Green Gable and Great Gable

All this messing about in the lower reaches of the Pennines with the rangering stuff had me pining for the rocky bits, so early this morning, I had the dog saddled up and orf we jolly well went to the Lake district, parking very prettily down the lane at Seathwaite.

We climbed very slowly and laboriously through all those closely drawn contours up by Sour Milk Gill into the beautiful corrie of Gillercombe. This is a very fine place for a camp, I have to say. And the beck is deep enough for a very cold swim.

But no swimming was done. Onwards and upwards through the corrie to bag the outlying top of Base Brown, followed by the green and rocky lump of Green Gable, where we rested not but pushed on through down to Wind Gap and up through the scrambly bit for a lazy lunch on the top of Great Gable, which was Great.

We managed to find a place behind a boulder overlooking Wasdale and with a fine view of Scafell and Scafell Pike and over there, on the far horizon, way out over the Irish Sea, a thin blue line of hills that could only be the North Wales coast.  We got behind the boulder, by the way, because it was perishing cold. It was sunny, but there was a nithering wind creeping down from somewhere just left of Bergen. Brrr…… autumn…….

And so, after a cheese and pickle butty and some ginger cake, coffee and chocolate, none of which was enjoyed or shared with Bruno, by the way, oh yes, and a bit of a snooze…  we descended the long slope down to the stretcher box at Sty Head, where it was a bit warmer, so another snooze was had here. This is a long way down on an uncomfortable pitched path. In fact, its more than 1500 feet, for anybody foolishly considering slugging their way up by this route. The views are good, though.

Bruno had a paddle and a bark… bark.. bark (echo) and retrieved a burnt stick a few times but it was soon time to leave and we descended by the Stockley Bridge route back to the knipemobile which was still there with all it’s tyres still on and the headlights off. This was good news, so we went home.

Great Gable was a busy hill today. I guess there’s a lot of people having their holidays. Good day for this sort of thing, though.

We managed just the seven of your Earth miles and 3180 of your Earth feet of upness. I’ve put more pics in the blog post than normal, cos it was such a nice day. 

What’s this then?

Loads of this stuff around the knipetowers parkland, mainly near the moat and some on the south-facing banks of the Ah ha! I wonder what it is…. Here it is in the dog’s play quarry.

Best of Teesdale – The Walk

This will be a fairly brief blogpost, just to record the walk that was the subject of another blogpost called roughly the same as this blogpost and which has got the same walk in it as the other blogpost. I’m sure you get the gist. The point is that I keep doing the same walk.
There’s only a few pics in this one due to my policy of not posting photos of DCC walk participants in which individuals can be recognised, unless they’re the stewards – so it’s back views and scenery only.

But the walk went well, Ray York was the main steward and his assistants were Doug Moffat and Sheila Pinkney, who’s name I got wrong in another blogpost a while back. Wupps Sorry Sheila.,, dhuhh…. I have a terrible memory for er..em…



Anyway, the route was the same and the weather was a bit cooler than before and the views were better than previously due to clearer, more arctic air.


I think people generally enjoyed themselves, and a few were brave or maybe daft enough to have a poke around in Moking Hurth caves – just the entrances, obviously, we don’t want anybody from Durham County Council having caving elf and safety wobblers. Nothing dangerous was done and roughly the same number of people emerged that went in.
Good walk, I thought. 21 People altogether including me and the stewards.
Lots of flowers……..nice people.

Best of Teesdale Walk – Reccy

This is another reccy for another Durham CC walk, which happens on Friday, so I was a bit late with this. This was due to many things including a funeral and the car not passing (I hate to use the “fail” word) its MOT. But its all fixed now, so this morning off I jolly well went up to Bowlees, just a bit to the left of Middleton in Teesdale.

 

The last time I did this walk was on a really perishing cold day in the winter, when the Tees was partly frozen and the snowdrifts were touching places where cold snow should never be allowed. And it was minus echty blob as well.  I’ve put  a picture or two of that in this post, to contrast to the warm and sweaty day it was. The Dale is still busy with haymaking and the place has that fresh hay perfume that you have when they..er..    Its the Sweet vernal Grass, y’know…

Its called the Best of Teesdale because you have to have a title for the walks brochure, and this has Bowlees, Wynch Bridge, The Juniper woodland, Lots of wild flowers, High Force, some iron age hut circles, The Green Trod, sugar limestone, mediaeval iron workings, the River Tees again, a Victorian pencil factory/quarry, some limestone caves which had bones or sumfink inside and the old road down the dale before they built the current one (as a work creation scheme in a Victorian economic slump) It misses Cronkley Snout but that’s because its too far upstream on the wrong side of the River. Whoever put it on the wrong side of the River needs telling.

So, its full of stuff and its 13 miles and 1700 feet long and up.

Not much happened. I met a bull, who seemed to be asleep, probably just as well – and just a few walkers and some lapwings. Teesdale is lapwing central. They’ll be off to Redcar soon, I shouldn’t wonder. I had a scramble in the cave, but I had no headtorch so it was a bit limited.

I’ll be back on Friday.

 

Get Cycling! (But not when its drizzly)

Well, so much for the Get Active! Get Cycling campaign. I turned up at the right time this morning, but the “instructor” said it was drizzling and he couldn’t go out due to “Health And Safety” – those three little words that help people being paid to do stuff excuse themselves from doing anything at all.

So I left. It stopped drizzling, so I returned. He’d gone, along with his expensive van full of unused expensive bikes, all depreciating in a capital depreciation kind of way.

I rang his HQ in Peterlee, managed fairly loosely, it would seem by the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. (Staff at the HQ in Peterlee couldn’t remember the name of The University Hospital of North Durham, naming it as “Dryburn?” (the question mark is important here)… or “That hospital in Darlington?”

He said the ride had started at 10:00 and I’d missed it. I said the van had gone. He said then in that case, it must be that nobody had turned up. I said that somebody had turned up, but instructorman wouldn’t go out because of Health and Safety on account of the fact that it was drizzling.

The Peterlee chap said that rain wouldn’t normally stop the ride going out.

I told him it wasn’t raining now and, in fact, it was sunny.  He didn’t seem to know that the “instructor” wasn’t there any more. Where had he gone, I wonder? Was he having a jolly on a cycle path somewhere? Was he drinking tea somewhere else?  Had he gone to visit a friend now that he’d got the day off? Maybe he’s taken annual leave….

There were apologies.

There’s a lot of staff salary and equipment and office costs going into this. Get Active by the Physical Activity Health Improvement But Not When The Instructor Can’t Be Arsed Scheme. 

They’re about to close the Leisure centre/Gym/Swimming pool in Crook in order to save money by the way.

Joined-up thinking.