walk can be read here http://phreerunner.blogspot.com/2010/03/tuesday-16-march-2010-great-british.html complete with bonus photo album and a bloke smoking a swiss roll

Famiss Lakes Potes #3

English Language Prep  (homework) in the Wordsworth household.

Scene 1 Up in William’s bedroom just after tea.

William: “I wandered lonely as an apricot

I wandered lonely…as a bee.

I wandered lonely as …a cloud

I wandered….lonely as a…. an eagle

I wandered lonely as a ….frog…..”

Dave “Justamminnit, Bill. Go back a bit..”

William: “ I wandered lonely as a bee?”

Dave": “Yeah, you’re right. What’s this got to do with feckin daffodils anyway?”

William “It has to be in tomorrow”

Dave “Do it on the bus. Top of the Pops is on in a minute”

 

Surveying Heights of British Hills

And other hillwalking subjects featured on Youtube……..

Below is the text of an email I just received, forwarded to me by Bill Gallon. The subject is British Hills on Youtube, in particular the surveys on heights of hills recently carried out by John Barnard and Graham Jackson. The text is written by Myrddyn Phillips and, I suppose, its a kind of viral methid of passing on the message. In particular, there’s a link to a Myrddyn Phillips Youtube video about the proposed surveying of the height of Tryfan, which may or may not be above 3000 feet. Or not.

Anyway – without more ado (as they say…) – here’s the message:

Four months ago I set up a YouTube channel dedicated towards various things associated with the British hills.  Many people involved with the Hillwalkers Register may have accessed the uploaded clips already, for those who haven't, they can be found by inputting 'Myrddyn Phillips' in the YouTube search window.  I hope some of the clips you find are of interest.

As of Monday the 15th of March, a second YouTube channel has been created, this is dedicated towards the surveying activities of John Barnard, Graham Jackson and myself.  Many of our recent surveys have resulted in reclassifications within some of the major listings of British hills, including some represented in the Hillwalkers Register.  This second YouTube channel can be accessed directly via http://www.youtube.com/user/GandJSurveys#p/a/u/0/hs0MSxa3zuQ or by inputting 'GandJSurveys' in the YouTube search window.  This second channels introduction deals with our next surveying project, this concerns one of the most iconic mountains in Britain, which may not be all that its current map height suggests.

For more information on this project please access 'GandJSurveys' on YouTube and / or tune into the BBC regional Welsh news programme 'Wales Today' between 6.30pm - 7.00pm this evening, Monday the 15th of March.  All will then be revealed.

Kind regards and many thanks to Andrew for sending this email on my behalf.

Myrddyn Phillips.

 

So there you are. Is Tryfan a 3000 foot top or not? 

Is my face bovvered?

Click the link – You know you want to, really….

Kinder Edge and Chinley Churn

On the occasion of the English version of the TGO Challenge Annual gathering at The Snake Inn in Derbyshire during which I camped in the Akto on some tilted soggy stuff and skilfully avoided the walk arranged by the Arranger Alan Hardy. His idea of a 14 mile walk through the Pennine Tussocks And Bogs plus thawing snow in 6 hours put me off a bit, and, in the event, proved optimistic.

So, I wandered off lonely as a cloud, not seeing any yellow flowers at all – and followed Fair Brook (which could have been Lairig Fairbrook according to the rocky/snowy/misty conditions) – up on to Kinder Edge, which I followed Westwards till it met the Pennine Way.

There was hill fog and a cold wind and lots of snow. The mist eventually lifted to reveal the usual drab Pennine moorland stuff and, as this is the Derbyshire Peak, there was no shortage at all of other walkers. Quite a bunch, in fact, on the Pennine Way.

The Pennine Way, which is normally a line of paving slabs, was, just then, a line of frozen slush – impossible to walk on with any kind of dignity. Any attempt at increasing the pace on this potentially easier going just resulted in cartoon-like revolving feet and a graceful exit left into the snowy bog.

As planned, I cut down Doctor’s gate into Lady Clough and followed this past the piles of debris from cars on the main road that had come to grief, into the woods, which were blocked by landslipped fallen trees at a few points.

It must be said, that the standard of driving on The Snake road must be pretty poor to result in this amount of car carnage. there are bumpers and dashboards and windscreens all over the place. Maybe its for the best. Weed out the weakest links – that sort of thing. It is just Nature, after all.

In the forest I met Martin and Sue Banfield coming nthe other way. they fed me briefly on Caramel Shortcake and did their best to cheer me up, but I was soon back at the Snake where a couple of pints of Guiness put me in the mood for a pre-dinner snooze in the tent. I made sure not to empty the bladder before retiring, just to ensure an early wake-up call to avoid missing any of the festivities…..

Which were grand. There were many other TGO/bloggers there who, no doubt will be reporting on the bash – and so, I will gloss over it ..with some gloss. Be soothed, though, with the thought that there was, in fact, plenty of scoff to be had, enough booze and various TGO-type-gossip-type-tall tales.

And then it was Sunday.

I had a quick visit to Chinley Churn – a smallish quarried edge with a cracking view of Kinder, just above the unremarkable village of Chinley. Its a nice, short walk with plenty of company again. The actual summit is difficult to get to, though and some combined tactics involving a wobbly wall with wire netting, barbed wire and an electric fence before the view from the trig can be enjoyed. The map is grossly inaccurate here and shows a footpath crossing and recrossing the wall. Hah! Nothing of the sort. Its a figleaf of the Ordnance Survey Office Friday night pre-Christmas, just finish the bugger off so we can all go home thing.

Then I went home.

There are no maps of these adventures because I can’t find the CD with the Midlands on it, and these walks are in the Midlands.

But I did 10 miles and 1500 feet on the first walk and 3 miles and 500 feet on the second one.

Thanks to Alan hardy for organising the “do” and its a “hello” to all the TGO challenger-types who were there. I won’t do a list.

Chance Meetings Up The Deerness

Time to let bygones be bygones and put all thoughts of timber extraction and disposal into the past as so much water under the bridge – and go for a walk.

Today’s trundle was pretty much decided by the fact that the knipemobile has no petrol in it and the pension isn’t paid into my account till Friday (Don;t worry, though, I’ll “borrow” a bit for tomorrow night’s quiz at the King’s which, if past performance is anything to go by will be substantially funded by our winnings)

Speaking of Winnings – It was, in fact, Esh Winning which was one of the objects of our desires today.

And so, in bright spring sunshine, I saddled up the dog and wandered off up the Deerness Valley line, taking pretty much the same route to Willington as I did on the previous walk I had to Bishop Auckland in the snow. In fact, it was exactly the same route.

The hills were green again, or, at least, brown, but in the distance, I could see snow on the Pennines and, in fact, I could make out a very white Killhope Law today – right over on the Cumbrian border.

In Willington, we turned our toes towards Durham and joined the Bishop-Brandon railway walk which starts just by the Co-op. fast progress ought to be had on this walk as its very easy underfoot and there’s not much in the way of hills. But, its very popular with dog walkers, plump girls trying to get fit discretely and cyclists, and Durham being Durham, a fair proportion of these are up for a brief chat. Even cyclists on occasion would dismount to expound on what nice weather it is and could they borrow the dog to pull the bike.

A collie pup submitted to Bruno and wriggled around in the self-effacing way that only collies do very well – and it’s owner apologised for the entanglement of leads – and we had a chat.

Another dog walker exclaimed that Bruno looked the spitting image of a dog called Candy wot lived in her village. And so, you can see, that progress wasn’t quite as quick as expected.

Luckily, as we drew closer to Durham city where there were lunchtime joggers, the passers-by grew relatively more surly and didn’t want to talk. But after lunch, when we turned our attentions in the direction of Esh Winning, we were back in chatland.

And then I saw a figure approaching – gesticulating in a kind of Papal kind of way. It was Alan – the chap I last walked with on our Licking of The Tongue – back in the dim past – an early blog entry for this blogger.

So we had a long chat. A very long chat. he was walking from Crook to Durham. We resolved to have another walk soon…

This is perhaps not so unlikely in County Durham, as it happens. There aren’t as many as six degrees of separation in Durham. Its more like two or three…

But anyway, after half an hour or so, we pressed on in our respective directions and , after a few more chats, I arrived at Waterhouses and began the long climb over the hill to Crook.

What I did find slightly odd was a pile of, apparently, recently washed clothes – shirts, jeans, a furry jacket – dumped in the forest above Waterhouses. I mean ter say – its an effort bringing a bag of clothes out into a fairly remote spot and chucking it into the woods. Why not just put them in the bin for the binmen to collect? Peculiar….

This walk is, perhaps, not the most interesting. The countryside is pretty enough, and in Deerness Valley, where it’s well wooded, it can be beautiful. The interest lies more in the people using the pathways. Otherwise, it can be a plod. When it gets to plod time, the best we can do is to let our thoughts wander. Bruno employed his brain cells in locating and carrying sticks – occasionally chewing one up before finding another.

I was trying to think of Beatles song titles in social networking new speak or new spell – but the only one I could come up with was “I should of known better”

So – A competition. Beatles song titles in internet newspeak.

Happiness is a warm gun (IMHO)

I’ll try to think of a prize…. a pet log, perhaps…

I ought to of done better, really.

Anyway, the walk was 18 miles and 1300 feet of uphill.