Shutlingsloe and the TGO Challenge Gathering at The Snake Pass Inn

I left the pooch in chewing his kong (this is not a euphemism by the way) and in the tender care of Mrs Pieman whilst I pointed the knipemobile down the M1 as far as Barnsley, at which point I turned right,or as in Mrs Pieman’s navigation instructions,  “up” (as opposed to “down”, which is “left”) towards Manchester, only stopping on the moors above the fine city of Penistone for the bagging of Hartcliff Hill, and again, a bit later and a bit further on for the bagging of the diminutive Tump, Whitwell Moor.  Hartcliff Hill is remarkable for the tower on it’s top, which is climbable providing you’re not too bothered about pigeon poo and Whitwell is specially popular with dog walkers, it seems, if you catch my drift.

And then, having satisfied my Tumplust, I pressed on to the public bar at the Snake Pass Inn where various TGO challengers had installed themselves for a convivial evening talking about Sgurr Wotsit and Beinn Oojibar, that stormy night in the Queen Mother’s bothy and that particularly rowdy evening in Braemar where somebody recovered consciousness up in a comfy bed in Denmark dressed only in a pink nighty and a bobble hat.

And the next day it was Saturday, the day for co-mingling with Geoff and Chrissie for the bagging of the elusive but shapely HuMP and Dewey, Shutlingsloe – a hill I’d failed to approach near enough to claim the tick on at least two previous occasions. So today, I pointed the knipemobile over the Snake Pass arriving at Castlecrowther a bit later.

Geoff and Chrissie, or , possibly, Chrissie and Geoff had a route already planned and so we did that – and a good job too, given my previous record of non-attainment in the  climbing up Shutlingsloe department. And very nice it was too – seven miles of that specially extended type of mile they have in the Peak District – even longer than Yorkshire miles amongst green fields where early spring skylarks sing in a blue sky and sledging is strictly prohibited and everybody except us has a cute dog with them..

So, we had a nice trundle around the sledging fields of Cheshire and Chrissie’s account of the day appears on her blog, a link to which appears at the end of this account and which is a better account than this one…

Afterwards, we repaired to Castlecrowther for mugs of tea and cherry flapjack.

Meanwhile, back at  the Snake Pass Inn, heroic deeds were taking place in the kitchen, where an enormous and delicious meal was being prepared. This scoff was in such plentiful supply that afterwards I couldn’t drink enough beer, and, in fact, just moving towards the bar could possibly have been fatal, I thought.

So it had to be whisky.

Then it was Sunday and time for home and to see if Lucky had been good or naughty. (He’d been both , as it happens) On the way, I bagged Wharncliffe Chase in some drizzle – probably not the best day for this sort of thing, but you don’t get to drive through Grenoside every day innit?

I could have taken the dog, as it happens. There was another dog present, and he spent dinner time quietly under a table (I often find that quietly under a table at the end of a convivial evening is quite a comfy and peaceful spot as it happens) There could have been some initial barking between the two, but by Saturday any doggyspats would have been sorted out, I’m sure. Anyway, it was nice to see some familiar TGO chally faces again and I’ll likely do this gathering again ---  and I’m  certainly inspired to apply for the TGO challenge next year. I have a route in mind, in fact….

Ah well.

Finally – I’m more than gruntled to see that people have been bunging cash into the virgin money-giving account and I’d like to thank Sally, Hilary and Pauline from Chestnut House for their kind donations. (I wonder if Chestnut House’s Personnel Department floor has collapsed yet by the way?) I should try to encourage this type of behaviour, really….

Chrissie’s blogtale of the Shutlingsloe walk is here

I’ve not done a map because I’m not entirely certain where we went.

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Baldersdale- Durham County Council Guided Walk - Walkers’ Pictures

I thought I’d do something different for this blogpost. Readers might remember, from the previous post, that my attempt to reccy a guided walk in Baldersdale went awry and me and the Pooch were beaten back by the elements in the form of fierce blizzards.  But yesterday, as the snow began to thaw,  24 people turned up, plus a collie dog and including stewards Maria, Neville and Jane. The walk was tough going due to deep and soft snow which often hid deep holes and soggy, not to say, downright wet bits. There were many tumbles, plunges and slides.

But I won’t go into any more detail, but instead, I will present, for your delectation and delight, some of  the photographs sent to me since yesterday by people on the walk… and a few of mine, too. They won’t necessarily be in any order and the only thing I’ve done to some of them is to resize them to the usual blogsize format and to add a caption which you can see if you hover a mouse over the picture. No other rodents will work, by the way. Just sayin….

All the pictures remain the copyright of whoever took them!

The walk was about eleven miles by the way, and a map appears at the end of this post.

And finally, for Judith, who bunged some of her hard-earned spondoolies into the virgin money-giving account, a picture of a cute dog, sunbathing in the window of the South bastion at Pietowers as I struggle on through deep snow in horrendous weather (see pics above). Thanks Judith. I’m about to make a small addition myself from the contents of the Pietowers guardroom swearbox. If anybody else feels like topping up their karma, click on the Mind logo at the bottom of this post…

 

It’s 11 miles by the way.

 

Baldersdale Reccy Abandoned.

I was supposed to do this reccy for Wednesday’s Durham County Council guided walk on Sunday. The walk’s on Wednesday and starts from Balderhead reservoir at ten o’clock. However, it was wet and windy at Pietowers on Sunday, so I put it off till today.

This morning, it was snowing heavily at Pietowers and reports from the Knipe/Gray Eyrie up high in the Pennines indicated swirling blizzards and even blizzardier blizzards than in Crook. So I had another cup of coffee. And the last chocolate biscuit.

At some point mid-morning, in a short period of caffiene-induced enthusiasm, I decided I’d better set off. I put the dog’s saddle on, loaded him into the knipemobile and set off down the A68, which was clear and fast. The road to Hamsterley was no problem, but the high road over the tops was covered in highly polished ice and snow. Despite all this, I successfully avoided the white van that slithered towards me sideways at one point and arrived at Hury Reservoir without a scratch, ding, or small bush sticking out from the front bumper.

And not only this but the sun was shining and Lucky was happy, more than happy, really, to have a bit of snow to bounce around in (about two inches is my guess)

We weren’t supposed to be at Hury, obviously, because the walk starts at Balderhead, but it visits Hury and my guess was that the Balderhead road would be just one scary point too scary, whereas…

Hennyway, we progressed into a buffeting and arctic headwind, but in bright and beautiful conditions. After two miles, though, we hit the blizzard, or, rather, it hit us. I had my snow goggles on, so I was pretty much OK, but Lucky could make no progress at all into this storm and was intent on heading off towards Darlington. This was a worry cos I got the pooch from Darlington and it wouldn’t do to have him suddenly turn up at the Dog’s Trust all iced up.  So, we turned to shelter behind the dam wall. This wasn’t much help, to be honest and I couldn’t help noticing that the moor above the reservoir was a chaos of speeding clouds of drifting snow. There was no prospect that man nor dog – specially not a goggle-less dog would be able to cope with this – and this is where the walk goes next. So I packed it in and, with the wind now pushing me along – almost hurrying me away from the place, I retired to the knipemobile for chicken and turkey butties and chocolate and coffee.

The storm abated and the sun came out. But it was too late now. I might try again tomorrow.

As a consolation prize, I went off down the A66 and bagged a small but bijoux Tump – one Diddersley Hill – 209 metres, and right next to the road. You are forgiven for not knowing where this is, or even, I should say, caring much about not knowing where it is. It does have a very good view, though.

We did four miles. That’s four out of eleven.  But I still have my dog.

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Mind? I don’t mind…

Many readers probably won’t be aware that this pieblog supports the mental health charity Mind.  This is likely to be because this fact has had a low profile so far this year as a strategic decision on my part. And another reason is that I appear to have attracted a bunch of new readers recently and, unless they’ve been really avid and enthusiastic, they can’t be expected to know things like this.

Anyway, welcome to the blog to the new readers and I hope you’ll stick around.

And – I get to the point eventually – it’s 1st March and the first day of spring (possibly why the knipetowers battlements are dusted with ice just now) and it’s time to relaunch the Mind initiative.

The rules are simple:

I don’t ask for sponsors. People who cough up spondoolies do it because they get something out of it. In the past I’ve resold gear given to me as part of a review deal (I ask for two items of gear – one to use and one to sell). Organisations have had little plugs for their publicity campaigns in return for a small but bijoux fee and stuff like that. I will consider requests, although offers to write blogposts from companies selling fashion pullovers or whatever get rejected.

Finally, for anybody who really wants to donate, there’s a virgin money-giving page which is last year’s page with a new target amount and a new closing date.

Last year, instead of taking part in the TGO challenge, I plonked myself in various places where I knew TGO challengers would be passing, and I provided coffee, beer, bacon, chocolate cake, sympathy…. you get the picture – and they gave me money. This raised £370 and I got a nice little jolly in the process. This was Cafe Akto – and a lot of fun for yours truly.

But I’m not doing that this year!

Click the  here or anywhere on the logo below to visit the money giving page to have a look, or to leave any odd bits of cash you might have lying about…  If you want something in exchange for the cash then you’ll just have to say what it is you want…

Service will resume, more or less as normal quite shortly – I’m off up Baldersdale tomorrow on a reccy for a Durham County Council guided walk which happens on Wednesday. It’ll be fun. It’ll be cold. It’ll be Quite A Long Way. Lucky is coming too.

 

Me and the Pooch Go Camping

There was a certain amount of unfinished business at Rosthwaite, so me and the dog went back. The campsite was closed, or, at least, locked but this didn’t deter us from putting up the tent and the farmer came, declared that I must be mad and charged me nine quid for three nights. It would have been four, but there was a storm involving drifting snow and closed roads on the Monday, so there was some slight delay…

 

And so, Wednesday dawned wetly. The wetness went on most of the morning so, after consulting the dog, we decided to have a longer snooze than we should have done and eventually, when the last drips of drizzle had splattered the tent, we set off, up through Stonethwaite and on up the impossibly steep path towards Dock Tarn.

At the part where it levels off a bit, we turned left for the bagging of Knotts, a 400 metre TuMP where, it seems, nobody goes, specially not Wainwright or any of his fans and acolytes. This turned out to be an error, however – we should have turned right. (dhuhh) Thus, we missed the bagging of High Crag, which was definitely on my List Of Things To Bag, in favour of Great Crag, which wasn’t , as I’d already been there.

It was such a nice walk, though, so far, and Great Crag – a Wainwright (more dhuhhh) has a cracking view. Innocently, and forgetting that I’d already been here some thirty years ago, I congratulated myself, kissed the dog, embraced the summit cairn and severely damaged a  Warburton’s Thin thing, charged, as it was, with some Mackerel with a twist.

The rest of the walk was rubbish. The path goes North through an area of lank grass, of no use to man nor beast, bog, (frogs quite like bogs, I suppose) and dying heather – a sloppy. squelchy walk over a poor landscape of which the National Trust should be ashamed to have allowed to deteriorate into this mess, frankly.

I pointed Lucky towards the Riverside Bar at Rosthwaite for a brief moment of celebration for the bagging of two new hills. Lucky likes this pub for it’s warm fire and the fact that everybody seems to like him there – the barmaid even knows his name. She doesn’t know mine, though!

Except, I’d only bagged one…

It chucked it down big time from about six at night till well after  Thursday lunchtime, melting much fell snow and turning rivers and streams into raging rivers and streams. This meant that me and Lucky got lots of sleep. I read more Beowulf and sipped scotch whilst Lucky ripped up bits of paper between bouts of doggy snoring and doggy  running and yelping dreams.

So, it was late when we set off for Keswick for the bagging of Castlehead and Grange Crags – both of which provide superb views for very little effort – thus three ticks for the trip – I thought I had four – and I missed my little Birkett, stuck, as it is on the side of Glaramara and permanently in hill-fog. It’ll wait. I’ll do it later with a proper walk along Glaramara and Allen Crags.

Lucky did get four ticks by the way – he’d never been up Great Crag.  There’s nothing worse than a smug dog.

Couple more pics below…