More Middlehope Moor Pictures

Here’s a few more pictures taken by Graeme and Matt on the Shivery walk to the border…. brrrrr  and a couple more from me on the reccy.

Weardale/Middlehope Moor Guided Walk

Me and Lucky did the reccy for this walk about a week ago in breezy but sunny and cold conditions. In the Durham County Council guided walks leaflet, the event is titled “A Shivery Walk to the Border” – the border being the County boundary with Northumberland and the shivery bit being the fact that its at a fairly high level and its in January.


So I was a little bit gruntled that the night before the walk it snowed and blew a hoolie and there were dire warnings on from the met office and various of the more hysterical newspapers concerning the start of a new ice age complete with stranded council gritters,and either walls of ice and snow and the reappearance of a number of  bad-tempered woolly mammoths or raging floods and tornados.  This kind of loose talk was bound to put off people travelling from the tropical climes of places such as Brandon and Shiney Row for the dangerously iced-up Upper Weardale. As it happened, thirteen people turned up including stewards Compulsory Jane and Voluntary Clare. It was, however, nithering but sunny. And quite beautiful.


As we climbed towards the border, it started to snow and the wind was rising again. The “shivery” part of the walk title was thus fulfilled. We battled to the gate at the summit and then wandered off along the contouring right of way towards Sedling Rake, passing our camping spot of the other day and only falling through the ice into the smelly black icy watery stuff a couple of times.


Just above Sedling Rake, we were met by Matt who stayed with us for the next 3 miles to Ireshopeburn. We lunched in a brief spell  of sunshine in the sheep pens at the head of Sedling Vein at which point the blizzard started again as we followed Sedling Rake to the road and down to Newhouses. Some of Matt’s pics are included in this blogpost.
We followed the Weardale Way back to Cowshill – a gentle riverside ramble to complete eight and a bit miles (It says 9 in the walks brochure)


On the reccy, Lucky enjoyed being off the lead for much of the time, once I’d realised there were no sheep about and generally walked to heel even though I’d have been happy to have him run about a bit. But there are pregnant ewes in the intakes and fields, so, for everybody’s peace of mind, he had to be on a short lead where there were sheep. This stopped him getting into bother with some farm dogs but didn’t stop him being attacked by a fairly venerable but beefy collie from some stables. Lucky for lucky,the dog only managed to get a mouthful of Lucky’s jacket and, probably, lucky for the collie, Lucky seemed totally unaware that he’d been attacked. (He seems to be a master of the pre-emptive strike on dogs which seem to be aggressive and so far has put two farm collies and a fox hound to flight just by the element of surprise – he doesn’t signal his intentions in any way. But no harm done so far – he’s never actually connected up to now)  Anyway, next time I go that way with my liddle dog, I’ll be packing a water pistol! (They don’t like it, y’know)

 

 

Peeps Pet Pup at Penshaw

Penshaw Monument appears on many, many blogs. Many, many blogs. I read some of them. And it dawned on me that whilst I’ve lived in North-East England since Christmas 1985, I’d never been to Penshaw. And then, a clincher – it’s a TuMP. It has a little green triangle on www.hill-bagging.co.uk and I just had to turn it into a little red triangle. I had nothing better to do. The dog was busy eating a roll of sellotape and also needed better things to do. AA route-finder said it was only 19 miles from the outer moat at Pietowers. It had , more or less, stopped sleeting and the wind had died down to  force 6 to s7, occasionally gale 8 so we went.

Just to say, that Penshaw Monument sits on top of Penshaw Hill, which is very close to Penshaw (the “pen” part of the name may well be significant here) It was built in 1844, which is just after teatime, and is a landmark which is iconic to the North-east of England. So, if you live here, you should go, really….

Its a stiff little climb from the parking area to the top – but mercifully short. Also lucky was the cow with a suckling calf (is this the right time of year for breastfeeding a cow up Penshaw Hill?) – which watched us go by but made no move at any kind of cow-with-calf dog-type frenzy.

On the top, and now inside the temple thingy, Lucky soon made best pals with some local yoofs who were out for a jolly. Lucky has a pretty rosy view of humanity in general, which is, er….  lucky.

After looking at the view which substantially consists of the Nissan factory and some light rain, we explored the complicated network of paths and tracks in the National Trust woodlands around the hill. Happily, we didn’t come across any huge worms (local legend has a large worm or woarm wrapping itself around the hill, only unwrapping itself to have a lunch on one of the local Penshaw villagers – a bit of a bugger as he was due on shift at the car factory that very evening.)

Anyway, Penshaw Hill and monument is a cracking viewpoint, having a 52 metre drop and whilst it’s well populated (i.e. busy), it’s well worth an hour or two’s exploration.

Speaking of making a meal of things – we did two and a half miles. Gorra tick, though.

 

Helbeck – Mount Ida and Barnarm Scar

Driving over the foggy A66 was quite good practise for the pup, although he did get quite close to that German Wagon at one point and I noticed we got to Brough quite quickly.
So, after parking prettily  outside somebody’s house we wandered up the road towards Helbeck. The mist was well down and the drizzle drove in that drizzly kind of way that stops you seeing through your specs.


We passed the red flag indicating that Warcop Training Area was shooting stuff at other stuff but judged that the 3800 metre buffer was well big enough to allow the bagging of Mount Ida. The view was a bit more than 80 metres, so we handrailed stuff – mainly walls and fences and there seemed to be a bit of a rocky ridge with a  hint, just a hint of a path to the cairn on the top. We gazed at the lovely view that we couldn’t see from here.


And retraced to the nearest wall, which we handrailed till we got to the bit where it was falling down, where we crossed and  descended a stupidly steep and grassy slope with extra steep bits till finally, I spotted a wall below and there, looming out of the mist was the apparently huge and mountainous profile of Barnarm Scar. On such a day, it appears as a remote Scottish Corbett or Munro, but the narrow ridge leading to the well-defined, almost pointy top is not much more than 40 metres from the bottom. And the top has an odd little hole, just big enough to stand in, and , apparently the result of walling off a small rocky bay. The construction seems to be quite ancient and has a selection of herbs and dead birds in the bottom.

The mist cleared a bit as we descended the lovely ridge and returned whence we came, although we used field paths to make a circular change from the outward route back to Brough.


I must say that Barnarm Scar fights well above it’s weight for it’s size. It’s a beautiful, isolated rocky tor, appearing much much bigger than it actually is.
And I wonder why I’ve never visited the Helbeck scars area before. It’s a lovely, lumpy, rocky sort of place, full of interest.  I should return on a nicer day.

After this, we visited Great Musgrave for the brief and not-very-exciting bagging of Great Musgrave Hill. It’s on the Pennine Journey route, so if you’ve done that walk, you’ll have bagged Great Musgrave Hill. The enjoyable part of this bit was the long conversation I had with an old chap washing his car -  concerning drumlins (Gt Musgrave Hill is a drumlin by the way) and karst and jumping out of perfectly serviceable aircraft (he was a retired paratrooper). Anyway, as we chatted his car-washing water went cold.
We only did five miles. There’s a map below for anybody with a couple of hours to spare who might be passing by Brough on the A66 and feels the need for some lovely karst scenery.
I drove back. That dog’s a nutcase.

 

Starting As We Mean to Continue – Upper Weardale Camp-Out

We were supposed to have camped out on solstice night, but the weather was wild and woolly and well windy, do we didn’t. Then Christmas happened and the weather stayed pretty breezy – up to Force 8 or 9  on the tops and last night was probably the best night for it for weeks and weeks and weeks…

Rachel dropped me and Matt at the County boundary and we walked just about a mile. The intended camping spot was liberally decorated with quite a lot of sheep-poo so we prospected a bit further and found some flat bits quite close to the head of Sedling Burn where, just before the sun set, we pitched our shelters.

The night that followed was perishingly cold but after some initial breeziness, quite calm and after dinner, when it got too cold to be sitting about, we retired to our respective tents and I shut up mine and dozed off. It must have been at least half seven.

Later, having recovered from the brief alcoholic coma, I opened up the tent to a bright, moonlit and starry night and left the door open till dawn so that I could doze, brew, watch the sky and doze and sip scotch and watch the sky and doze….

I awoke to a beautiful orange and blue pre-dawn and breakfasted. The countryside and my tent were heavy with frost but eventually the sun popped over the horizon and whereas I’d like to say that this warmed things up a bit, actually, it didn’t and the pic I took (below) is quite fuzzy for some reason…

We packed up and left and descended to Cowshill where we were collected by Rachel and whisked off to the Chatterbox cafe for sausage butties to meet Mrs Pieman and Lucky The Dog. I didn’t take Lucky, judging that it would be far too cold for him – and it probably was. He’s currently having some woolly winter jim-jams made and, hopefully, these will make an appearance very shortly for we have more winter camping planned in the not too distant future.