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.

Wednesday Walkers Walk Crow Coal Hill

Me and Lucky did the reccy for this on Sunday on a day of melting snow with lots of old ice about. It was, in the vernacular of Look North News “nithering”. We weren’t bothered, though cos we wuz well wrapped up and quite toasty in our fourteen layers of thermal polypropylene…  Lucky only had two on, though, now I think on….

Anyway, its a good job we did a reccy because we found one particular bit of level track walking to be dull dull dull and the shooting box I’d planned to use as a lunch  er..box… was occupied. I have no idea who was inside, but there was smoke coming from the chimney and the place had been seriously done up since I was last there – probably twenty years ago..  so I though we wouldn’t go that way.

Next was the riverside footpath between Eastgate and Stanhope – The Weardale Way. This started off badly at a gate which was effectively defended by some very deep-looking cowshit. Lucky refused to enter and I had to climb onto the fence whilst transporting a reluctant dog by the handle on his harness – an acrobatic feat of some skill considering that a) he was wriggling a lot and b) despite his small size he weighs 15kg. My big pack only weighs 12 kg…
Anyway, we progressed over lumpy mud – there being no remaining grass from now on. Then we hit the mud, slurry, or sludge. Deep stuff. Fearful stuff. is there such a thing as an arctic alligator…?  The only thing to do was to bypass – and so we crossed onto the railway line and passed two dozen cows, up to their armpits in the stuff and, going “Ooh look a dog….” at the same time. We did a couple of hundred metres on the train track before a gate let us back onto the “path”. We wouldn’t be going that way either.

On the day, there was heavy rain and a pessimistic weather forecast involving blizzards, lightening, road travel disruption,  three of the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the release of a new Gary Glitter single, so I left the dog snoozing at home and arrived along with eight other idiots walkers, two of whom saw sense and went off to find a cake shop. So seven of us set off on my newly redesigned and revised, not to say, shortened route.

It went well. The rain stopped and the sun came out. And, as we turned to find the attack-point (navigational term) for our hill, a howling blizzard began. We sought shelter and an early lunch inside a dark wood. Dark, shapeless figures stalked all around, sensed but unseen in the hidden shadows beneath the waving branches of sitka as we ate our beef and onion butties and munched healthily and a bit self-consciously on one of our five-a-day fruits and a bit of Spanish lettuce.. Was it just the wind moaning in the trees or the tormented spirit of some lost soul shivering their last on some foul winter’s night?
No. Don’t be daft.

After lunch, the sun had come out again so we followed the forest edge a bit more till we came to Isaac Sike – a small stream which , if handrailed (more navigation talk here..) would lead us to the wide ridge just a bit to the right of Crow Coal Hill’s trig point. I have to say that it was quite windy at this point, but Isaac Sike was designed to keep us from the gusty worst till the very last ten minutes – which it did, in fact. The very last ten minutes were quite exciting, though, and people were seen to be almost blown away. Doggy poo bags were ripped from rucksack pockets and the only thing to hang on to was the trig point itself.We descended breezily towards Eastgate and the relative tropicality of Upper Weardale.We didn't take Cow Poo Trail, but opted instead for a drier walk along a back road.

It was 9 miles. It was supposed to be a bit longer, but the ridge would have been stupidly hard work.
Lucky was still asleep when I got home.
Several pics by Rob Cunningham. Cos they’re better than mine. Thanks Rob…

There May be (Slutchy) Trouble Ahead….

On Wednesday, blizzards permitting, I’ll be leading the Wednesday Walkers, or as many as turn up, on a little trundle around Crow Coal Hill.

Me and Lucky did  a reccy of the route a day or two ago and found slutch. Lots of slutch. Slutch is a Lancashire word for the particular mix of water, soil , and, in this case, cow poo, which makes the particular sound which sounds like “Slutch” when you pull your foot out of it. (Note carefully that I used the word “foot” here since the continued attachment of footwear to the foot after immersion in slutch is not necessarily guaranteed where slutch is concerned. Indeed, the foot may well be sripped to the skin, although the slutch itself could have certain beneficial properties providing you don’t drink any of it.) It may also refer to the sound made when you put your foot in it, too.

This slutch was deep slutch too. Too deep for the diminutive Lucky.

Its on the Weardale Way between Eastgate and Stanhope – a normally benign and quite pretty ramble when the river’s not in flood, in which case it gets a bit desperate. The cows who are contributing to the amount of slutch are still present, but the farmer, who’s tractor has deepened the slutch into a brown moat, probably full of all kinds of horrors, including the bloated cadavers of missing members of the Crook and Weardale Ramblers and their bobble hats, cheese butties and walking poles was absent.

We won’t be going this way incidentally, since me and he dog had to trespass onto the nearby railway to bypass the slutch and the cows. This wasn’t too bad because the railway hasn’t seen a train for years and years and years…..

Here’s a nicer bit of the Crow Coal Hill route, though….

Slutch – I want you to practise saying this at every appropriate opportunity – just to enhance your vocabulary. You may apply it to sloppy mud, the horrid contents of a nappy or to badly made gravy. Use your imagination.

Slutch, that’s onomatopoeia, that is.   We know a song about that.

Camping with JJ, Dawn and Lucky in Borrowdale

When I arrived with Dawn and The Pooch, the weather was calm and icy, so I put up The New Tent (Did I mention that I’ve got a new tent by the way…?) facing in roughly the direction of the rising sun.  This seemed like A Good Idea at the time.

JJ arrived soon afterwards and erected his caravan in the car park, so we all went and had our tea. The consisted of some chicken and a lot of chips.  No, I mean a lot of chips. More chips than you could estimate a lot of chips to be, in fact. there is now a chip supply problem in parts of Cheshire, apparently.

So, in the morning, which was grey and cold and windy and snowy and icy, and full of chips, we went for a liddle wander up High Doak, a 381 metre TuMP what nobody has ever heard of. This was followed by a ramble on the Allerdale Ramble, just past Castle Crag, and back to the Scafell Hotel for beer and nuts by the deft use of the Cumbria Way in a Southerly direction.

We noted  for reasons of future post-walk rehydration and warming, that the Scafell Hotel had a huge roaring fire, ideal for the thawing out asmall black dog and a suitable supply of Tirrell Bitter, or whatever they called it, for the rehydration of thirsty ramblers and that this was a very useful combination of attributes.

We repaired once again to JJ’s caravan for pie and peas and chips and Christmas pudding.

Next, JJ needed washing up liquid as Lucky couldn’t manage to clean the grease off all those chippy plates and this was followed by a brief expedition or excursion up Latrigg. This was very nice and the sun shone and the views of Skiddaw and Loch Derwent were quite, quite fab.

After a compulsory visit to view the large roaring fire at the Scafell Hotel and to meet Spot the Dog (worra soft git is Spot the Dog), we repaired once again to JJ’s caravan for sausages beans and chips and Christmas Pudding..or was it lemon drizzle Cake..? Anyway, whatever it was, it was very filling.

And in the night it blew a hoolie and removed the door from my new tent just as I’d got myself a lovely cup of hot coffee.

Lucky, though, having buried himself under a sleeping bag, failed to notice the sudden gale re-arranging my gear inside The New Tent and continued to snore whilst , no doubt dreaming of his sunny homeland back in Limerick.

In the morning it was yet still blowing a hoolie, but now it was also drizzling quite a bit – just as JJ departed for the sunny South and his replacement, The Bro, insisted on a nice walk up Ether Knott. This was to be easy and soon dealt with and we would hardly notice it and certainly not get damp at all.

So we heaved our tired legs up the steep and stony path towards Watendlath and over the thawing snow and ankle-trapping heathery stuff high up onto the knobble that is Ether Knott – a sub-HuMP, I’ll have you know.

After lunch behind a sheltering wall, we descended via various sudden beetling drops and with a bit of gluteus-maxima slithering, eventually fetched up on the path to Shepherds Crag. We sploshed our way back to the Scafell Hotel….  I got wet. Lucky got wet. The Bro got damp, JJ got home.

And that was it.  Today, I took Dawn back to the station via the Chatterbox cafe and went home to dry off.

The tent done well – once the wind comes from the correct direction and not directly at the door, it stands up well to a buffeting and it’s very waterproof, which is just as well, really. For camping gear enthusiasts, it’s a Vaude Terratrio 3P – mainly for just me and the dog and a huge supply of scoff and booze.

All three walks added together came to 20 miles and 4700 feet of up.

Obviously, this trip failed to live up to the Linney/Knipe expedition record for dramatic and probably quite dangerous weather conditions. It’s probably lulling us into a false sense of security.  I’m not worried, though.