July's Three Day Weekend 07-09/07/23

Alighting on the second weekend of July, we find that it's a long one, with an extra day booked off so that I might be able to have a weekend at My Sister's place without having to run the gauntlet of Friday commuter traffic, but as they have a situation with My Elder Niece having finished her GCSEs and My Younger Niece having a strike day which coincides with one of the warmest and brightest days in a short while, the opportunity is there for a whole family day out, giving them a plan to travel out from Bolton to Brimham Rocks in their new van, with me meeting them midway along by hopping the train to Skipton as the most practical and least time-consuming of the meet up options. It's relatively shocking to realise than almost 6 years have elapsed since I was last out here on the high north side of Nidderdale, though the landscape abounding on the upper limit of my Field of Walking Experience still seem totally familiar as My Sis ad I take a rather languid stroll around the rock formations and among the wild semi-moorland, while Dr G and the Girls get on with some bouldering in the sunshine, which could barely be counted as a proper walk as we amble about for the better part of three hours, wandering well past the limits of the National Trust site and regularly finding places in the shade to sit and contemplate the landscape and our place in it. I think we might be both feeling our age, as I continue to toil with my Post-Covid Experience and the struggles of balancing it with working life, while she contemplates her daughters on the cusp on actual adulthood and reflects on where she was at a similar time in her life, aided by the rediscovery of her old journals and diaries of the period and her desire to revisit the music and style choices of the very late 1980s, which carries us on a nostalgic wave as we wander and then travel away in the late afternoon, back over the Pennines via the East Lancs valley, at least while we're not trying to talk around the problems of the world that have expanded over the last 7 years. This weekend could easily be counted as an extension of the hiatus in my walking year when Saturday's plans fall apart thanks to a rum turn in the weather, with much more cloud and rain, and much less heat, passing over to prevent our planned jaunt down the green path of the Irwell valley coming to naught, so our travel to the city has four of us travelling to the Manchester Museum instead (without Younger Niece who's already becoming a social firefly), and I'm always going to be game for some natural history presented in an interesting way to fill my afternoon, before we pass another evening with takeout Mexican food, beers and a session in fron of the TV, catching up on the Tour de France and watching 'This is Spinal Tap' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (and if you wish to see me act like a total normie, just observe my reactions to the latter of those, because What is Going On in that Movie!?).

Rivington Park to Egerton 04/03/23

7 miles, via the Pineteum, the Ravine, the Terraced Garden, the Dovecote, Noon Hill Slack,

 Hordern Stoops, Hoar Stones Brow, Belmont, Belmont Reservoir, Great Robert Hill, 

  Stones Bank Bridge, and Dimple.

To me the most disruptive thing about the Pandemic years has been the social ties that have been loosened and severed by the months of enforced isolation, and none more telling of these has been the distance that was put between myself and My Sister's family, where I haven't visited for a walking occasion since the summer of 2019, and not on a solo excursion since the preceding April, meaning that paths in the West Pennines have gone unseen, while my Nieces have transitioned into almost growed-up girls without us seeing it happen up close, and if there's a time to do something about that absence, that time is now. Company also allows me to push myself a bit harder on the trail as we make a second attempt to launch my twelfth walking year, and My Sister approaches my need to exercise with some very well-considered planning, which means not rising early and heading out immediately, instead easing through the morning an heading out for lunchtime, allowing us to fuel up before we get to the business of walking, and by aiming back towards their house means that no mental stress will be had from heading away from home and getting anxious about the duration of a return trip. So we head out to Rivington Park to take lunch at Rivington Barn for the umpteenth time, and afterwards, My Sister and I can then aim ourselves to head back around Winter Hill as she acts as my person trainer, as we attempt to get into some sort of walking condition again, and as we depart eastwards at 1.10pm, we can immediately acknowledge that the first challenge of the day will be heading uphill, off the Rivington Lane and onto the dirt track that lead up though the park's array of bare trees, onto the main path that leads up through the Pinetum, and on to shadow the Ravine, one of the features of Lord Leverhulme's parkland that has recently be revealed by some extensive tree-felling. The hard work comes as we rise on through the Terraced Garden, zig-zagging uphill still as my wheeze starts to get distractingly loud, though not actually worse than any of my regular early-season apparent breathing difficulties despite My Sister's concerns, before we hit the more direct rise up past the ornamental pond and bowling green that both manage to open up large flat spaces on the steeply pitched rise of the former Lever Park as we rise to the high track of the moorland-skirting Belmont Road, where the local crowds head on towards Rivington Pike and its tower and we press more northerly, towards the Dovecote Tower, above the informal garden around the site of the Bungalow, the now lost pile at the park's northernmost corner.

Witton Weavers Way #2 - Dimple to Witton Park 18/07/19

18.5 miles, via Turton Heights, Cheetham Close, Turton Tower, Jumbles reservoir, 

 Turton Bottoms, Edgworth, Wayoh reservoir, Entwhistle, Edge Fold, Cadshaw, 

  Darwen Moor, Darwen Tower, Earnsdale reservoir, Tockholes, Chapels, Stockclough, 

   Green Hills, Holly Tree, Cherry Tree, and Pleasington Fields.

Long Distance Trail

means Selfies!

#2 at Dimple.

The way this week has scheduled, with our trip to the Land Registry falling on a Tuesday, and with us visitors not wishing to get in the way of My Sister's family's first weekend of the Summer holidays, we are thus compelled to walk on consecutive days so that we might get away on Friday, which forecasts as deeply mediocre, and leave myself enough weekend to blog properly and get the brain in order before I find out where I might be working next week (the last couple of weeks since supposedly transferring to St James's hospital have seen me bouncing all over the LTHT sites). So we rise early, which is absolutely necessary as this 32 mile trail hasn't conveniently divided into equal pieces, and so up the lane we two head from Egerton to Dimple for an 8.35am start, with both of us taking entirely different expectations of the weather to come on the day as we pass Ciao Baby and make our way further up the A666 Blackburn Road to pick up the Weavers Way as it takes us past Buffs farm and onto the fields to the north of it, aiming ourselves uphill to attain the top of Turton Heights, which isn't the most straightforward of aims as its over 100m up from the roadside within half a mile. The local cows in this field seem more curious than yesterday's as to our progress up through the long grass, but we've gotten enough of a head-start on them to get out of their enclosure and onto the steeply rising moorland path unscathed, with early sunshine coming on to tease us with warmth and illumination of the valley of Eagley Brook as we can almost see down to Bolton before we land on the moorland cap with a decent enough track, heading up to the crest to get a view over to the Bradshaw Brook side and on to the Holcombe Moor side and Ramsbottom Peel Tower. Unfortunately, the way forward on the crest toward the southern end at Cheetham Close follows a ditch through the knee length grass, which is firm enough to walk on, but the morning dew soaks into our trousers and waterlogs our boots before we get far past halfway along the top, where a fence and a wall block our path, and My Sister curses the route forcibly and states her intention to travel no further up here as we're forced to stop and wring out our socks, and ponder the wisdom in our choice of route, especially as a herd of cows sits at the summit beyond.

Witton Weavers Way #1 - Witton Park to Dimple 17/07/19

14.9 miles, via Billinge Hill, Yellow Hills, Close farm, Hoghton Bottoms, The Horr, 
 Causeway wood, Sun Mill, Stanworth wood, Red Lea, Abbey Village, Rake Brook reservoir, 
  Roddlesworth reservoirs, Tockholes plantations, Hollinshead Hall, Pasture Houses Hey, 
   Longworth Moor, and Delph Brook plantations.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!

#1 at Witton Park.

Anyone who's been following my walking career across 7+ years and two blogs will be aware that walking the Witton Weavers Way has been planned for in every walking season I have done, but has never gotten onto the schedule as circumstances have always found me doing something else when I've travelled to the West Pennines to visit My Sister and her family, so as the eighth season presses on to my Summer Jollies, we find good reason to get it off the schedule as My Mum needs to come up country as we three all need to be in one place to get some business sorted with HM Land Registry. That's all sorted at the Fylde office on Tuesday morning, which hopefully resolves all the remaining issues with regards our inheritance of Dad's estate, and then we can shift focus onto tackling this 32 mile circular trail that supposedly celebrates the pre-industrial heritage of this corner of Lancashire, that is actually Blackburn with Darwen's major trail, as Bolton district doesn't actually have one, which My Sister and I will be able to take on while enjoying the flexibility of having two other adults around while My Nieces go through the motions of their last week of school. So onwards, getting driven up from Egerton to Witton Park on the western side of Blackburn in the Parental Taxi, for a start at 9.15am, in alien walking territory but in a corner that's still plenty familiar as this former country estate that has been Blackburn's municipal park since 1946 has been a regular stomping ground for My Sister's family, and the route, starting off past the arena and athletics track, up to the old  pavilion and into Big Cover Wood traces the route of the first walk that I ever took with my Younger Niece, in the late summer of 2008. The rising track is just as testing for the early going as it was then, and I always seem to pant harder when in company, as I'm compelled to walk at someone else's pace, rising to the open fields that give us a look over the southern portion of Blackburn, with Ewood Park stadium obvious, and back to the northern flank of the West Pennine Moors, which this trail will take a while to get to as it loops northwards for a while, pressing uphill past Higher Garden Plantation to the limit of the parkland at Under Billinge Lane and joins the path across the slanted plots on which the woodlands of Billinge Hill stand, though we won't be seeking the summit path this time, but instead hang close to its western perimeter on the sharply rising and sometimes obscure track to seek the route westwards.

Grisedale Pike 28/04/19

4.2 miles, from Braithwaite to Whinlatter Forest Park.

After the warmest Easter Weekend in recent memory, the very next one, when I travel over to Lancashire to visit My Sister and her family, brings an absurdly sharp drop in temperatures and constant rain that keeps me awake in the guest room in the loft after a Friday night of hitting the sauce, and washes out any possibility of us attempting the green road to Manchester from her abode in Egerton, leaving Saturday only good for doing some shopping in the big city, while dodging the precipitation the whole time. Sunday also looks like that it's not going to allow for much as Dr G and the girls have been booked onto a Mountain Bike Cyclo-Cross race in Whinlatter Forest Park in the northwest corner of the Lake District, two hours distant from greater Bolton and surely too far away for any consideration of approaching a Lakeland fell when I'm surely going to be needed as chaperone or spectator. So after suggesting that we two non-riders go up Grisedale Pike, pretty much on a whim, I'm surprised when My Sister agrees to this, and thus we travel away on Sunday morning with this idea in our heads, both expecting the other to call it off, with me anticipating her to claim timing problems while she expects me to bail due to not being an able hillwalker, and neither of us is expecting the weather to be good enough for a cloud free ascent, so we're both surprised to get as far along the A66 as Keswick and find the skies clear and the way ahead looking walkable, as the peak rises invitingly above the North-western Fells. So we get dropped off in Braithwaite village at 9.35am, just by the Hobcarton tearooms, (and far away from where I'd been anticipating walking this weekend or indeed this year) with 700m of ascent to look forward to as we set off up the B5292 Whinlatter Pass road, rising through this lovely Lakeland village, where everything is coated in whitewash, be it semis, council houses, holiday properties or miners cottages, passing the Royal Oak inn, the orthodox church and the well contained Coledale Beck. We don't have a sightline to the summit as the road pushes beyond the village, obscured by its easternmost ridge as we press uphill to the small access carpark, where we rapidly get off road and start rising on the path that tacks north to put Skiddaw and the bottom corner of Bassenthwaite Lake ahead of us, before shifting around onto a southward stretch to look over Braithwaite and Keswick to Derwent Water and the wooded top of Swinside, with the High Seat and Helvellyn ranges on the eastern horizon.

Bollington to Lyme Park 11/08/18

7.5 miles, via Kerridge, White Nancy, Oakenbank, Hedge Row, Gausie Brow, Brink Brow, 

 Sponds Hill, Park Moor, and Knightslow Wood. 

As it's taken me until August to get myself over to Lancashire, allowing My Sister to complete her year's course of teacher training without interruption, it looks like the plans that I'd conceived for this season for walking with her are probably going to come to nought, like finally tackling the Witton Weavers Way, the green route into Manchester, or decamping her whole family for a day in the Wirral Country Park. Especially as I'm travelling without a plan and after a Friday evening of getting food at Grub in Manchester (a deeply hipster-ish establishment in the shadow of the former Mayfield station) and hitting the local brews once back in Egerton, getting an early start onto any path seems unlikely, but My Sister has a plan to let Dr G and the girls have an outing to Lyme Park, while we hit the edge of the Cheshire hills, not the part of the county that I had planned for my first visit to it, but a very satisfactory substitute nonetheless. So for the first time in a while we set out for a trek into the deeply unknown, as all I know is that we will be somewhere to the south of Stockport down the A6 and that we'll be in the rough and wrinkled part of the county that you always forget to acknowledge when tripping across the Cheshire Plain, and just to add to the mystery we'll be going without a map, as My Sis trusts the OS app on her phone to get us to our destination through terrain that is mostly alien to her too. Thus we start from Bollington, one of those Cheshire town that's much smarter than you might expect, the last bastion of Northern expensiveness before the hills take over on the eastern edge of the county, and we are dropped off at the top of the terrace on Princess Street as we get a bit lost trying to find the carpark on the site of the former goods yard by the side of the Middlewood Way the former MS&LR-NSR joint railway between Marple and Macclesfield. We get going at 11.05am, hopeful at getting this trip down in three hours so the rest of the family doesn't get bored in our absence, getting underway properly once we've hit Grimshaw Lane in the shadow of Adelphi Mill and risen to pass under the Macclesfield canal as it takes the Cheshire Canal Ring off to the south of the county, soon landing ourselves in the suburban quarter of the town as the day looks to bring more warmth that wasn't wholly expected. Letting My Sister and the OS app navigate us, we take a turn among the terraces that must have once lived for the silk and quarrying industries, and are now surely beyond the price range of anyone desiring such a cottage, following Jackson Lane past the Hollin Hall hotel complex and into the village-let of Kerridge, all looking pleasantly Sandstone-y clustered around the Bulls Head inn, with the turn onto Redway Lane revealing the wooded and sharply rising north end of Kerridge Hill, our first target for the day, looming ahead of us.

Lose Hill & Mam Tor 23/10/16

9.7 miles, from Bradwell, via Hope, Lose Hill, Back Tor, Barker Bank, Hollin's Cross,
 Mam Tor, the Old Road, Castleton & the Cement Works.

No real need for a super early start on our Sunday stroll, Dr G might need to dash out so he can cycle solo across the Dark Peak and back, but the rest of us can take a more natural pace as we organise The Girls for a trek over the best (and only?) ridge walk in the Peak District, which will be my first proper hill walk in more than two years, so here's hoping that I'm in better condition for it than I was when we assailed Pendle Hill in 2014. Out of Lillegarth cottage on the edge of Bradwell after 9.45am, and descend the Smalldale lane, pass Ye Olde Bowling Green inn and take in our surroundings of old cottages and rural retreats before meeting the more workaday houses around the green on Gore Lane, it seems that Bradwell might be the largest settlement in the Hope Valley whilst also being one of the least known. We meet the Main Road towards Brough (not that one), and soon find the quieter lane beyond the Samuel Fox in to take the shortest route towards Hope, between the former workings that have become angling ponds and the vast pits associated to the Castleton Cement works, which will be a constant feature on this day's horizon. Spying the hills that will be our targets for the day is fun, whilst trying to not draw The Girls' attention to them so they might not get dispirited, and as the descent comes on towards Hope we get the bold shape of Win Hill and the spire of St Peter's church to draw the attention in the autumnal sunshine. Meet the village, and drop the predictable 'To Live in Hope is to Live in Derbyshire' joke, and this looks like another village worthy of more attention in the future, wearing a darker face than Castleton as we move our way across the White Peak - Dark Peak divide. Hit Edale Road to head for the upper branch of the Hope Valley, and it's going to feature just a bit too much road walking as we head off among the farmsteads and cottages hanging above the River Noe, Passing under the bridge of the Cement works railway branch and note that the Cheshire Cheese inn is an unusually popular pub name in these parts.

Castleton to Hassop station 22/10/16

14.7 miles, via Cave Dale, Bradwell Moor, the Limestone Way, Hay Dale, Peter Dale,
 Monk's Dale, Miller's Dale, the Monsal Trail, Litton Mill, Water-cum-Jolly Dale,
  Cressbrook Mill, Upperdale, Monsal Head, Little Longstone  & the Monsal Trail (again).

Having failed to get over to Lancashire for walking at any point in 2016, the best way to get together with My Sister and her family in the late season is to join them as they start their Autumn half term holiday in the Hope Valley in North Derbyshire, only a couple of hours distant from work on a Friday evening, so we might be able to enjoy two full days away together, allowing us to get away from it all at a time when it really feels like the best thing to do. Residence is taken up in Bradwell, and when walking schemes are compared it appears that we have both come to the same conclusions when it comes to walking targets, so a stretch over to the Wye Valley is chosen for Saturday, which could be walked directly from our holiday home, but this would miss one of the best features of this top edge of the White Peak, so an early start is sought from Castleton, where Dr G can drop us off between St Edmund's church and The George at 9.05am before he rouses My Nieces so they can have a day cycling the Monsal trail. Depart this Limestone village or townlet via the rising lane through the Market Place and find the way forwards hidden between cottages to find the start of the Limestone Way as it heads up Cave Dale, also known as the hidden valley and giving us an ascent like nothing I have walked since I was in the Wolds, and this particular drag is much, much longer. Rise through the deep cleft in the Limestone hillside, remembering to look back to see Peveril castle rising above, pondering geological history as we go, acknowledging that a post-glacial formation like this could have formed in a ridiculously short period of time, and despite it being notionally a dry valley, the going is pretty wet on a rough surface, forming a bridleway that I wouldn't fancy riding in either direction. The valley gets shallower and the ascent easier as the upper half is reached, but having started at the 200m contour, it's hard to acknowledge just how far you might have ascended as the track emerges on the relatively level expanses of Bradwell Moor, a vast grassland at over 400m up, and it doesn't look anything like any of the moorlands of the north country, neither Limestone nor Grit.

Abbey Village to Rivington Park 18/10/15

7.8 miles, via Brinscall, White Coppice, Anglezarke & Lead Mines Clough.

There's always an option for a bonus day when visiting My Sister's family, so whilst I'm still not persuasive enough to get the girls out walking today, preferring a trip to MOSI with Dr G, a bit of car relay can get us out to Abbey Village, the odd linear village that grew alongside the A675 Bolton Road, a start point for a stroll of many sections before a late lunch and my ride homewards. Drop off outside the Hare & Hounds pub at 11.20am, at the bottom of the village, pacing the way among the terraces at the roadside and past the mill that drew the village here in the first place, to start a railway walk that hadn't quite aligned itself to fit onto my Coastal trek, the remains of the Lancashire Union Railway (L&Y / L&NWR joint) line from Blackburn to Chorley, active from 1869 to 1966, have become a linear park running through to Withnell and Brinscall. It's a leafy and nature filled route which immediately gets My Sister's approval, one which she hadn't known about previously and now provides a much more level cycling route than the one available on the roads, with a few pretty impressive bridges along its length, an obvious station house at its top and a parkland with fishing lake near its end, a really good use for a resource that could have lain fallow otherwise. Pass the C2C route again as we meet Brinscall, having once again passed close to Withnell without entering it, and this might be the smallest place in the country to have its own swimming baths. Dick Lane shadows the railway line to the bridge on the lane to Brinscall Hall, before footpaths almost drop us onto the alignment before we peel away to head towards the woods on the moorland fringe and the path that accompanies the goit channel that links the reservoirs at Roddlesworth and Anglezarke. Another leafy walk on the western bank, along a track badly represented on the map and oddly developed as a good bridleway surface but with cycling thunderously forbidden from it, and as for the goit, I've no idea at all if the water still flows functionally in it, as it is, it's a good way to get down to White Coppice and to observe to moorland edge as we pass. Change sides by the cricket field, moving onto a slightly more undulating course on the eastern bank as the rough upland looms larger, and it seem the cyclists are pretty keen to ignore the ban along here, we pace along discussing this odd section of moorland, as is ends so abruptly on the edge of the coastal plain, with neither of us having quite enough geological nous to theorise coherently.

Egerton to Darwen 17/10/15

10.3 miles, via Cheetham Close, Entwistle Reservoir, Darwen Moor & Sunnyhurst Wood.

So back to the West Pennines, with the intent to get in the conclusion to my Summer break, even though the temperatures and skies of the high season have retreated into the past, and I travel with an uncertain heart, believing that I should be down in Leicester after my Dad suffered a fall last weekend, with him now being admitted to hospital for observation and assessment. My Mum is entirely content for me to have this pre-planned weekend away though, so off we go to enjoy some fresh miles with My Sister, just the two of us on this occasion as Dr G and the girls are off doing cyclocross, which appeals to them much more than wandering, and I couldn't really blame them as the skies hang heavy. Away from Egerton at 10.40 am by the United Reformed church to strike a different path up to Cox Green Road, and once we hit the path to New Butterworth's farm, you could be forgiven for thinking we might be cutting a path towards Ramsbottom again. No, we are taking a sharp turn left as the moorland walk starts to get serious, heading up to the top of Cheetham Close, the hill which divides the Eagley and Bradshaw brooks and provides some rather sticky going as a fresh panorama is presented, another perspective gained on this corner of Lancashire. Only a 329m top, but worth it, before the muddy and slightly puzzling descent sends us down in the direction of Green Arms Road and the path in the direction of Entwistle reservoir, soon back into familiar territory as we hit the level path on the southern side. It's as about as different as it could be from the last time I came this way though, the water level being right up to path in February '14 but many feet below us on this occasion, indicating that 2015 might not have been as wet as we thought it was.

Egerton to Chorley 18/04/15

12 miles, via Belmont, Spitlers Edge, Great Hill, White Coppice & Knowley.

Time for a jaunt to the other side of the Pennines to see My Sister and her family, and travelling without a plan for where we might travel in the West Pennines, so it's always a refreshing idea to set out without a clear destination, on a route improvised as we go. Dr G will be taking care of my nieces needs for the morning, so My Sister and I can set out at 9.25am, departing Egerton by a familiar path, heading out to the track up Longworth Clough, previously traced in late summer 2012, and showing a different face this time around. I'd favoured a trip over the more elevated paths to Belmont, but too much road walking on dubiously narrow and poorly sighted lanes has that track nixed, instead travlling along the beck, past the gradually diminishing former paper mill, and up to the farm tracks that lead over to the A675 Belmont Road. Not heading up onto Winter Hill today, where I'd thought about attacking some of the lateral paths on the Rivington side, instead pushing along the main road into Belmont, one of those villages that clings to the last bit of cultivatable land on the moorland edge, whilst showing signs of Victorian prosperity via its ridiculously over-sized parish church. Moorland walking follows, and I think all of this years High Moors wandering will go on in the West Pennines, following the rough track up Sharples Higher End, crossing the 300m contour without to much effort thanks to the gentle rise of the terrain, my legs not feeling punished after so much action in Yorkshire's low lands. From the Rivington Road junction, trackless walking starts in earnest, rising to Horden Pasture on the access land, and even though no recognised right of way sits here, it's clearly a well used trail, though the bogginess isn't welcome above Anshaw Clough, but rewards are the views that emerge across the yellowed grass as we rise to Spitlers Edge. A paved path comes into use as we descend to cross Redmonds Edge, which makes crossing the higher reaches of Anglezarke Moor a whole lot less challenging, and the final rise of our walk leads to Great Hill, which hides its 381m elevation well from this angle, but reveals much as it is crowned.