Summer lands, in theory, but June fails to continue to flame as we aim our our most ambitious tilt at the lands between the Calder and the Aire, approaching an unbroken stretch of the Pennine Way, that most notable of long distance paths that I keep blathering on about never wanting to do in its entirety, located only a short way west of where we were last weekend, but those extra couple of miles upstream from Hebden Bridge requiring an earlier start and some inconvenient early morning busing to get us to the start of the trail and the time window we need for so, so much off-roading. So it's off the #592 bus at 9am, by the Sandbed terrace, on the side of the A646 Halifax Road, deep in the wooded cleft of Calderdale, by the Callis Bridge weirs and at the point where the Pennine Way and Bridleway both drop in from the south, immediately joining the former of these as it starts north, under the railway and past Lacy House, at the eastern end of the Underbank hamlet-let, and sending us directly up a stone causey at an angle that makes you glad that we haven't got wetness underfoot as height is rapidly gained away from the river. Altitude gains us views back, landing Stoodley Pike and its moorlands on our reverse horizon as we land amongst the perched cottages and farmsteads of Higher Underbank, following our path west before it switches back beyond, past the concealed former chapel and its graveyard, and onto the path directing us northeasterly into Marsh Wood, giving us a gentler ascent up the steep sides of the Calder valley than we are accustomed to, letting the locality of Charlestown and Eastwood recede behind us as we rise up through the ferns and birch, only getting steep as we rise up aside Dale Clough. It looks like it has an old hydro plant built above the cascade, which we pass on our way up through a knot of inconvenient vegetation to meet the cottage cluster above, the last one crammed in on the angled valley side as above lies open fields, met once we're past the Long Hey Top terrace and a passage along the track of Winter's Lane, with a clear way ahead through the long grass, angling us between the Popples and Scammerton Farmsteads, and passing through the wild garden of the latter on our way up to Badger Lane, one of the unexplored high roads in this quarter, and on up to the crest of the Pry Hill ridge, our first summit of the day.
Sunday 27 June 2021
Sandbed to Cowling 26/06/21
Sunday 20 June 2021
Hebden Bridge to Keighley 19/06/21
With one 5,000 mile target passed, we're soon enough back on the trail to get to the next one, and back where I'd intended to be in my schedule before May caused everything to get shaken up, carrying on a lot further down Calderdale to carry on with my tilts from Calder to Aire, leaving two railway stations and three branch valleys in our wake, which will have to be returned to as the high season progresses, but for now, as close to the longest day as we can get, we return to the moors, and the highest viable road in the quarter, hopeful that it's not too dangerous to attempt to walk. We'll get back to the 12 miles of the valley that we've skipped before we're too deep into Summer, but for the last weekend of Spring we'll alight at Hebden Bridge at 9.15am, with skies looking like June isn't going to be as flaming as it was couple of weeks back as we start out, down Station Road and across the Calder and the Navigation as we rise up to the A646 Burnley Road and pace it west, before peeling away by the Machpelah terrace to rise above the town along Commercial Road, with the A6033 being our route of choice all the way to the Worth Valley. So the rise starts as soon as we're past the market place and the White Lion inn, taking a gentler ascent than we experienced on our last passage out of the valley from here, but still rising rapidly, up the eastern side of the Hebden Water valley, soon rising us above the channel of the river that is far wider than might be expected, tracing the footway of the road as it sits on a ledge between high retaining walls above and below on the elevation up to Nutclough, where we find ourselves among the tall terraces familiar to the area, and passing around the Nut Clough Mills and its own curved feature terrace. Keighley Road rises past the Nutclough Inn, and the terraces continue up the hillside, either clinging to the narrow plots by the roadside or reaching down into the valley as the town recedes behind us, before we find the plots of later suburban growth, which allows for views and gardens at hugely inconvenient angles, before we pass the old Co-op store on the Lee Mill Road Corner, and the split off to the 'low' road up the valley as Midgehole Road drops away, and we reach the top of the town, with the footway leaving the road far earlier than expected.
Sunday 13 June 2021
Brighouse to Bingley 12/06/21
I'd hoped that the passing of my 5,000th mile in the walking career would be marked somewhere dramatic, in a landscape worthy of the achievement, but the location I'd had in mind for a while would involve a long trip away, and right now I'm still not in the mood to cram myself onto a Dales-bound train with all the others who've grown to love the great outdoors during these pandemic times, and thus we'll save that idea for another day, as I've still got three more 5,000 mile targets to hopefully attain before we get to turning 50, still three years distant from now. Thus we ride to Brighouse, as our westward progress up the Calder valley continues for another start new start line as we aim our routes towards the Aire still, alighting at 8.55am under gloomy skies, some 40 minutes ahead of the day's sunshine, and we're short of original route to take when heading north, over the River Calder via the A641 bridge, between the climbing walls on the mill and flour silo on Mill Royd Street, and over the Calder & Hebble Navigation via Anchor Bridge, beyond the western end of the town and joining the tangle of the main roads as we rise to the island at the end of Ludenscheid Link. The new path thus starts as we rise with the A644 Halifax Road, rising through the villa district of the town, with the Brighouse Library and Art Gallery sitting in the midst of the smart houses, as does the ambulance station, and the Success Chinese takeaway, which is a nice auger for the day's progress, with our northwesterly trajectory taking us beyond the terraced district of town, to the south of Lane Head Rec, and on into the swelling suburbia, which has grown around the urban hamlet of Slead Syke and the associated big houses concealed in their grounds. Uphill all the way feels like it's going to be the order of the day as we rise past the Charles Kershaw nurseries, as the suburban front falls away from the west side of the road, as we draw up close to the valley edge above the passage of Red Beck below, while the road still manages to roll some as we meet the urban village at the top of Brighouse, Hove Edge, where we are flashed a view of the ridge passage to come to the north, ahead of passing St Chad's church and the Dusty Miller inn, all dressed up to mark the arrival of the Euro 2020 tournament, a year behind schedule but still feeling like its come too early.
Sunday 6 June 2021
Mirfield to Saltaire 05/06/21
June arrives to bring us the big push to my first 5,000 mile target, not attainable today, but within spitting distance after the mileage put down in May, and after all those chilly days that blighted the first half of Spring, it genuinely looks like we've come around to the complete opposite in terms of weather conditions, actually promising us the potential of a Flaming June for the first time in my walking career, bringing us early heat even as we travel out to the Calder valley to get back on the trail, for the trip that got bumped from the schedule by all that rain that already feels like a distant memory. It' s after 9.10am when we alight at Mirfield, with a long day ahead of us, so getting moving under the bright spring sunshine is the immediate priority, down Back Station Road by the Ledgard Bridge and South Brook mills developments, and under the western end of the station plinth via Northgate, taking us over the end of the C&H Navigation's Mirfield Cut by the flood lock, up the Calder riverside from Mirfield weir and down from the bridge pier without a crossing, and up past St Paul's church East Thorpe, and Fold Head mills, to meet Huddersfield Road, which we track west to Ings Grove Park. Cross the A644 to join Doctor Lane and Nettleton Road, taking us behind the Railway inn, under the absent viaduct and around the Battyeford good yard site, also noting the railway cottages of Littlemoor before we join the council estate cum suburban lane that rises uphill to the urban hamlet of Knowl, which convinces me further that Mirfield is really a bunch of small settlements that have been smooshed into a larger one, as we track past the terraces and Co-op on Nab Lane before hitting the rise of Heathfield, bringing us more suburbia on the rise up to the footpath of Fox Roy Lane, beside the playing fields. Land on Kitson Hill Road, and get the reverse view of the middle Calder before rising on, with Slipper Lane taking us between the old houses of Moorlands and the Mirfield Free Grammar school, before we reach the urban limit of town and the stub of the high-hedged rural lane beyond, which offers our first view of the Calderdale - Colne Valley division to the south west as well as unwelcome warehouse development on the side of the A62 Leeds Road, which is crossed as the lane stub continues up to Moor Top, to meet the B6119 Far Common Road.