Weardale – Reccying Around Bollihope

One of the things that the County Durham guided walks programme needs is a selection of new walks (…in my ‘umble…) and it’s that time of year when suggestions are being made for the summer walks programme. It would be really easy just to repeat the walks from last summer, get the handouts copied and wander around the route about a week beforehand and, so far, my list of ideas for next summer surely does contain some of the things that have been popular in the past. It also doesn’t contain some areas which seem to appear regularly, not only in my walks, but in those of other walk leaders.

Bottom line is, I’ve been trying to come up with a bunch of new ideas.

And I had this one today. So me and the dawg went for a look.

Basically, it’s a heathery plod around the moors above Bollihope in Weardale. It should be grand and purple in August. When the sun came through today, the fells all around looked really attractive, and the views up here are biiig…. and when the larks and pipits and curlews are calling….

I was a bit worried about one of the paths being a bit rough, though – in fact, last time I was up there – about two years ago, I couldn’t find the path at all. But now, there’s a line of cairns and a good trod to follow, although, it’s a bit off the line of the right of way by about 150 metres or so.  But it’ll do.

Quite a nice walk, really, and sometimes, there’s an ice cream van at the end!

This is the fourth walk in four days for Old Superdawg and, he did seem a bit jaded today. I’ll give him a bit of a rest for a couple of days – short walks only.

Here’s a map. Its about nine miles. I might add a bit on if the paths at the far end of the route aren’t too rough – they’ve generally been a bit “virtual” up there in the past, but maybe, with traffic….

 

Cheviots with James and Reuben

James (http://backpackingbongos.wordpress.com) and his dog Reuben have been having a little tour of bits of the Cheviots and today, me and Bruno went up to Barrowburn to join them (I have very fond memories of the soup, tea and bacon butties provided by the nice peeps at Barrowburn last year)

Anyway – forgetting the bacon and soup (hmm…..bacon…dribble…) we turned up roughly on time in tropical double-figures Centigrade and after introductions set off up to Uswayford and then bits of bridleway to Davison’s Linn. Here lie some very nice camping spots and the waterfall , whilst not perhaps the most impressive, has a little hidden waterfall just to the side and a little scramble to get up the arete between the two. The ascent of this provided a brief moment of excitement before lunch. There was always the strong possibility of an accidental plodge submerging a whole boot and, thereby, wetting a sock. We really should have done a Health and Safety assessment beforehand.

After all this, we followed Saltersgate and then Clennel Street (both ancient cross-border routes)  to the Border ridge and then, along the Pennine Way into the clag smothering Windy Gyle – perhaps the only Nuttall actually in Scotland. (This might be wrong, I can’t be arsed looking it up)

We descended to Trow, encountering huge numbers of people on ATV’s and a few on horseback, apparently involved in the gentle pastime of fox hunting. This now seems to involve lots of very red-faced individuals staring at hills. This seems just a little more exciting than watching lettuce grow. I suppose it gets the horses exercised, although the red-faced camo-wearing hypertensives on ATVs would probably die in short order should they be called upon to cross a couple of uphill contours under their own steam.

Quite soon we were back where we started. There was a certain amount of TGO Challenge talk – bearing in mind that our routes are very similar for the first couple of days - and the two dogs, being male (or almost male in Bruno’s case) involved themselves in running about and then being a bit aggressive games. We presumed that this behaviour was intended to establish a pack hierarchy. As no actual damage was being done, we let them get on with it.

James has another day in the Cheviots, but, I expect that ultimately, there’ll be a http://backpackingbongos.wordpress.com version of this jaunt. I may post a link, depending on whether or not its got a pic of me looking scared on a short waterfall scramble…  [koff]

I think we did about ten miles. Here’s a map.

Baldersdale

Blog readers are going to have to get used to the word “Baldersdale”. It seems thaat 2013 is going to be the year of Baldersdale.  I have several walks coming up in it.

Yesterday, I got an email from the Council giving me some details of a walk I’ll be leading for the North Pennines AONB Pennine Journey Festival in September. The walk goes from Tan Hill to Baldersdale on the Pennine Way and the Bowes Loop  and yer punters will get to Tan Hill by bus from a car park in Baldersdale. Justaminnit, I thought – that car park’s very small and the bus might get stuck on the narrow road.

Sooo. as I’m also about to submit a route for the summer guided walks programme involving the Pennine Way and Race Yate and stuff, I thought I could justify an early reccy to confirm my thoughts about the car park (fascinating stuff , this, eh?) and see if the bridleway from Race Yate  Eastwards on the PW is OK to walk on.

So, outrageously early in the warm and grey this morning, me and the Dawg parked the knipemobile in one of the Balderhead reservoir car parks and went and had a look.

It was just as I thought. I’ve emailed the AONB peeps to tell ‘em the car park’s too small and they’re considering the Balderhead start instead. This would be much better.

The rest of the walk went well. The bridleway is a grand and easy toddle gently downhill for a couple of miles with extensive views to the South.

I met a chap mending a stone wall and had a long chat. (This kind of thing happens fairly frequently in the North-East). He told me the location of some millstones in an old quarry and I told him that there was a cup and ring rock on Goldsborough and roughly where it was.

me and the Dawg lunched on a chicken leg and an orange back at the knipemobile (Bruno not too fussed about having some orange when there was chicken skin available). By half two I was back home with a cuppa.

We did 8 miles. It’s quite a nice little walk, actually and not as soggy as you might imagine. Here’s a map.

 

If It Wisnae fer yer Wellies, Where Wid Ye Be?

You’d be in the hospital and infirmarie…

Anyway, by this time last year, I’d walked twelve miles, apparently, but due to an attack of Schindler’s Listlessness, I went nowhere yesterday, the most energetic thing I did, being the tuning in of the wife’s new telly. So today, me and Bruno dragged our fat and heaving cadavers out into the warm sunshine to…. justaminnit…. warm sunshine…?

Anyway, it was the day to do one of my adopt-a-path walks. I have two around Crook and I do them twice a year – so that’s four walks.

It was a bit muddy, due to the drought we’ve just been having – in fact, it was still droughting at half six this morning when I let Tammy out of the back door for a wee in the dark. It was droughting so much, in fact, that we all went back to bed with coffee and toast (I had the coffee and toast, the dogs just watched)

But later, we sallied forth. It was warm. And it was sloppy. And I didn;t find very much wrong with the paths – several of the stiles have been replaced recently and one which had been wired up with barbed wire has been unwired. The only thing I could find was a public footpath sign that had had a collision with a browny-orange coloured car (I could tell it was that colour cos bits of it were still there)

Another stile/wall had also had a collision with a car – maybe the same car – hopefully the same car anyway or else it means that there’s at least two drivers in Stanley Crook who can’t drive around corners.

On bridleway 33 (fab views of the Pennines) I also found a scooter that had been badly overcooked (this happens at Christmas, doesn’t it?) I told the cops. They said they’d have a look in case it had been stolen -  although the chap on the reception at Crook cop shop took a picture of his desk, his boots, the ceiling and a street atlas he had out before managing to view the picture of the scooter remains I’d snapped.

I also reported the recumbent signpost to the peeps at the rights of way dept in Durham.

I might go to Baldersdale tomorrow…  Tough times…  

We did about six miles. Bruno destroyed four sticks and an empty lager tin.

 

2012 Norra Bad Year, But It End in Floods

 
Last walk of the year and whilst it doesn’t go exactly to plan – it turns out quite exciting in the end. I had intended to wander up the track from Forest in Teesdale school up on to Fendrith Hill – wander westwards for a bit and then come down to Langdon Beck for a final flourish by the Tees. When I let Trex the cat in at half six or so this morning, it was dark and howling outside and sheeting down with rain. After the cat had shook off the water from his fur and tucked into breakfast, we both went back to our beds – we all went back to our beds, and I include Bruno in this.

Later… after breakfast, I drove up Teesdale through floods and bits of trees and , on the way to Forest, through the swishing of the windscreen wipers, I caught a glimpse of the River Tees. Peg Powler (look it up!) was clearly having a roll and the river was angry and looking for somebody to drown. I had to have a look.

It was magnificent. It roared and thundered and hurtled past in a chaos. We wandered from Low Force up to High Force for the pics. I took a few videos on the camera to show the force of the Forces, but there’s a downloading problem. they’re all on the memory card, but they don;t want to come off. They’ll have to stay there pro tem. I’ll see if I can recover them somehow. The problem seems to be that the camera that took the pics has a broken USB slot, so I use a different camera to download (not mine, so I don’t take it out in the wild..) and there’s some kind of issue with it being a different camera. Bugger.  never mind.

Later, after scoffing lunch in the knipemobile, watched closely by a robin under the wheel arch of the car parked next to mine, I tried to visit Gibson’s cave but was prevented by a mud slide of a particularly liquid kind of slutch which even superdawg hesitated over. I decided to go to Ash Gill near Garrigill. This proved to be equally stupendous and I managed to get wetly behind the waterfall. Bruno wasn’t keen on the roar and the spray, so we wandered downstream to see more waterfalls – then home.

We managed about seven miles altogether.  And this was the last walk of the year, the scores on the doors of which are below -  2010 in brackets (I can’t spell perenthesesss):
Number of days with walks: 196 (129)
Total distance:  1735 miles (931)
Total ascent: 250500 feet (150000)
Guided walks: 25 (13)
Miles 237 (87)
Punters attending 329 (104)
Deaths 0 (0)
Lost without trace 0 (0)
Injuries 2 (0) (dammit)

Highlights:

TGO Challenge – From Strathcarron to Aberdeen. 10 wild camps, a few hills bagged, some naughty weather, some good crack – specially in Red Bothy and Cock Bridge but, over all, despite some people being a bit psyched out , presumably by the monochrome nature of the weather for the first week (it snowed/rained/blew a hoolie) and the inevitable failures of those taking the walk and/or themselves far too seriously, I enjoyed this trip immensely. This was my 11th and the first involving  the  robbery of a Chinese restaurant. I got wet, but then you do, don’t you?

And then there was Dawn. We’ve had loads and loads of backpacking trips this year and, this is probably one of the reasons why my wintery TGO Challenge went a lot easier for me than it otherwise might have done. I enjoyed all of the trips with Dawn, some of which were quite tough in a meteorological kind of way. We got well batterred, in fact; several times. Oddly enough, I found this to be mostly quite good fun.
Trips with Dawn:

February: Cheviots – 4 nights camping 1 night in Byrness hostel. This was perishing cold  - no, I mean really really cold - and it snowed and froze…brrrr…

April: Machynlleth to Pumlumnon – 5 nights. This was outrageuously wet. When it stopped raining, it snowed. The word is “sloppy” and we both hate Duke of Edinburgh parties.

June: Cadair Idris  static camp– Joined by Alan – 6 nights. Wet and windy for a few days, then it brightened up! There was a short drought. This wasn;t a lightweight camp, though – we had lots of proper food for this. There were even fresh onions and spuds. We had chips! Nom nom.

July: Aberystwyth to Machynlleth via Pumlumnon – 4 nights + 1 in a hostel. Mainly  a relaxed static camp in a beautiful spot in Hen Gwm with a bit of light bagging a bit of a more serious walk at the end. It rained. Obviously.

August: Knighton to Dolau – bits of Offa’s Dyke and Radnor Hills. 5 nights. Cracking stuff – the weather behaved reasonably well. Some hard days and some less challenging ones. The akto finally started to fall apart.

September: South Downs Way 6 nights + 1 in a hostel. Blistering hot. Dry. No, really, it only rained for the last hour…  I think, on balance, that this is probably the highlight of the year for me. Great fun – we got a bit fragged at the end…. 

November: A few days in a bunkbarn in Buttermere : getting the post-op foot going a bit. I left me bloody gaiters at Buttermere… dhuhh…
We have more plans for 2013….


On the Rangering front – I did a bunch of guided walks (see above) plus a couple of stewarding duties and a bit of stile building – and , along with others, got a few naughty landowners to unblock blockages involving barbed wire, mad horses and signs pointing the wrong way… and a few improvements too.. 
So that sort of winds it up for 2012. We’ll see what happens in 2013. I have plans (as you’d expect), but the best laid plans of mice and men etc.. and I have this superstition that if I declare a plan too early, something always goes wrong, so I’m keeping them more closely to my chest. They do, however, involve the TGO challenge and some pre-TGO training/shakedown stuff.