‘Tis a far far better thing……

Ok, I admit it. It was a foolish thing even to consider. Tomorrow, I’m taking these two little tykes camping. These are grandsons #1 and #2. They have strange Southern (Derbyshire/Nottingham) accents. They are very very noisy, disruptive, resentful of authority, hungry, energetic and quite, quite mad.

We are going to Ettrick, the Kielder campsite having wisely arranged a 100 mile bike ride for hundreds of cyclists and the Bamburgh campsite “claiming” to be full (They must have heard about us)

We are to be joined by Uncle Morgy and Aunty Becky, sophisticates from Edinburgh bringing our tea in the form of a pre-cooked chile.

And we have to deliver Uncle Morgy’s birthday presents.

I will provide a substantial and unhealthy breakfast and evening merlot out of plastic cups.

We may be back.

We may visit the Minotaur Maze at Kielder on the way.

Otherwise, one of us may go mad.

Prayers are encouraged…….

Anything could happen….

Great Shunner and Lovely Seat

We’ve been up Great Shunner Fell on a previous Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot tops walk (it was covered in snow) – but not Lovely Seat.
So, rather than just bag Lovely Seat, which can be done in half an hour from the top of Buttertubs Pass, I determined to make a bit of a walk out of it.

Unfortunately for superdawg, he’s not allowed up Lovely Seat till May 2015 and, such is the short life of even the most super superdawg, I fear that he’d never make it. So I distracted him with a handful of biccies in his molecky ball He has to extract the biccies from inside the ball, which he does by dragging it around the floor fairly violently. This is usually fairly successful.
So me and the knipemobile were dogless as we parked just outside Thwaite in Upper Swaledale.

Apart from a short section of path beside a tea-coloured beck, I followed the Pennine Way to the top of Shunner Fell.  This is typical PW, with lots of stone slabs. Its a gentle climb and, due to the perishing and energetic North-Westerly (a gift from Iceland for all the fish), a sweat was not broken into. In fact I had three layers on and me winter hat.
Shunner Fell and Lovely Seat have rather a lot of “beacons”.  On inspection, these turn out to be shepherds’ cairns. I doubt if this many beacons would have been required – although several hills in England do sport beacon sites, mainly dating from Spanish Armada and/or Naughty Napoleon times. But these aren’t beacons, they’re cairns. Somebody is avvin a larf.



Lunch in the cross-shelter was a shivery affair. I seem to have persuaded a coupe to climb Lovely Seat too, and they set off along the fence line to find the start of the Lovely Seat path at the top of Buttertubs Pass. I followed shortly afterwards and passed them just before the pass.
The Lovely Seat moors are, apparently, closed at the moment “at the land manager’s discretion”. That means grouse shooting. Its closed for four weeks excluding weekends.

Anyway, I soon made it to the top, realising about half way up that the reason I was climbing hills so easily today was that I’d forgotten to take my daily selection of various blockers and inhibitors…..  makes yer wonder….. 
The way from the top – which does have a seat on it by the way, although a better description would be “draughty” rather than “Lovely” – was to head towards a patch of light –coloured ground on the far horizon. This is the lead-mine wasteland above Gunnerside Gill, but a line directly heading towards this hits the bridleway from Thwaite spot on. This navigation strategy will be ineffective in hill fog and in these conditions, finding the bridleway exit through the intake wall could be an interesting navigational challenge. Heading North would probably get you home after a while…..

As it happens, I diverted to follow a deep gill with some small waterfalls and came at the bridleway from the West. Various lanes and bridleways lead back to Thwaite.
But what of Lovely Seat? Its an easy climb of about 500 feet from Buttertubs. The top is dry and grassy. North, South and East, though have miles and miles of mossy moors – the South and East being a grouse-shooting estate. Its a dog free zone.
Today’s walk was 9 miles and 2100 feet.

Peebles to Moffat the Counter-Attack

We may well have been sent homewards tae think again from our ill-fated expedition up the Moffat and Manor hills last April.
And having been home for a while, and having thought again, and remembering that we vowed to have another crack at this, I am confirming the dates for Round 2.
This will begin on Saturday 25 September 2010 in the Bridge Inn in Peebles and continue to Moffat, or at least towards Moffat.
A return journey from Moffat to Peebles will be made beginning on Tuesday 28 September 2010 and this will veer sharply towards Tibbie Shiels Inn, not because they treated us so well last time (which they did) but purely because it is there.

Invites by email went out some time ago and many replies received. One or two people’s intentions still remain mysterious, but there has been a certain amount of fresh email chatter and some snatched car park conversations which confirm that there’s likely to be a bunch at least.
Note that if your old man is a dustman, we’re still not sure if you’re coming.
I will be sending a soothing confirmation email out shortly with meeting times and places and a proposed timetable.
If this doesn’t turn into a farce, I might well organise it again in September 2011.

Whernside

Yes folks, its yetanother Yorkshire Dales 2000 foot top. Not far to go now. Nearly finished. Bear with me….
Bruno parked the knipemobile near the tea van at Ribblehead.(Its not fair, I always drive…) I allowed myself to be exploited to the tune of one cup of coffee and one egg butty. They were both very nice.

Most people, I suspect, use the Three Peaks path to get themselves up Whernside. Its a big hill, though and sports a number of routes. This one is a slight but interesting version of the Yorkshire Three Peaks (Y3P) route.

Thus, we followed the railway line (very busy today) to Blea Tunnel and then the Y3P path till it does a sharp left towards the summit. Three Peakers need to get up and down Whernside as quickly as possible. Today, though, me and superdawg were allowed a bit more of a daunder. We continued towards Dentdale on a bridleway called The Craven Way. This uses a band of carb limestone to make progress through the bogs. The result is a path through white and grey boulders on a carpet of  bright green grass, shorn short by the sheep and very easy to walk on. In fact, with the forward views of the Howgill fells, its an absolute bloody delight.

We sauntered along easily , downhill for a bit , to Duncan Syke, a ruin which at one time was considered as a site for an MBA bothy. Then it came time to make the climb up Whernside. This starts at the edge of some enclosures and a soggy path climbs fairly gently uphill. There is no need for a sweat to be broken into on this route.
I left the path after a bit to investigate a shelter with a fine view of Dentdale. Worra grand place for a snooze….

A thin path continues uphill from here, passing two cairns with equally fine views.


After all these fine views, I turned back towards the original path, passing three small tarns on the way. This route would be great for practising your micro-navigation in the hillfog. If it’s foggy and you’ve got your compass, go this way. If it all goes pear –shaped (and it probably will), resort to the simple expedient of walking uphill till you get to the top. Whatever you do, don’t panic and ring your Dad.  Or the police. Or anybody. go uphill till there’s no more uphill to go up. Its an advanced navigation technique, so don’t tell anybody about it. Note: It doesn’t work very well in descent.

I joined the Y3P path again and was soon sitting behind the wall on the summit with my cheese and tomato butty and banana and some coffee. The summit clientele for today seemed to consists substantially of families or Dads and their kids. This exactly is how it should be. Having a whinge about the crowds on top of one of these hills during the summer hols is just silliness. I think its great. As long as everybody enjoys themselves anyway.

Sooo – after a bit, we slouched off for the trying descent towards the Hill Inn. The path is being repaired just now, but the old path works are awkward and a serious trip hazard. You wouldn’t want to trip up on this path. You’d lose your face…. This would be a disadvantage when ordering a foaming pint of Scruttocks Old Dirigible at the pub at the end, and your dog wouldn’t recognise you either and might bite your leg. This would just rub it in. So be careful.
At the bottom, I followed two lasses who seemed to know where they were going and we all ended up back at the Ribblehead tea van. Once again I succumbed to the temptation of a nice hot cuppa and some cake.
All hail to the Tea Van

We did 10 miles and 1700 feet of uphill. I’d recommend this route if you’re just out to bag Whernside. The edge with the cairns has very cracking views indeed.
The finishing end is in sight…….

Gaping Gill and Shittlehope Pics from Brian’s Camera

 

Brian sent these through just now. These are just a selection.

Charlie, Brian and Colin waiting to be winched down

Me in a a hole, somewhere near Sand Cavern

Returned to the surface, damper and muddier than before.

Testing the deep pool for depth. Anything to be kept dry is in the rucksack. The water is not very warm.

 

Attempt abandoned. Thats enough of that….

We’ll have no ribaldry about the trollies. They were a bit damp at this point.