Santo Bugitos House of Horrors

Pictures can be found here http://www.seanliquorish.co.uk/gallery/?album=Sean%2FWalking%2FLangdale+Crinkle&page=all

Last weekend saw the second of my planned Lakes trips this year, last time I took in Bowfell, Great End and Scafell Pike from Langdale, wild camping at Angle Tarn. This time it was planned to be a climbing trip, taking in Middlefell Buttress, the Scouts and possibly Pavey Ark, staying in the relative luxury of the National Trust site in the same valley.

You remember the Crowded House song “Always take the weather with you”, well me and my partner in crime Mike always do, and that weather is always wet. We had the 2006 and 2007 trips to climb Pillar Rock, fine until a mile before we get there and then it rains just enough to make it unclimbable. In fact in 2007 I appreciated the upside down view from the Notch in Slab and Notch after coming off a metre or two above the start, due to wet conditions.

I’ll be honest, we could have got 3-4 hours climbing in on the first day, however when we had pitched up the tent, the clouds above Crinkle Crags and Bowfell looked quite dark and ominous, so we decided to do a walk instead. Mike had done Crinkle Crags before, so we decided to extend it to take in Pike O Blisco, which was a first for both of us and to take a small diversion to look at the needle on Long Crag.

Leaving the campsite at the far end, we moved up through the wood at the base of Side Pike, and zig zagged up to the plateau between Langdale and Hardknott Pass. After a nice warm up climb to 250m, we were then faced with what I consider to be one of the less well known gems of the Lake District, the Blea Tarn area. I had certainly never heard of it before, and I’m not a stranger to Langdale by any means. In fact there were only 3 cars parked up and we only met 4 people all the way through here, so I guess I am not alone.

If you have a young family and want an afternoon out in the Lakes without a lot of height climb for the kids, then you can easily park at the top, and then go exploring the woods just past Blea Tarn, let them scramble on one of several rock escarpments, or just enjoy the walk through some stunning countryside with fantastic views of the mountains at either end of the pass, and surrounded by rocky hills either side. If they are a bit older then the walk up from Langdale wouldn’t be too taxing either. It is like someone has taken one of the big valleys, shrunk it in scale and transplanted it at 250m altitude.

After a pleasant half hour of walking through this, we started to head to the right over Blea Moss following the hill out of the valley to meet the road up Hardknott Pass as it headed uphill towards the roman fort. Half mile of tarmac followed before we look lunch at Wrynose Bridge. A welcome break before we took on the 500m of ascent we needed to gain to top Pike O Blisco. Having driven the pass before myself, the unmistakeable smell of clutch plates and brake pads drifted over us even 20m away from the road, and you could tell some people were going to have fun with overheated brakes towards the bottom of the pass!

We followed the stream for a mile up the hill which would take us to the plateau at approx 500m, crossing several small streams as it split up higher up the hill to the North. As we ascended the views of the surrounding hills got better, with Wetherlam and Swirl How on the opposite side of Hardknott pass, with the impressive curling approach ridge and eventually the Langdale Pikes as you reached the small plateau near Long Crag. However our objective was slightly to the west, and we headed over to the summit of Pike O Blisco over the intermittently boggy ground we have been dealing with ever since we left the road at Hardknott Pass.

The route to the summit meandered for just under a mile, with steady climbing up to 705m, where we were rewarded with a typical rocky summit for this area. Views from here stretched along the Langdale valley and back towards the head of Windermere and Little Langdale, as well as higher levels views of Wetherlam and Swirl How

For all the climbing up to the summit, we now had to descend the rocky path down to the pass between Blisco and Crinkle Crags, some 200m below us. At this point my knees fell out with me and didn’t make friends again until I got back to the camp site. Don’t blame them after how I treat them sometimes :^)

We then took a small diversion, heading on the track back towards Wrynose, to check out Long Scar for a future climbing trip, and more specifically the needle at the end of the crag. The route looked interesting, with some nice chimney work needed, however there were several other lines which looked worthy of some investigation, including some nice crack routes.

Once back on the main Blisco to Crinkle Crags track, we started the long slog up to the triple summit that is Crinkle Crags. This was an almost constant 350m of ascent with a short plateau behind Great Knott, and several short breaks were needed for the aching legs. I would love to tell you the views were worth it, but I can’t, from behind Great Knott to the top of the Band, all I saw was cloud, cloud and more cloud. This accounts for the lack of photos from this section of the walk! It also made later navigation over the top of Crinkle a regular map checking affair as it was all too easy to take one of the many wrong paths with no visual point of reference. This is one summit I am going to have to revisit in better weather to appreciate them properly.

Taking in the 3 (or 4) tops we then started the descent to the three tarns at top of the Band and our final stretch of the day. I have a love and hate relationship with the Band, as I ascended up on my previous trip and descended it on this trip, and it is the same either way, you get nowhere fast, apart from the top and bottom sections it seems to go on forever without you seeming to gain a lot up or down. Looking at a map you can see why, you don’t, its the last kilometre at each end where you make the gains or losses. However it does get you to some great places.

It was halfway down the Band the rain finally hit us, and it hit me hard, with hailstones which stung, for 15-20 minutes. I also found out my waterproof trousers were not entirely that as well. I was glad when the rain stopped and the farm at Stool End came into view, and soon was behind us. The last 2 km to the camp saw intermittent showers, before we reach the, still there, tents.

Getting into dry kit, we sat out the showers in the tent and did a run to the Old Dungeon Ghyll during a break in the rain, which didn’t make an appearance for the rest of the night. The planned camp dinner got abandoned for 6 pints and a chilli at the pub. And 6 very nice real ales they were too! In fact they must have been good as I felt fine in the morning.

After breakfast and a cuppa at the tent, some early rain put pay to any climbing in Langdale, so we headed out to Ambleside for shopping and a cuppa and second brekkie at Nicks Kitchen (nice spicy ketchup for the sausage butties), and then back south for some local climbing. The rain followed us all the way to the Barrow area, where we shot down the A6 to go to Warton Quarry, but that was closed for a nesting pair of peregrine falcons, unfortunately we didn’t see the parents, just the chicks. An alternative of some easy climbing at Denham hit the spot, before heading to pick the car up from my mates house.

Not what we planned for the 2 days, but a good one nether the less, with most of the Langdale hills done now (only Langdale pikes left now, which I will do in a day trip). Was also impressed with the National Trust site and will be returning there.

This weeks article is small diversion from the usual coverage of the outside world, with a review of the newly opened Climbing Depot in Stanningley near Leeds.

The rain gods were cruel to us last week. Setting off from Bradford where it had been dry all day to Almscliffe, it was looking OK, a few light spells of drizzle, but nothing the wind hitting the exposed crag could not dry quickly. This soon changed when I reached Pool, and it came down with vengeance, damn you weather gods!

As I arrived at lay-by for the crag, it was empty! For Almscliffe to have no cars, it must be in bad nick. The rain had definitely written off any outdoor climbing tonight, and the green state of the crag confirmed this. Soon after my climbing partner arrived, and Plan B was hatched (or rather Plan B2). Initially heading to Leeds Wall, we soon changed plans and went to try out the Bouldering centre at the Depot.

For a rainy night it was a pleasant surprise to be able to get a parking space in the car park. First impressions of the centre were good, not being able to see to the back of the climbing area is always a good sign, and staff were friendly, something which continued throughout the night. After registration and an introduction to the facilities it was down to business.

The first thing that strikes you is that there is a lot of bouldering to do here, whatever grade you climb at, and all styles, drum barrel overhangs, roofs, overhangs and flat walls are all in abundance here. When phase 2 is complete, they will have a third more routes than currently. However the routes are not on top of each other, with plenty of space between the adjoining routes. I reckon the current area is about 30m deep by 20m wide, with routes from 4-6m in height.

Routes go up to V9-10, and routes had been put up recently to challenge the highest end boulderer, with the emphasis being focused on the lower and middle bouldering grades however to encourage development of grades which the majority of visitors will be climbing at.

There are also plans for a weights / training area and a shop in the next few months. However the facilities are a lot better than other local facilities as it stands, with a separate children’s climbing area, and a nice chill out area separate from the climbs themselves. I will be taking my daughter there this weekend, so I will be adding some comments about this area then.

The space available means that although there was a good few people in there, you never really had to wait for a route, except if you were trying the Red roof route on the left hand side, which had gained a crowd of 5 or 6 people (including my climbing partner who climbs 2-3 grades above me) all wanting to work the move onto vertical element of the climb, it took about an hour, but it was eventually done, although nobody had the energy after that to finish it.

A great friendly competitive, but chilled atmosphere developed between everybody, which is something you don’t see as much when there is more competition for the space, and can only help the centre develop, as you don’t just climb for climbings sake, but for the enjoyment and being among like minded people.

At the lower grades I climb of V2-V4, there is a lot of variety of types of routes, with some great small hold balances to reachy dyno’s and laybacks, and I must have done 20-30 routes by the end, a lot more than I would normally do. The only thing stopping me carrying on was the total removal of any skin from my fingers from the new(ish) holds. I was left at the end with a couple of projects for next time I go, and thats always a good thing.

It can get warm towards the back of the climbing area, but when the second phase is completed, it will go right to the back doors of the building and allow a better air flow through the whole climbing area.

However its also very good value, with a £6.50 entry fee for members (£3.50 membership), and thats less than its nearest competitor Leeds wall if you want a pure bouldering session, the only local wall cheaper than this is Huddersfield at £5.10 as far as I know.

The only slightly selfish thing that could improve it, would be if it was 20 minutes closer to Bradford where I work, when daily lunchtime training would become practical, but that’s nit picking on my part.

We don’t often think about why we pursue our interests, we just do. I didn’t think about why I climbed really, there are the obvious things like spending time with friends, the physical exercise element and being outdoors in great scenery, but these are the fortunate repercussions of doing an outdoor sport that requires another person to be involved.

I was climbing at Witches Quarry behind Pendle Hill last night, it was about 20 minutes before sunset, and had just lead my second HS of the night fairly well. I could have been done it in a smoother fashion, but its the start of the outdoor evening season and its taking me a few weeks to get my head back to previous levels.

I was setting up the Belay to allow Dave to second the route and clean out my gear, in this case a single bolt buried deep in the grass. Settling down, I shouted to Dave to start climbing. This was a route well within his limits doing it solo, nether mind on a top rope. Not being able to see him, I was relying to rope tension to judge when to take in.

Then I realised one of the main reasons I climb, but first a back story. I started hill walking about 6 years ago, and have been to most areas of the Yorkshire Dales, and to a lesser extent the Lake District in pursuit of this interest. The first hill I ever climbed was Pen Y Ghent, and it remains one of my favourites, especially in winter conditions. I have ascended it maybe 5 or 6 times over the years. What I love about it is its shape and profile with the distinct 2 steps.

The last time I was up was just after Christmas when I did the loop from Litton, taking in Plover Hill afterwards. This walk is also written up on this blog.

On a clear day you can see Pen Y Ghent far into the distance from the belay points at Witches Quarry. In the fading sun, the distinct silhouette of the hill was directly ahead of me, and with having no visual contact with the climber below, and being stuck here for the 5 minutes it would take him to ascend the route, all I could do was to take in the tension on the rope and look at the amazing view ahead on me. That 5 minutes of isolation and peace on a warm evening with fading light that you can do nothing about, but to observe and enjoy it.

It is a similar experience to a few years ago when I did Middlefell Buttress at Langdale in winter, an easy 3-4 pitch route, with belay ledges you could play 5 a side football matches on. However when you are sitting there, you have Bowfell and its sisters to your right, the Langdale valley and Windermere in the distance to your left, and below the sheep were making almost fractal tracks in the snow covered field below. No noise, just sitting there and being forced to appreciate life.

Climbing also takes you away from the real world for those 5-10 minutes you are on a route. There could be the massed brigades of the 44th Armoured Unit below, but all you care about it getting to the top of this route, firstly safely and secondly in as clean a fashion as your skill allows. Again you have relative isolation, with your only communication with the outside world generally being related to gear, foot or hand placement from your climbing party.

It seems an oxymoron that for a pursuit which requires other people, you can achieved those momentary periods of isolation which are so rare in these days of mobile communication and busy towns and cities. Maybe that is why we crave the space of an out of the way hill or track, a belay point or simply an early morning walk in the local countryside.

I think this is why although when I reached the summit of Scafell Pike, I was not impressed with it as an actual summit, what I did appreciate is that I was not there with 40 other people on a busy afternoon, I was there with just my walking partner, in early evening, and for times there was not a sound to be heard, with amazing views to be taken in all directions, needing a break after the ascent, being forced to just appreciate life.

Pictures can be found here

I’d been planning a trip to the Lake District for a few months now, and had always planned to start in Langdale, only question the destination.  I always like to get at least 4 or 5 peaks in on each visit, as I did on my last trip on the Haweswater Loop via High Street from Bampton last June.  In the end I decided to get a handful of 900m or thereabout peaks, culminating in the ascent of Scafell Pike at 977m.

The plan was to ascent Bowfell (903) via the Band, then over Esk Pike (885), then to Great End (907), over Broad Crag (934), and then finally up to Scafell Pike (977), the return route was open according to what time we summited Scafell Pike, and on ascent we noted 3 or 4 possible sites for the Bivi camp, along side the backup plan of Angle Tarn.

I had visited the valley several times before, mainly for climbing on Middlefell Buttress and Upper and Lower Scout, and of the areas I have visited in the National Park, it was one of my favourites.

Along side me for the trip was my climbing partner Dave, and just after 9.30 we set off from the Moorlands Inn pub via the Yorkshire Dales, and arrived in Langdale just after 11.30, lack of parking all 3 main car parks mean we had to park a mile back down the valley at the roadside opposite Ellergarth, finally starting walking about 12pm.

Taking the path to the New Dungeon Ghyll car park gave us a nice warm up for the Band at the head of the valley, and after a short distance of tarmac past the Old Dungeon Ghyll, we took the track toward the farm and to the foot of the band.  This afforded stunning views of both the Langdale Pikes (now pencilled in for a future visit), and a peek at some of our targets as we got closer to the head.

The Band is a lot steep than it looks, and the legs were worked hard all of the way up with uneven tracks you had to concentrate on which set a presendent for the rest of the walk, with frequent rests for my non hill fit legs (last walk was Ingleborough just after Xmas), but after half an hour I was treated to my first sight of the summit of Bowfell, and the feeling of getting nowhere finally lifted and was replaced by the feeling that the pain was worth it.   However we still had 550m to go, and a lot of work.  Pushing on, the gradient steadily took us to 570m, where we had a direct unobstructed view of the summit.

From this point, the ascent got steeper and the first case of cramp which had to building up the Band, really made its presence felt, and I was glad to reach the ridge line, after a brief rest, we skirted around the east side of the summit and took in Bowfell, which was my second 900+ summit in England after Helvellyn.  From here we had fantastic views over the Lake District in all directions and a direct view of our next 2 summits in a direct line ahead of us.  Deciding it was time for a brew, the kettle was put on and we took a well deserved half hour. 

It was just over 1 mile to Esk Pike, and a climb of about 50m once we reached Ore Gap.  After the band this seemed so much easier, and my second wind of energy from the final ascent of Bowfell continued, with the only question being which of the two outcrops at the top the ascent was the true peak, we took the right one, stopped for a few photos (we missed the summit photos for this one), and then carried on towards Great End.

This section was a nice break as once you got off Esk Pike, and started heading towards Esk Hause, the path became a lot less bouldery and took a more gradual ascent up the track to the left of Great End.  As you approached Esk Hause, you had views down 3 or 4 valleys coming into view, and several bivi spots were noted for checking out on our return down this track later in the day.  We passed a “cross shelter” in the bowl at the foot of Great End summit, just before you achieved the ridge which took you to the summit.  At this point we decided to head over and do Broad Crag and Scafell Pike now and return to Great End as our last summit.We took the ridge towards Scafell Pike and dropped the the Iron stained descent to the foot of Broad Crag.  This turned out to be one of the most demanding sections continuing all the way to the summit of Scafell Pike.  A constant boulder hop up the side of Broad, then lead to a very steep descent of about 60m to the foot of the Scafell Pike ascent route.  The view from both the bottom of it and the top of Broad Crag downwards made it look a very steep affair, and even though it was as bad as it looked, the previous 3 summits had took their toll and frequent rests were taken.  After a while we reached the top of the ridge and the crown of Scafell Pike was in view and we had it to ourselves, a final push got us to the top of England after 6¼  hours.  

Three Weeks with the Google G1

This week, my blog is taking a small diversion off the outdoors path, and into a branch of your local electrical chain of choice!

I’ve been looking for a replacement to my aged and battered Orange M700, and when Orange refused to give me a decent upgrade, I jumped over to T-Mobile and took up the Google G1 on Flext 35 (1000 minutes a month, 3GB data allowance), and in summary I’m very happy with it, the only issues being the relatively poor battery life (solved by usb cable at work, charger at home and car charger for on the move), the lack of Flash 10 for Android (can’t watch BBC iPlayer) and the lack of a DivX video player so far.

First impression were very impressive out of the box, great 3 panel main screen (now set up as left : contacts, middle : main apps right : other apps), quick responsive touch screen, nice clean interface all operated by swipes and long clicks. The keyboard is small, by quite usable and more responsive than other people have reported it as being. Also picks up Wifi connections quickly and all the access points I have used so far seem to connect without a hitch. The phone prompts you to mount as a USB drive when plugged into a PC.

I love the slide and drag interface both for using the 3 “panels”, bringing up programs menu and dropping the status bar. It works as well as any phone interface for scrolling around web pages and other applications. Its a massive step up from Windows Mobile 6.

All core data for the phone syncs up through your google account, which is needed to use this phone. Contacts, Email, Calendar all grab data from the Google servers, the Google Mail application presents emails as threads as per Google Mail on the web, and is very easy to use, which means making this your main emailing client is very practical. The same ease can be said of the Calendar application. I would recommend routing other email accounts into Google Mail so the phone become a mail hub through one application however. The messaging application is very similar to the mail application in its threaded views.

Google Map is a damn good application as well, with fast pick up from the GPS unit / Cell Location, and very accurate positioning once you have a fix (other people report more patchy results). Directions are clear, with “push screen when reaching the edge” scrolling when on the move, although prefer the “Focus Current Position in Centre” approach personally. Locality search is good as well when trying to find a business or nearby facility.

The browser is quick, and supports most websites out there, with my only issue being the Flash issue mentioned at the top of this article. The music player is easy to use, and although the speaker distorts at too low a level for me, I found listening through my own headphones (via supplied usb to 3.5mm jack), that the output is good, with decent bass and seperation for a phone.

The camera is adequete for a phone, I’m in the “phones are used for quick snapshots” school of thought. I carry a 7 MP camera in my bag most of the time, so will use that if I want any detail. However the performance of the camera in low light conditions is pretty unusable.

However the out of the box installation is lacking a bit, but with the free apps at G1 Marketplace, that is soon fixed.  The main applications installed by me to make the phone do what I need it to are:

Twitroid (good twitter client)
Skype Beta (for skype text chats, no free Skype to Skype chat, however)
AndFTP (ftp client for uploading to my web server)
Power Meter (set up custom power usage profiles, disable wifi / gps etc, set screen timeouts)
OI File Manager (file system manager)
Download Crutch (allows files to be downloaded by the browser rather than just an error being reported)
Rings Extended (allows you to use mp3 files as ring tones)

The only applications I cannot find to replace those on my old Windows Mobile unit, are a decent word processor / spreadsheet with open office / ms office compatibility, and a decent terminal emulator that can connect to my database server at work.

However, I do think that we need to be able to save applications to the SD card in a future firmware update, as some people are running very low on space already for applications.

Build quality is good, and the screen is bright and clear. In fact, its the best phone I have owned, and if the flaws at the top are fixed it would get 9.5 / 10, however until these are fixed, its an 8/10.

Thanks for the feedback from people on the last article I did about my childhood, especially the comment from Marmite Breath.

I’m due another visit to Leicester in the next couple of weeks, but thought I would put some more memories of growing up there down on the blog in the meantime. This time I’m gonna move on to my teenage years and go a bit further afield than Braunstone Frith and Glenfield.

When you got to the age of 11 or 12 (or younger if your parents were a bit more liberal minded at the time), you started to be allowed to go an all day trips out on the bike. If you lived in my old area, the areas you inevitably headed for Groby Pool, Swithland Woods or Bradgate Park. Armed with your £3 for an ice cream and can of pop, you headed off up Tournament Road, before the road downhill on Dominion Road to Glenfield centre, or alternatively you cut across the fields to the bottom of Price Albert Drive, you dropped onto the main road near the park. Going past the Co-op towards Groby Road and Country Hall, you negotiated the roundabout and headed down the road into Anstey, which has now changed beyond recognition with the A46 bypass junction replacing the only T junction.

After a cruise into Anstey, now was the Crux of the ride, the uphill section from Anstey, which went on for a couple of miles, relentlessly without a break. By the time you reached the top of the hill you needed the steep descent into Newtown Linford to recover. This was the best hill of the ride. Stopping at the shop for an ice cream and a drink, you now either explored Bradgate Park or carried on out of Newtown Linford and then headed up another steep hill to go round the back of the Park to get to Swithland Woods, however when you took the right turn to get to the woods entrance you had the best second best hill of the ride going past the woods. This however would be saved for later.

Bradgate Park seemed massive as a kid, although on subsequent visits as an adult, its size has diminished, as do all distances, the bigger you get, the smaller it seems. With an easy run from front entrance to back entrance at Cropston Resvr, with a detour to the rocks over the bridge just past Bradgate House Ruins, which again seemed masssive as a kid, but when visited last summer as adult climber, looked rather nice for low level bouldering. If you were more adventurous you took the path around the edge of the park, or took the ridge to the left of the main path before heading up to the summit of Old John. If you had the balls, then you did the downhill straight to the park gates, if not, you went off the less severe back path and came round the hill. In between all this you had miles of paths and some great smaller downhill sections.

As an adult I actually prefer Swithland Woods for walking and chilling, but as a child, this was one of the best places if you had a bike to visit on this side of the city, with more tracks than you could visit in a day, long rough downhill sections, streams to ride through, and a very good chance of getting totally lost for a while, if you hit the right time of year, you had fresh blackberries to pick, combine this with the Park and you had a full day out.

I’m not sure of that one of the facts from earlier, my memory fails me, but when I drove down the road from Swithland Woods toward and past Cropston Resvr recently, it seemed a lot less steep than I remember, and didn’t have the sharp bend at the bottom. I know a hill like that was in the area, but it could have a been a childhood exageration in my mind. Either way you had a easy ride down towards Cropston Village, and then headed off right on the undulating hill road back towards Anstey, and then retracing the route back through Glenfield.

In fact thinking about it I think it was the road off to the left towards the Shepshed area, which was very steep with about 5 or 6 humps in the road I am referring to now. I remember clocking 35mph on my bike on it however.  Given my memory is obviously going, I’d better sign off here.

Note : I’ll be adding the photos to this article later on in the week or early next week.

I discovered Littondale a few years ago, when on a driving trip around the Yorkshire Dales, I saw a route over to Settle from Grassington and took what turned out one of the most overlooked and most beautiful valleys in the National Park. After a few journeys on various family days trips walking along the valley base, an alternative longer distance route to Pen Y Ghent came to mind, and after looking at the maps, a nice 14 miles route jumped out at me.

Parking in the centre of the village of Litton, I dropped down the track towards the River Skirfare, and crossed over the bridge after the cluster of houses to your right, and then via a gate, I crossed the fields and joined the walled track that would be my route for the next 3.5 to 4 miles and said goodbye to human life for a couple of hours until I reached the tourist spot that is Pen Y Ghent. Starting on a nice flat level, the route leading up the side of the hill on the south side of the valley soon appeared, and after 1/2 a mile I came to a junction, right leading to the main road, left leading up the hill. The hill rises just over 160m to the peak over 3km before flattening out for another 2km until you reach the road.

The walk up the the side of the hill is never strenuous and just right to get the heart going for the walk up the famous two tiered front face of the half way destination of this walk. The gain in height it rewarded by some stunning views up and down the Littondale valley and at higher level over to the eastern ridge of the Wharfe Valley. However the highlight of this section of the walk is the gradual appearance over the horizon of Pen Y Ghent as you reach the plateau of this track, and the constantly changing shape and angle of the two tiered face as you gradually move round the hill. The temperature difference between the valley floor and the 400m+ high pass part of the path is obvious with large ice pools and hard ground a constant companion until you reach the Halton Gill to Settle road.

Now comes the hardest bit of any walk, tarmac, 1.5 miles of it in this case, hard on the feet after being offroad, its also a bit monotonous to me, with little to think about, unlike when concentrating on foot placements when off road. However as you approach Dalehead and the start of the Pennine way track to the Summit, you get a wide variety of the views from the constantly changing angle of the tiers to your right, and the gloriously beautiful blue glow from the frost on Fountains Fell. Here I met people again, starting with the odd farmer, to the car park that is Dale Head. Stopping to grab lunch and change the batteries in my GPS, I started up the tourist path to the base of the hill. Following the well defined path, I saw ahead of my a queue of -30-40 people making their way slowly towards and up the tiers of the summit.

I soon gained the ridge towards the base, and thankfully by the time I got to the bottom of the final ascent, most of the traffic had cleared apart from the bottle neck at the top the hill. The cold was very noticable now, and the gloves came on for the first time, and was glad the new down gillet and fleece was working so well. In fact the tube for my platypus had frozen up, and didn’t defrost until I got to the valley below Plover Hill a few hours later. It had been a while since I had been up here, and forgot how steep the steps were at times, but also how civilised the route up is compared to other hills including Ingleborough, which I did a couple of months ago, and is the subject of a previous blog entry. I made pretty decent progress up the steps, with several photo stops to take in the view and let people clear some space ahead. The queue to get on the plateau was easily bypassed by skirting to the right to an alternative ascent.

The cloud level was quite low now (about 550m) so any views were pretty much wiped out, but soon the trig point was in view and the hill was bagged again. Stopping to make a nice warm brew I dicovered I had got a duff lighter, and by this point the summit was heaving, the cold was biting, so I decided to push on instead after a mug of cold water. Upon leaving the summit, the navigation was easy, following the west side of the wall over frozen turf and grass and large iced over pools of water, most of which were safe to walk over. The cloud lifted as I moved north towards Plover hill, and as I dropped off Pen Y Ghent and walked the 1.5 mile plateau and rise up to the junction of 2 walls which marks the summit of Plover, I left the maddening crowds behind and only met one person from that point until I reached the hamlet of Foxup. Up here each blade of grass was 1/2cm round with frost, it was quite a stunning sight of this winter wliderness for the next hour or so.

After getting to the second peak of the day, I headed due north until I reach a series of drops which started to move you down to the valley below, at first there were large plateaus between the slopes, then you reach the steep slope which takes you to the track which leads you from the far end of the Littondale valley. I decended about 100m too far west of the official path, but I can’t image it would be any easier on the knees and ankles, and the safest way was to just zig zag down. Once off the main face, I rejoined the main path, or rather the grass to the side of the path, as the ice had made the descent trecherous, and you needed the trction the grass gave you. Eventually I reached the east / west path, and looking each side of the valley it was hard to believe it was the same season, on each side of the valley, with the south being a barren winter landscape and the the north side looking like a glorious autumn day with a mix of oranges, browns and green. The contrast had been even more stark as you descended from the peak of Plover.

As in most walks of this distance there is a long boring section, and this was it on this walk, the bridleway east followed the side of the hill for 1.5 miles and then after passing through several gates, it dropped down to the houses and farms at Foxup via a field with some horses who looked a bit too keen to get to know me better, and after previously having some take rather too keen an interest in me, I made hastle to civilisation. At this point to followed the footpath to south of the river, until I reach the road that takes you back up to Dalehead and Settle, crossing over I continued on the footpath which for the next mile moved away from the river and past many barns at the top end of the fields.

Eventually I reached Nether Hesleden, and light was fading fast at this point, so after asking the farm owner if I could use their track to the main road, I hit the main road. But not before several hundred sheep decided to do their impresssion of the Alfred Hitchcock films “The Birds”, and started to encircle me each side of the road, it certainly hastened by trip off the farm. Now all that was left was the mile of tarmac to Litton and a pair of cold socks and trainers to sooth my feet. All in all a lovely winter walk, mostly totally isolated, which is the way I prefer to do it, and a gret way of walking off the xmas weight.

This weekend, I did my regular bi-monthly visit back to Leicester to see my parents and catch up with friends. On Sunday, I had to walk the couple of miles to pub where we had left the car the previous night.

When I was growing up in the 80’s around Braunstone Frith, we not only had about 10 parks to play on, of which all but 3 or 4 have gone now, and those which did survive are in a very bad state, but we also had more open fields surrounding us then we knew what to do with.

Where you now find Kirby Frith, was a large open field spanning the width of the estate from Cuffling Drive to Scudamore Road, and running all the way down from the boundary of the golf course to Chevin Ave, split only by the twin rows of trees running down the middle for most of its length. With a bomb hole and obligatory rope swing, and a million places to hide, most kids spent a great deal of the summer holidays finding people or avoiding being found. Games could go on for hours when the summer grass was tall and dense. Woe betide you if you had hayfever, you’d come back each day with red eyes and a runny nose. Only when we had to go home for lunch did you take a break from it. It was meant to be fenced off with 6m wire, but there were that many holes in it, each break in houses along its edge had its own.

On the other side you had the fields going from Tatlow Road down for about 1 mile to Glenfield, flanked by the mudhills and the 4th wood on your left and Ibbetson Avene and Prince Albert Drive on your right. If half of the school holidays were spent at what is now Kirby Frith, then the other walk were spent on here, this is where you came for miles of tracks on your bike, trying to get to the top of the mudhill at the back of the 1st Wood on a single gear BMX, and in later years a 15 speed mountain bike, and then have the balls to ride down the 45% slope. It doesn’t seem that big now, but when you were young it seemed so high. I can remember spending many an afternoon bombing around the tracks on my bike, and exploring woods which flanked the golf course.

Going past the hedges that ran from Cranston Cresent, you headed to the bottom field and the “Haunted Cowshed”. I never knew why it was meant to be haunted, and still don’t to this day.

I’ve still a scar from here as well, a 1 inch one on my hand from when I fell and caught my hand on some broken pottery, I’ve witnessed the Tatlow Road field go up in smoke to some extent a handful of times, and know who started most of them. I could still take you back to where we built a den of pallets and wood one summer holiday in the 4th wood (I think it was also known as Witches Wood) and being gutted when we found it destroyed one day. You didn’t even need to be doing anything, many a time a bunch of you would just walk for hours and hours chatting and achieving absolutely nothing.

Walking through these areas now, you would never know this was ever here, the fields are all tarmac’d over, the mud hills have mostly been flattened, the golf course is now fenced off, so most the woods I explored as a kid are no longer accessible. This started happening around when I was 15 or 16, we didn’t notice it then so much, as suddenly we had half built houses to explore and play in, and half constructed site, gave great chances to set up ramps and obstacles for the bikes.

I actually felt quite saddened on sunday as I walked the roads where the fields once were, and could still see the paths, mudhills and ponds from my childhood. All green areas are managed and made safe, but its not the same as having own small wilderness to explore and make of it what you wanted. Since I have been living alone and with my wife after leaving university, I have always lived in places, with the exception of 6 months, surrounded by countryside.

Where I live now in Southowram near Halifax, I can walk for 7.5 miles without ever leaving the hill I live at the top of, or it surrounding valleys and could probably do 10 miles if really tried. Even now after 8 year of living on the hill, I can still find tracks I’ve never used and can still get lost. I’ve only just recent discovered the great section of downhill through Cromwell Woods, and the track heading down to Shibden Park.

My preference when going walking is going to places with relatively few houses and buildings, prefering to be out in the wilderness. Maybe all this stems from my childhood and having these spaces to explore. This appreciation was something I lost totally when I was 17-23, when drinking, university and computer games took over, and only really came back when I moved up to yorkshire, and a friend called Randolph Graham, who I don’t really see any more, got me into climbing and hill walking. 6 years later, I would rather be in the countryside than a city or town anyday and escape whenever I can to the Dales or Peak District.

What happens when children don’t have these spaces to explore or aren’t allowed to explore them even if they are there, how do we expect them to ever develop a liking / love of the countryside. I encourage my daughter to go out and explore wherever we go, wether it be the local woods at Norland, or exploring classic locations like Gordale Scar or Malham Cove in the Dales, and I think every parent should encourage it, life is about finding new places, experiences and things, children naturally have this curiousity, and it’s adults jobs to make sure it stays with them all their lives.

My original plan for this weekend was to spend a couple of days in Langdale in the Lake District and summit 4 of the peaks in the area (Scafell, Great End, Great Gable and Bowfell), but the weather over the weekend put pay to those plans, and I decided to ascent Ingleborough via the tourist route from Ingleton and return via Twistleton Scar and the return leg of the waterfall walk.

After a very quick journey of just over an hour from Halifax to just south of the town, I packed up and set off on the ½ mile walk into Ingleton, passing the viaduct above the convergence of the River Twiss and Doe. Even here you could tell the rivers were both at a very high level. Passing through town, I headed up the road to Ribblehead and Hawes until the walled track to the hill appeared on the right.

The route for most of the way to the summit is very simple, following a walled track for the 3 miles before the steep ascent of the hill itself starts at about 450m for just over a mile gaining 260m to the summit. Just before joining this track, I bumped into a guy called Bob a semi retired capenter from Northern Ireland, who was on a walking holiday for 10 days travelling all over Englands’ northern national parks. It turned out that he had the same route planned as me, so we decided to walk the day together.

The section of this walk along the walled track, it fairly uneventful walking wise, but has some great scenery which changes as you gain height and distance. Thankfully most of the water has drained away, but there was some path wide puddles to negotiate en-route. Passing the end of the track, a solitary house resided on the left, complete with a TV aerial mounted into the White Scar crags to the side of the house.

At this point the hill started to get steeper, as we approached the foot of the hill, to the right views of the Ribblehead Viaduct and Whernside ridge and summit opened up, and to the left views toward the A65 and the extent of the flooding of the fields became a lot clearer.
We reached the start of the steepest part of the hill and the cloud base dropped to about 550m and the only rain shower of the day hit us. Changing into wet weather gear, we then slowly weaved our way up the side of Ingleborough in a final push to the top in increasingly heavy winds. Hitting the plateau just below the actual top, the rain stopped, but the visiblity remained as poor and the wind as biting.

In a few minutes we were at the top, and after a minute or so of looking for the trig point in the fog, we touched base and took cover in the “compass” shaped shelter. Taking in some lunch after 2:45 hours of walking, we then took a bearing to the path which would take us towards Ribblehead before taking a left down the hill to the limestone scars and Chapel en Dale. Just as we were about to leave the cloud lifted and now not only could be see where we were going, but it meant I could get some summit photos as well, and gave some great views of the other two “three peaks”.

We headed down the steep scramble down off the summit, but somehow missed the fork to the left and started on the path to Horton in Ribblesdale. After a couple of hundred metres we realised our mistake and traversed across to the correct side of the ridge via a barbed wire dry stone wall. However this mistake also meant we missed the path down to Chapel en Dale, as we would discover after a kilometre of walking along the North West ridge of South House Moor Top.

Looking at the map and checking the GPS, we realised to get to our target we needed to follow a dry stone wall down the steep (33-45 degrees), to just above the limestone pavements, this took a little bit of time as we were going over steep, sometimes boggy ground, and this was not the time to go over on my ankle! We then carried on following this wall to the north until we got to the deep, wall surrounded pot hole of Great Douk Cave. As we moved round this feature, we took the path between 2 limestone pavements, and then joined the path to Chapel en Dale which we should have joined at the top of the hill. It had took just over an 75 mniutes to get the car park on the Ingleton – Ribblehead road.

At this point we stopped for a nice pint at the Hill Top Inn, grabbed some more food and a chat, and then did a 500m stint on the road before turning right on the road past St Marys Church, before swinging a right past Hurtle Pot and Jungle Pot and heading up the track to Ellerbeck for just over a kilometre, when we got to the farm, we headed south west up onto Scales Moor over some easy walking, with occasional boggy sections. It was a couple of kilometres and an hours walking before we met the join with the ridge to Whernside, which I had walked to the summit a few years ago in winter, and was a scenic, but seemingly very long walk.

We then walked the section over to the end of Twistleton Scar, over a strange kind of surface, it seemed to be heavily mossed and grassed up limestone pavements, with little lumps in any direction you look. We headed toward the “V” pass on the horizon of the hill and it was another 40 minutes before we reached it and started the descent down the scar, gently at first, with a few scrambles down the rocks, then more steeply towards the track from which joins the Rivers Twiss and Doe parts of the waterfall walk.

At this point is was getting a bit warm so we removed the wet weather gear, which had only been used to trap heat in the winds since leaving the peak of Ingleborough, and took the track south east across the road to the track past Beezleys, and onto the River Doe path down past the waterfalls and back towards Ingleton. This runs for just over a mile and was spectacular after the recent heavy rains. A combination of high drops and narrow twisty canyons makes this a great finish to a walk.

The waterfalls eventually give way to the flattened valley, and you head past the old working of an old quarry (my guess), you are then just 10 minutes from town, and the end is in sight. We hit town and went for another pint before we swapped details and I headed back to the car and the drive home in the train that is the A65 at tea time on a sunday.

13.5 miles, 6.5 hours of walking, 2 nice pints and good banter all the way, what more can you ask for,

Thanks to my Nine Edges partner John Wootton for permission to link to these photos at his Picassa site. Check out more of his work at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/JoggerJohn99/

And here are some of the few that I took on the day….more of my pictures at my gallery