skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Today’s little trundle was a pre-Christmas card-swapping and cuppla pints in a pub walk. Unfortunately, the effect was reduced a bit by the fact that Mrs Pieman had posted the Bro’s card some time earlier…
But me and the brother met anyway.
We met in the outrageously priced pay and display car park in Stainforth. (Incidentally, there seems to be bad news from Stainforth that the pub is closed at the moment and awaiting a new tenant. This will not be specially good for Christmas celebrations in Stainforth, I shouldn’t wonder)
Anyway, we slithered off over the globally warmed black ice and up through Knight Stainforth to attack the mighty ramparts of Smearsett Scar – a carb limestone lump which was likely a reef at some point in it’s 350 million year history. Smearsett Scar has a very obvious craggy South face and this provides a not-very-well-known-but-nevertheless-quite-exciting little scramble on mainly good and spiky holds but which aren’t available at the scariest spot. However, using some frozen rabbit poo, and with a bit of Anglo-Saxon, I managed to teeter up and we were soon at the trig on the top. The scramble is about 25 metres with a ledge half way and is, maybe, Grade 2. It’s also perfumed with wild mountain thyme. And wabbit poo.
The walk along to Pot Scar feels like a high level ridge walk in the mountains, but isn’t. We repaired to Feizor to Elaine’s tearoom and cafe for coffee and toasted teacakes.
Feizor, incidentally, had a family of Knipes living in it in the 16th Century. they were described in church records as “husbandmen”. this is a farm labourer. There were more Knipes living in villages nearby and they seem to have spent about 300 years marrying people called Metcalfe. Metcalfe is the Yorkshire dales farming name. The Knipes, however, seem to have left the area.
Down the lane a bit, we assumed that a Christmas choir was assembling. We wondered about asking for a request. Silent night, maybe or, While Shepherds Washed Their socks By Night, or maybe a bit of Cliff Richards. its lucky we didn’t as it turned out to be a funeral party. we should have known by all the hanging around and smoking they were doing. the old chap’s horse was waiting patiently nearby to transport the coffin to it’s final destination. Nice touch, that. The Holly and the Ivy were perhaps not appropriate.
We were informed that the arduous trek to the local shrine dedicated to the Great God Bachus – alias the Helwith Bridge Inn , shouldn’t take us more than forty five minutes. Unwilling to be benighted in Elaine’s tearoom (although, on reflection there are worse places to get stuck) – we marched off, stopping only in a sunny spot behind a barn for lunch for about half an hour.
We duly arrived at Helwith Bridge half an hour before the bar opened, which it did twenty minutes later. We worshiped bachus to the tune of two pints of Helwith bridge ale each. It was very nice. They do pie and peas too. Its very civilised around here.
A plod down the road brought us back to Stainforth.
8 Miles and 1400 feet, including one short period of excitement.
Some time ago, I agreed to lead a handful of guided walks for the Durham County Council summer programme and today’s plan was to take advantage of the thaw and go and reccy a route at Stanhope. This is Rangering. As I would be by myself, I would be The Lone Ranger.
The idea is that there’ll be a Durham CC guided walk which will take place on the same weekend as the Backpackers Club AGM. A good plan… maybe.
So me and Tonto, me and Superdawg set off from Stanhope and climbed up through the old quarries and the dripping snowdrifts to Crawleyside Edge. So far so good, a fine start with a bit of a high-level wander along a gritstone edge.
Sloppy slushfull fields followed which were quite hard work for a while, then, after a stride over an angry beck into what appears to have been a hidden pond (Bruno chuckled), we contoured along a high path overlooking Stanhope Burn.
The burn looked quite unpromising for a crossing, I have to say. And on closer inspection it seems that it was roughly just over knee-deep and running very fast. We followed it upstream, past a big stream junction to a braided flood. We probed. We were rejected. Further upstream looked no better. I had coffee and a cheese butty and some of my special flapjack wot I made….
We probed a bit more. A crossing could be made, but it would be a cold and deep paddle of about ten yards. There would be wet trousers and socks for quite a while afterwards – and there was more slushy snow ahead. We abandoned the idea and struggled up through the soft stuff to the CtoC cyclists route on the old railway track. This was underneath a large snowdrift.
At some point on the way back to Stanhope, I redesigned the guided walk route completely. There will be no paddling. We will enjoy Stanhope Dene in all it’s springtime glory, have a cup of tea at the Park Head cafe then float along Crawleyside Edge to Shittlehope where there will be rude schoolboy jokes involving incontinence, funny noises and smells.
Speaking of which, one of the walk stats is that Superdawg had four craps. This was two more craps than I had crap bags for. Some craps were kicked into hidden spots. Sorry. I don’t know where he gets it all from.
The we’ll all go home for our tea and we’ll tell our mums all about what happened. Next time we might come across some smugglers or robbers or something.
I did 8 miles and 1100 feet. This was a bit less than intended.
Bruno ate 12kg of snow, thus advancing the thaw by 6 minutes by the way. Just another climate stat for you there. They might be interested in that in Mexico. As for me, I’m about to go and magically change 75 cl of vino collapso from Crook Boozerama into water….
And Lo! (Note the Christmas theme by the way) – Lo! The Angel of the North came down in a wakening light and saith “Go Forth and do Crook South and take thy dog cos he’s ripping yer socks up and needs a walk”. And so, it came to pass that I went forth and did Crook Around the Compass – South. Just “West” to do, then there’s three more at Howden le Wear.
This is a three and a half mile walk. I did four, because I walked to the start.
Its a good walk, although I did get a bit lost at one point after following the footprints of local dog walkers instead of the right of way, but I soon relocated myself again.
At one point, a local farmer has built a fence across the path, but the local League Against Building Fences Across Our Dog Walks (Labfoudw), have wrecked the fence. Direct action, that is…
Somebody I met recognised Bruno from the Pie Blog and we had a bit of a chat about the local paths.
The route is good but the description is a bit awkward in places and really needs the attention of somebody skilled in writing route descriptions. It would seem that most of the paths are very well used by locals. I’ve reported my findings to the County Council access and rights of way peeps.
Nice day for it, though…… Bruno enjoyed bouncing around.
More later…
The snow is still lying deep and crisp and so on all around Crook and the A66 is still closed and, whilst Co Durham seems to have managed to open minor roads, neighbouring County Councils have not, so, until the snow consolidates a bit, which needs a thaw, which in turn might well remove it altogether, walking about in it is a bit of a bugger at the moment.
And so, having watched superdawg chase his tail all around the living room I considered that a proper walk was in order, and what better than to go and gawp at the big snowdrifts up the top of Weardale where the main road to Alston is supposed to be closed by enormous waves of white stuff?
A frozen brake fluid sensor in the knipemobile said that I had no brake fluid, but, as the brakes seemed to be working, I pressed on up the Dale and arrived without much excitement at Cowshill.
There was a bit of traffic coming over Killhope, so I was too late for the closed road, but nevertheless we traipsed off up the road towards Cumbria. The road had been ploughed and salted and the drifts were disappointingly small.
But there was virtually, no traffic, so it was quite enjoyable. I considered going off-piste a bit and wandering along the path by the river. Bruno plunged into the deep snow by the roadside and came out limping within a couple of minutes. A bit more work on the salted road sorted out the limping, but he has a short memory and lives for the moment. So the moment his paws stopped hurting, he was back into the soft powder, and limping again. At one point he was on three legs. Going into the deep powder could well disable him altogether, and quite quickly too. So we didn’t. There’s a certain type and temperature of snow which gets into the “palm” of the paws and turns into a ball of ice, or in this case, just burns his paws.
We returned the way we came, after covering just a couple of miles. We might try something a bit more local till some consolidation takes place, or , at least, a change in conditions.
Quite pretty, though….. and for anybody interested, the road is perfectly good just now.
.jpg)
