Luss Hills again (old post got corrupted somehow)

I’ve had my bagging sensors twitching for the hills just to the left of Loch Lomond for some time now so, having booked a pitch on the Luss campsite, I collected Dawn and we hurtled up the M74 in low dudgeon and arrived a bit early due to missing a key motorway junction which would have provided a half-way Tump bag. If you know what I mean.

Wednesday dawned brightly and so we set off for what I expected would be a reasonably short and easy hillwalk around the Scriddle Horseshoe – not so much a horseshoe as half a banana, but famous walks never refer to bananas, so they. I meantersay, the Fairfield Banana wouldn’t really cut it, would it?


The first hill, Beinn Dubh has lots of closely-packed and tightly knit contours – knitted, in fact, into the shape of a huge green hill which is odd since the hill’s name translates as “Black Hill”. However, in July, it is covered in luciously sweet summer grass; a beautiful prospect. It was poiled somewhat by an early but short shower which we avoided by a ten-minute break under my group shelter thingy. The next shower got us wet, though, as did the one after that and the next one and so on…


After Beinn Dubh, we passed fairly easily over Mid Hill and descended by it’s East-facing ridge, pointing directly at Loch Lomond’s islands. 8 miles, according to walkhighlands route-planning doinz.

Thursday was to be a better day for the weather and we returned to Glen Luss to climb Beinn Eich – a similarly grassy upturned-boat-shaped lump with heavingly closely packed contours, but finishing with a little grassy cone and followed by a delightful romp down a long and narrow(ish) grassy ridge. This kind of thing is much more suited to Cumbria where it would get much more attention from hillwalkers and would have it’s very own chapter in a Wainwright guidebook. As would Doune Hill – the next one on the ridge.

Doune Hill has a steep descent to a bealach where Dawn was left to set up Camp 1 with the rucksacks whilst me and LTD struggled up the slopes of Doune Hill East Top.

LTD  remarkably showed off his tracking skills by locating Dawn’s temporary camp using only his nose and we all set iff down the steep slopes to Glen Mollochan which leads soggily back to Glen Luss and Luss village. We did about 12 miles.

Friday had a bad forecast and so I made no hard plans, but thought we could maybe have a half day or an hour or two bagging something a bit easier on the legs and it was with some relief, after a bit of a lie-in, that the first spatters of rain hit the tent at about ten o’clock. Then it proceeded to chuck it down all day. There was a hint that it was slacking off a bit in the afternoon so we set off hopefully for Balmaha for a little expedition up Conic Hill. But the weather was terrible, so whilct Dawn stocked up on whatever she stocked up on, I bought dentasticks for the pooch and Australian merlot for me.
And that was that.

The Luss Hills are very fine hills, though and we only bagged three of the eight Marilyns available there. And we spotted multiple fine wild camping spots. And there was just the one other party behid us on the first walk and nobody else on the hill on the second walk, so we had the place to ourselves. And, the campsite is much too expensive for it’s own good, and occupied and/or visited by criminals one of whom was carted off by a huge gang of youthful policemen and another who pinched the campsite’s bikes and an honesty box. Then there’s the constant noise of the main road which roars away all night, the screeching gulls, the german tourists chattering late into the night and the disco from the hotel next door, plus wandering Glaswegian drunks…..  Am I going on too much? At least nobody complained about my snoring. It’s cos they couldn’t hear it above the din. Innit?  Not going back to the campsite anyway.
But the hills are worth it. I’ll have to return for the hills.

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Wednesday Walkers Walking on Saturdays - Mallerstang Edge Guest Post By Kathy

You’ll have seen the pics from the reccy, which, if you have, is just as well becasue on the day it chucked it down and we could see bugger-all along the tops.
But enough of this; it has become traditional that on a Wednesday Walkers Walking On Saturdays group, that somebody writes a report. This often, if not usually, falls to Kathy. And Kathy wrote a write-up on this occasion too, and this is copied using the magic of CTRL-C and CTRL-V below.

As for me, I’m off to Loch Lomond with Dawn to get eaten by midgies.
Enjoy:  (All thanks to Kathy for the write-up by the way… maybe I should have asked permission except to say that we’re having a wake here at Knipetowers for Trex The Cat who passed away peacefully during last night after 18 years of murder, mayhem and pillage (he never mastered rape) on the small birds and insects of Foundry Fields in Crook. And I’ve been celebrating his life and his easy passing with a glass or two of Australian plonk.)
Here goes:

Driving westbound along the A66 yesterday it was a dry, cloudy morning. However, as we reached Cumbria we could see heavy, dark clouds over the hills - it looked ominous. We knew we were in for a soaking, but being the intrepid "gang" we are, it did not faze us one jot!
10 walkers and "Bailey", the Terrier met Mike Knipe, the walk Leader at Kirby Stephen railway station for a 13.5 mile "hard" walk and waited for the 10.17 train to Garsdale Head Station (see photo below.) Once boarded, there was banter and laughs as some of the walkers enjoyed the company of others walkers who were returning from a walking holiday. Garsdale is not a village, but a valley through which runs the A684 road from Sedbergh to Hawes and is situated within the Yorkshire Dales.
There was only a slight drizzle and a temperature of approximately 14 degrees C as we left the station and headed towards the 12-span Garsdale Viaduct (see photo below.) We climbed up to the Pennine Bridleway, also known as Lady Anne's "Highway." (See photo below.) Lady Anne's "Highway" takes it's name from Lady Anne Clifford who was born in Skipton Castle in 1590. It is a 100 mile long distance path from Skipton Castle to Broughton Castle at Penrith (a high route over the fells from Wensleydale into Mallerstang.)
We enjoyed lunch by Elmgill and some walkers removed their waterproofs as the drizzle had stopped. Following lunch we walked on to Hell Gill Bridge where we found a waterfall with a deep drop into a rocky ravine.

From here we climbed steeply to proceed along Hangingstone Scar, which is part of the Mallerstone Edge. The Guidebooks state "ruggedly beautiful." However, by this time, heavy and blustery rain and fog arrived. Sadly, some walkers did not have time to put on their waterproof clothing and got soaked!
We continued along the pathless fell side with streams and brooks, between the many short grassy ridges to High Seat. Despite it being below 2000 feet, it is the highest point for about 5 miles in any direction. By the time we reached High Peak (658 metres high) the rain had become heavier and the fog thicker.......by this time, even the most garrulous of walkers were subdued!

As we started to descend, most of the walkers recognised the area through the fog - we had visited this area before when we visited the 9 Standards (another tale well known by the DCC Walkers!) last year with Mike. We continued to descend quite quickly, looking forward to reaching Nateby village. However, disaster struck when we saw the bridge we should have crossed had been wrecked by a land-slip. So, we had to "slither" down the soaking wet river bank (no DCC Stewards to assist us) and everyone for themselves! (see photo below.)

Eventually, we arrived back to Kirby Stephen railway station at approximately 17.15. Not
surprisingly, none of the walkers enjoyed the usual refreshments and "debriefing". Everyone headed for their cars and home!
Thank you so much to Mike for organising yet another challenging WSWG walk - everyone agreed that it would have been a fantastic walk........just a pity about the awful weather and it will take days for our boots to dry out!

The Dirty Thirty Thirds

I should have done this earlier. …. I have in my possesion, a book called Craven’s part in the great war – issued to John William Knipe in 1920 in memory of his part in what we now call World War 1.
I have two grandads – (many people will claim the same number) – John William Knipe from Skipton – my Dad’s dad and Herbert Turner, my Mum’s dad from Earby. I only ever met my mum’s dad and all he would say about the Great War was “nivver get thisell involved in owt like this, lad”, whilst suddenly withdrawing the pictures of a ruined Ypres which he’d started to show me. This puzzled me a bit at the time…
The book “Craven’s Part” etc was passed to me via my Nana when she died and it’s only now that I thought to look at it in more detail.
So, for the last few hours, I’ve retraced both grandads’ movements from Skipton to Lincolnshire to Doncaster to Bulogne to Flanders in the summer of 1915. And then to the villages just North of Ypres, to Amiens and to attacks on Thieval woods in the battle of the Somme to a reduction in available manpower from 2000 to 200 men. To the slaughter of almost all of the officer corps and the gas attacks and all that digging under fire.
And this is not even the half of it. Not yet. This is just 1916 – they continued for another 3 years.
And I can look at all the villages and roads and the digging-in by a canal on Google Earth and think that both my grandads were there – except that, maybe they were not – but got injured. Herbert got shot twice, it seems. The first time  he had a steel mirror in a chest pocket that took the force of a bullet and the second time he was hit in a hip – although he did recount enduring a gas attack which seems to have taken place at Ypres.  Grandad John Willy got hit in the hip and spent the rest of the war in hospital in Leeds, but I’m not sure, at this stage when this happened.
The bottom line, for a walking blog, is that I have a strong urge to revisit; to do some of the long marches and to visit some of the woods they invested.
The memories of Grandad Herbert Turner were probably quite stark. I think, maybe I can now understand why he snatched those pictures away so suddenly. It wasn’t the thing to show to a child. We were just post World War 2 and people had high expectations that this kind of thing should never ever happen again – an even stronger emotion held in the heart of my old Grandad given shock of gentle country lads encountering the stinking hell and  brutality and the random whistling death of the Flanders trenches. Bless ‘im.

Bowden Doors and St Cuthberts Cave

Me and Dawn and LTD had a nice little trundle around a bit of the Kyloe Hills very recently – a small group of fairly low but rocky and interesting lumps – or that should be Tumps just to the left of Lindisfarne and to the right of the Cheviot hills.
There’s a small National Trust car park, signposted “St Cutthroats Cuthbert’s Cave” just by Holburn Grange farm which we used as a starting point just because it was a good place to start a walk.

First up was the cave. Apparently, this is reputed to be where St Cuthbert’s body was rested overnight on it’s way to Durham Cathedral. Those familiar with the story of St Cuthbert will appreciate that he didn’t go straing to Durham but was paraded around the North of England for quite a while before actually being installed in a shrine there. People in Durham are specially fond of St Cuthbert it seems. The people who’s last bivied there and left litter and the remains of a campfire were less fond, apparently.

Our first Tump was Greensheen Hill – a heathery lump with a fine view of Lindisfarne to the left and the Cheviot Hills to the right (depending on which way you are facing, obviously) This pleasant spot has a little rocky and unnamed top which provides a similar view, the opportunity for some mild scrambling and a chance for one’s pooch to lick the face and ears of a complete stranger having a snooze in the heather. She accepted my apologies with good grace, I’m happy to say. Still, it’s better to have a dog who does things like that rather than one who likes to take a nip out of strangers.


Onwards and backwards (we retraced a bit) for the bagging of Cockenheugh. Cockenheugh’s top is at the junction of derelict walls deep in the woods. This provided a bit of a challenge, as did the location of a key bridleway which lay deep in vegetation well guarded by hordes of blackfly.


We wandered further and accidentally found the right path which goes through to Colour Heugh aka Back Bowden Doors. This is a fabulously beautiful sandstone crag some forty feet high containing overhangs, slabs and corners of all shapes and sizes and facing West into the sun. The picture immediately above appears to be “Holly Tree Corner” mild vs 4b and th fluings to the left of the deep corner contain the finishes to “The Arches”  Very Severe 5a and “Hard Reign” 5c.  They’re all too hard for me anyway.

And so, after a little wander across Dancing Green Hill, we traversed the top of Bowden Doors in a shower. We didn’t see much of the crag, but my Northumberland climbers guide  - and it’s a fairly old guide, runs to ten pages plus crag diagrams. Maybe we should have explored this a bit more…
St Cuthbert’s Way brought us back to the car park.
Just about 7 miles for 3 Tumps. It felt further, for some reason…