Cheviot TUMPS Darkly

On hearing the news that Beowulf was to be filmed over a period of five years (five years?) in a quarry in Weardale, I decided, completely at random and with absolutely no link to this even at all to visit some Cheviot Tumps and then to unload my word hoard in this ‘ere blog….

And so, as per tradition, me and Grendel  The Pooch set off a bit late for doing this kind of thing, but there being absolutely no speed cameras on the English part of the A68, we did, in fact, arrive in reasonable time. The car park at the foot of Buckhams Walls burn was occupied by a couple of dozen heavily armed soldiers being gently chided about the state of their bayonets.

So, I saddled up the pup and climbed the closely packed contours onto the ridge which leads , in fairly short order to the green, lumpy and pleasant summit of Yearning Law. I’d walked past Yearning Law loads of times but never thought to visit the top. Lucky mentioned that it seemed to be going well so far and had a nice little roll in the snow. Lucky has a very favourable attitude concerning snow.

So we plodded on – hitting more snow, this time deeply and softly inserted between lumpy tussocks. This soon began to feel like hard work, but we bashed on manfully and dogfully to the Border ridge which was occupied by a dozen or so shaggy goats.

The Pennine Way hereabouts is a line of Lancashire sandstone mill slabs and now these were slick with thawing ice – the very slippiest kind of ice, in fact. Its not really possible to walk on this stuff with any kind of dignity, so I walked just off to the side where the heather and the bogs were. We ground it out.

At a certain kink in the border fence, we hopped over into Scotland and descended yet  more heather, tussocks and soft snow, sometimes, randomly, hard snow and thence up to the ancient Callaw Cairn – a Sub-Donald-Dewey (yes , I know…) and an excellent place to scoff a cornish pasty and a bonio with fox-poo afters and to gaze at the view whilst shivering a bit.

We bashed our way back up to the Border ridge and on to Beefstand Hill, abandoning any ideas concerning the bagging of Philip Shank, but , instead, head for Broadside Law, which was on the way back to the car.

There was a deer fence in the way with a padlocked gate. I bundled the dog over the top and lowered him down using his lead and his Ruffwear harness. I don’t believe he enjoyed this much. Once inside the fence, there were newly planted trees and the very worst kind of lank moorgrass possible, generously interspersed with that damned soft wet snow again. A struggle for progress developed into a struggle just to stand up straight between plunges into knee-deep snow overlying black and cold bogwater. Lucky learned some new words. Anglo-Saxon Words. You know the ones I mean.

We joined a “footpath” – hah!  and met a ladder stile back over the fence. Once more Lucky was heaved up and lowered off. The ground eased a bit till finally, with the final few cornish pasty calories pumping into the bloodstream, we acheived the summit of Broadside Law. Phew.

The return was simple – a steep descent, sloppy path, footbridge and farm and 700 metres of tarmac. A  new crowd of troops were waiting in the car park for their transport. They looked knackered. And so did I.

Good for the soul, though. Probably.

 

Bluecaster Blues

You’d have thought that with a name like “Bluecaster”, there’d be a roman fort or something – but no, apparently not. There is, however a roman road running along it’s Eastern edge and me and the pooch used it for a short distance to get a purchase on this obscure and boggy hillock.

And it was foggy, too, so we made the most of it by making a pig’s ear of a bit of navigation. But eventually, we found the top by using  a traditional Yorkshire Dales navigational technique – that of walking at right angles to the contours, or “uphill” as it’s known in the navigator’s dictionary of navigational wotsits.

This proved effective and soon a diminutive cairn loomed, as best it could, out of the gloom. Lucky was unimpressed and ate the last bit of snow on the top.

So, we walked North, intending to have a look at Uldale, as opposed to going up on the tops on Baugh Fell, where it seemed unlikely that there’d be much of a view. The gloom, in fact, got a bit gloomier. So, we had a small potter around Uldale’s deep gill, which has some rather nice waterfalls, but it was all a bit driech and dribbly today and so, we crossed a footbridge just below Needle House and followed the road back to the Rawthey where a very pleasant rambling path took us back to the start through bits of woodland, Narthwaite farm where Lucky decided to try to dominate a little collie pup until faced with a well-built and very assertive farm collie , which, luckily for Lucky was quite a nice dog and a small ford where Lucky demonstrated his dislike of wet paws by tiptoeing across on stones… 

 

We did 8 miles. Uldale would be much better seen on a nice, warm and sunny summer afternoon rather than a driech and misty February lunchtime.

Wednesday Walkers Walk Cross Fell on Saturday

For some reason I mistimed my journey to Kirkland and turned up a bit late. Cumbria was cold and a bit icy and in deep fog. Lucky’s plan to stay in bed all day seemed like a good one in the circumstances, except that on breasting the Pennine ridge just by Hartside cafe, the  snowy Lake District hills were floating on a sea of cloud and , it appeared, that we were, in fact, in for a bit of a treat.

And so it was. We seven set off in the gloom and soon popped out into blue skies and warm (ish) sunshine. Graeme’s mobile weather station recorded a  temperature of 14C. 14c??! As the sweat dripped off my forehead,  I had to remove a layer. This was a bit of a contrast to last week’s brutally cool ascent of Cross Fell. And at one point, I spotted a Brocken Spectre. The pic is a bit vague, unfortunately… but you can just make it out.

And Cross Fell was busy. There was another big group numbering in the high twenties, all very friendly, some hares and some tortoises – and one or two other small groups. We all filed our way up the bridleway, following ATV tracks which had hardened a corridor of snow to make it all a bit easier.

All of this was done under  bright blue skies with the backdrop of the Lake District fells, the Solway hills in the North and the Howgills in the South and a sea of grey cloud beneath. The big corrie on Helvellyn was easy to pick out and Graeme’s zoomed picture above shows Striding Edge.

Soon, or at least, eventually, we arrived at the top where it wasn’t so warm. So , after group photos (they took ours, we took theirs!), we left for Tees Head. A few of the big group tagged along with us for ease of navigation whilst others of their number went off to bag the Dun Fells in a heroic but far-too-energetic-for-their-own-good bid for whatever it was possessed them to do it…! Anyway, its the first time I’ve managed to double the numbers on a walk….

And so, after a few slips and trips in the now slushy snow, which was badly fixed down to the grass on this side, we descended back into the gloomy Eden valley and our cars back at Kirkland city centre.

Our nominated pub was closed and up for sale, so we improved our post-walk drinkies a bit by visiting the Cumberland Arms in Alston which was dog-friendly, had a nice fire and a selection of tasty beers.

And in the end, there was the sunset. As I arrived at Killhope Cross, there were three cars there, all with their occupants snapping the sunset. So I stopped too, and so did Graeme. (Four of Graeme’s pics appear in this very post)

WE did 9 miles which, oddly, was a mile further than me and Matt had done, but we parked up the lane a bit and took two sraight-line shortcuts. Some of our snowshoe tracks were still there! And somehow I managed to lose one of the steel rings off one of my khatoola’s. I need to mend that somehow before I go on any more ice.

Weardale – Doctors Gate and Black Bank

This was yet another Durham County Council guided walk – reccied by me and Lucky a few days ago in deep and soft snow – and even shiny snow in some places, and, after a bit of a thaw and a refreeze, completed again by me and 27 others including Compulsory Dave, Non-Compulsory Eric and Emergency Jo (who replaced Neville who seems to have contracted a  terrible flu-like lurgy) On the day, which was yesterday, as it happens, it was sunny and cold and the sheep poo which had emerged from beneath the snows was frozen, unlike the cow dung which had been freshly, and I use that word ironically, or, possibly, sarcastically)  spread in some places on top of the snow.  Pooee…

 

I’ll mainly let the pictures do the talking as there were no special dramas, accidents or, indeed, deliberates and, by some miracle, or possibly good balance resulting from practise of a week or more of slithering about on Co Durham’s frozen pavements, nobody fell over -  as far as I’m aware. (all kinds of things can happen with 27 peeps on a walk, most of which the Leader (me) is completely unaware of until the big yellow helicopter arrives….  or it could be that most of the time I’m not all that aware of what’s going on, which is why I keep turning round to see what’s happening behind me and/or making sure that I’m still being followed.

A couple of the pics have been donated by Graeme Ferguson.

The walk is slightly over 11 miles with 1500 feet of up. There’s just the one mile of rough moorland and two or three  two-heart-attack hills. (This is my new standardised measure of how severe an ascent is – a two heart-attack hill woild be fairly strenuous…)

Lucky stayed at home on the walk day cos he’s Not Allowed when I’m leading a walk. Just as well as he’d be exhausted trying to lick 27 hikers…

Blue Skies and Snow on Cross Fell

Nobody could claim that we weren’t Fully Equipped for this chilly foray up Cross Fell.

We had the spikes and the axes and the snowshoes and lots of layers of toasty clothing. I didn’t have a dog, though, based on the weather forecast which had winds with 40mph gusts and a wind-chill of Minus 17C. I thought this would be too cold for the pup, so I left him at home with a dentastick and Mrs Pieman.  In the end, the met office reported lighter winds on Cross Fell (we knew that!) and a wind chill of only minus 16C. So… a bit warmer….  

This walk, in fact was a reccy for a Wednesday Walkers Walk next Saturday  (yes, I know…)

We set off from Kirkland in bright sunshine along paths of frozen grass and sheepmuck and into the hills, where it soon became apparent that this was going to be Hard Work. We were following a couple of young whipper-snappers who quickly disappeared into the distance, snapping their whippers as they went. Some people are far too fit for their own good…

The snow was deeply drifted over the bridleway and was soft and a bit squeaky. So, we put the snowshoes on. This helped only a bit. We battered our way uphill, spirits lifted by the increasingly extensive and beautiful views all around and, especially of the lake District, not too far away across the Eden Valley.

So, we too the snowshoes off again and fought on, lunching at the little shelter cairn on the edge. It was full to the top with drifted snow – not an ideal spot to bivi today…

Onwards and upwards, me now wearing spikes we decided to shortcut the elbow in the route and took a direct line towards Cross fell Well – a patch of ice indicating the wet patch. And we’d put the snowshoes back on by this time. Sometimes they helped and sometimes they didn’t. But occasionally, there was hard old neve just under the snow and this stuff was nice and crunchy and, above-all, very hard and easy to walk on.

Eventually, we hit the summit plateau and wandered over to the newly rebuilt cross-shelter at the top. We rested only briefly here – it was no place to hang around, given the cutting wind and the fact that time was pressing, so we left, smartish for the tall cairn on the edge, and, taking another shortcut to take out yet another big corner, we descended deep snow back down again.

A track took us back to the start, passing the Hanging Gardens of Mark Anthony on the way – a bit of an overstated label for a couple of mediaeval lynchets

The tall cairn appears to have a big white nose and a mischievous grin and we had a brief chat about Conservative Party Education policy and the security situation in Uranda Burundi, of which neither of us knew much at all.

The depth and consistency of the snow meant that this walk took almost twice as long as it would normally have done  and was really quite hard going – which means, of course, that I may need to abandon the idea when it comes to next Saturday’s walk . In which case, I have an easier alternative which still goes fairly high but which has less climbing.

In any event, if the day is anything like yesterday, whatever walk we do will be amongst remarkable beauty. So, I’m hoping the snow stays around, but stiffens up quite a lot, and if this happens, it could be breathtaking. It just needs some freeze/thaw.

Thanks to Matt for some of the pics.