Out of The Dark Season, and Onward!

In all my walking years, I cannot recall a Dark Season which has passed as rapidly as this last one did, seemingly come and gone in about half the time that they'd normally take, and that has to be in part due to effectively going to ground completely after the end of 2021's open season, taking a well earned rest that rapidly turned into an extended period of isolation - hibernation as the risks posed by the Omicron wave of the Covid pandemic washed over ahead of Christmas, when all focus fell upon having a normal sort of Festive Season before we embarked on 2022's journey.  I can't place how we managed to get January to shift through so quickly though, as it's always the month of the year that feels like it's over six weeks long, but this one has flushed through in no time too, come and gone rapidly after getting in our necessary weekend of social interaction at its start while toiling through a busy month at the hospital which never gave me the opportunity to feel bored, with the sunshine returning in the evenings with almost indecent haste, all combining to make our passage from Samhain to Imbolc, via the festivities of Yule, almost bizarrely short. Maybe it helps to find distractions to pass the time away, and becoming a moon watcher in 2022 has helped with that, as I've never quite been familiar with its phases and location in the sky through its orbits, and this has been a particularly good month for watching it wax and wane, awhile taking an interest in seeing it in its crescent and gibbous forms, revealing it cratered features and many mares when contrasted in shadow, around the appearance of January's full moon, the Wolf Moon, which I can only hope every howled at on the evening of the 17th. Now having a decent idea of where to look for it in the mornings and evenings, that can be fitted in around a renewed engagement with a bit of astronomy, an interest of mine that has become very minor over the the last decade, and the month has also been spent spying Jupiter in the evenings during the early going, while chasing Venus in the dawning skies later on, both repeating the reality-altering experiences of my youth when I first regarded them with binoculars, namely spotting the former's system of Galilean moons across the vastness of space, and seeing the latter resolve as a crescent showing it as a planet, and not just a bright star in the morning sky.

The Conclusions of 2021

Wrapping the 2021 Season
at Shipley railway station.

As 2021 slips into history, we again find ourselves in the moment of reflection, looking back at the end of (almost) a whole decade of walking around the West Riding of Yorkshire, and beyond, and being mildly amazed of how much we've seen and learned across the course of those years, how a few months of useful exercise back in 2012 have become no less than an active career of travelling on foot, seeing more sights and pacing more miles than I ever would have thought possible, while again pondering the annual question of What Have We Learned in 2021? Honestly, most of the take away from my tenth season of walking amounts to 2021 has been an extremely frustrating year, as a simple extraction of achievements from the list of targets that I posted last January would make it look like this year has been a significant success in light of the ongoing pandemic conditions, a more reflective regard would have things appear very differently. Indeed, my local aims in the early season came together very well, getting down plenty of miles in the circuits from home during the third national lockdown, before expanding the season in April while I waited for travel restrictions to be lifted and the effects of vaccination against Covid-19 to take hold, getting in my local multi-part trial before then busting it open wide in May, starting out my long ruin of trails between Calderdale and Airedale and getting in the cross-country trail, in the form of the Bronte Way, which I had promised myself. Summer then saw us being mostly successful in pushing my experience field out to the northwest from Calderdale, over the high moors in that corner and making ourselves acquainted with the Boulsworth Hill massif and the lay of the East Lancs valley, before keeping the legs going through the autumn's dour months to check off most of the unseen paths in the vicinity of the Calderdale - Bradford high moors and the most notable towns of their boroughs, while pressing ourselves past 500 miles on the year, which was always my stated goal, and achieving the 5,000 miles before I'm Fifty target with considerable ease, with almost three and half years to spare.

Pandemic Thoughts: November 2021

The Following is For Reference Only, the 2021 Summary will follow in four weeks' time.

Another month starts with our attention having wandered away from Covid for a while, instead taking interest in the COP26 intergovernmental conference on Climate Change, with a small amount of hope that after nearly two years of health crisis conditions around the globe,  world leaders might actually start to take the existential threat of the climate crisis just as seriously, but despite what feel like weeks of discussions little seems to come out of it, aside from a non-binding agreement to phase out coal usage, which hasn't been signed by the remaining major coal consuming economies. It's a horrible realisation to make, that those who would govern all of us have little real interest in long term planning for the benefit of future generations, setting targets to be met by 2050, long after any of them will have any stake in the future well-being of the world, but we really shouldn't be surprised, as we ought to be aware that as soon as challenges to the enduring problems of contemporary economics are faced, the wagons are circled in an attempt to protect the status quo, and after all this is the 26th such conference on the matter, and all the previous meetings have failed to create binding agreements and actions. So we have one less reason to feel hopeful after all that, and instead reflect on where the Pandemic is leading us as we transition out of the light half of Autumn and into the Dark Season, and despite having a few days of infections spiking above 50,000 per day, a renewed surge in the rate doesn't come to pass, and the familiar sort of numbers continue throughout the month, apparently fired most prominently among family groups, and with the under 12s being the most harshly affected group for the first time, showing that circulation among the un-vaccinated is still the major issue. It can all look like that Covid is becoming socially normalized, and the risk of infection has been allowed to become 'just one of those things' that people catch, with a panel scientists speculating that even in a best-case scenario, it could very plausibly be 2023 before Covid becomes a background disease, among the mix of regular ailments suffered by the general populace, while bad scenarios could have it lasting another five years, with social counter measures and annual booster vaccinations being a regular feature for some time to come.

Low Moor to Shipley 08/11/21

10.4 miles via Moor Top, Wibsey Slack, Wibsey Park, Haycliffe Hill, Low Green, Horton Park, 

 Dirk Hill, Shearbridge, Croft Street, Eastbrook, Stott Hill, Canal Wharf, Canal Road, 

  Bolton Woods, Dumb Mill Place, Crag End, Windhill, and Gallows Bridge. 

We shall not have a glum finale to 2021's walking year, as I'll be spending my end of season / birthday week off work Up Country for a change, which opens up the opportunity to pick up some of the shorter trips that dropped from the schedule, which could have plausibly numbered three thanks to a decent weather projection, but as I've actually got plans of necessary things to do while My Mum visits (taking another chance for her to get away from home for a bit), means that I'll only get in one, which is fine, as I've still got a lost canal to seek and one more railway station in mid-Airedale to visit. So our finale transit of greater Bradford starts at Low Moor at 9.15am under a wash of Autumnal sunshine, marking this out as the only trip of the year in this direction that hasn't started in Kirklees or Calderdale, as we move out to Cleckheaton Road to start as track to the kinda northwest, taking us past the terraced blocks that I'm pretty sure were built to service the former railway shed, rather than the ironworks, noting that it's still solidly industrial here as we press past the eastern perimeter of the Solenis chemical works and the Rhenus Logistics distribution depot, bounded by the ditch containing the river Spen. At the Brighouse Road corner, we pass through the Memorial Gardens and cross Common Road to join Netherlands Avenue, where the rise up towards the watershed ridge starts in earnest, with most our our usual miles of preamble having been shed thanks to a much closer start than usual, and this suburban boulevard lead us up to the crossing of the A649 Huddersfield Road, where we have to ponder if it feels familiar at all (almost forgotten since featuring on 2020's pre-pandemic season opener, it seems) and thence its on uphill, through Bradford's south-facing suburbia on this once-leafy boulevard. Meet Halifax Road, right by the tram tracks, and it's not even 48 hours since we were last passing this way, as we continue our fresh trajectory to the northwest, crossing to St Paul's Avenue to rise on through the suburban band, before meeting a real situation of dueling churches and schools, as St Winifrede's RC establishments occupy sites on both sides of the road as if they were trying to crowd out those of the CofE at St Paul's, the parish church of Wibsey and Buttershaw, urban boroughs which spread out to both sides of us up here. 

Halifax to Frizinghall 06/11/21

13.4 miles, via Old Bank, Stump Cross, Northowram, Stone Chair, Shelf Hall, Shelf, Beck Hill /   Royds Woodside, Buttershaw Mills, Odsal Top, Staygate, Goose Hill, Cutler Heights, Tyersal,      Thornbury, Moorside, Undercliffe / Eccleshill,  Five Lane Ends, Bolton Hall, and Bolton Woods.

As we lapse into the season of GMT and reach the final walking weekend of the year, we again find ourselves travelling out to Halifax, which seems to have quite unintentionally become our late season launching pad, like how Hebden Bridge took a similar status in the middle season, mostly because we've found a few new trajectories and un-traced paths heading out from it during our closing phase of route planning, and we had better get them down now, as we don't have plans to be burning any more trails in this quarter over the next few years. So it's off the Grand Central KGX express again for a 9am start, hoping that the glum weather will hold off a second time as we start out, aware of the lost hour of daylight as we start another trek to the northeast, descending away from the station down to Church Street, passing around the old railway goods yard and past the Ring O' Bells inn and Halifax Minster before passing over the hidden Hebble below Lower Kirkgate as we pass the decaying coal drops and the projections of the lost and contemporary railway viaducts before starting our path out of the valley, up Bank Bottom past the Matalan store on the Clarks Bridge mills site. This leads us up to the bottom of Old Bank, the forgotten old road into the valley which provides a testing ascent on steep and slick cobbles, rising us on through the trees on the Beacon Hill side as we pass above the views over the town, to be regarded for one last time before we head up through the cover of foliage to Beacon Hill Road and the flight of steps up to Godley Branch Road, which leads us to the A58 Godley Road, where the footway is joined again as we pass under Godley Bridge and enter the cutting that digs through the hilltop beyond. It's out third trek along here in this direction over the last two seasons, an odd choice when we still haven't seen Shibden Hall up close, just off our path to the southeast as we cut across Shibden Dale at the roadside, where there's been just enough leaf shedding going on to afford us the approximation of a view upstream into this hidden valley before we arrive at Stump Cross again, passing its inn and tall terraces on the corner before coming past the toll house and join the new turnpike to take us on our way, rising with the A6036 Bradford Road as it elevates us up the valley side, though not quite as sharply as the old road does. 

Halifax to Bradford (again) 30/10/21

10.7 miles, via North Bridge, Haley Hill, Akroydon, Boothtown, Booth Bank, Catherine Slack,

 Shibden Head, Ambler Thorn, Queensbury (Ford, West End), Low Fold, Hole Bottom, 

  Clayton (Bailey Stile, St John's, Town End, Pinnacle, Lidget), Paradise Green, Scholemoor, 

   Lidget Green, Lister Hills, Forster Square, & Exchange.  

Having done the walk over the Aire - Calder transition between Halifax and Bradford last weekend, it would seem to make sense to approach today's excursion as going back the way we came so as to vary things up a bit, but instead we'll be doing a repeat of start and finish points on consecutive weekends because I've had the road walk up the side of the Holmfield valley tagged as an ascent option since I first rode the bus up to Queensbury, and also because we have weather forecast to come on from the southwest all day, and I have no intention at all of walking into the teeth of that over the latter half of our trip. Dampness is already heavy in the air and thick on the ground as we alight in Halifax at 9.30am, seeking another fresh route to the north as we leave the Station compound and head up Horton Street once again, this time making our turn onto Market Street, taking us between the Piece Hall and the Westgate Arcade, and on between the Borough Market and the Woolshops centre, along with making another pass the Duke of Wellington's Regiment memorial before heading out onto Northgate, in the direction of the Broad Street centre and the bus station, which is finally in the grip of a remodelling to replace the 1980s styled pavilions, the last such in the county. Heading towards North Bridge, we turn onto Bowling Dyke to pass below it and the A58 flyovers to meet the crossing over Hebble Brook at the throat of Dean Clough, and tramp the pavements of Old Lane to meet the snicket that was famously photographed by Bill Brandt in 1937, where we'll rise up the steep and slippery cobbles to pass over the old GNR line between North Bridge station and Old Lane tunnel, both hidden by overgrowth in the cutting, and thence up the valley side on more setts to arrive on the side of the A647 Haley Hill, high above the valley side already, below the looming towers blocks on the Range Lane corner. The main road leads us up the valley's periphery, past the perched Lidl store and up to All Souls Haley Hill, the towering and spired pile that might be Sir George Gilbert Scott's crowning achievement in his speciality of Victorian Gothic revival churches, which lies below Ackroyd Park, home to the Bankfield museum and once home to Edward Ackroyd, the local employer and benefactor who developed the industrial suburb of Ackroydon in the 1860s which lies along the side of the rising road, a place to take a proper visual interest in on a nicer day than this one.

Halifax to Bradford 23/10/21

14 miles, via Woolshops, Cross Field, Bull Green, Peoples Park, Gibraltar, Spring Hall, 

 Pellon, Brackenbed, Wheatley, Jumples Crag, Illingworth, Illingworth Moor, Bradshaw, 

  Raggalds, West Scholes, Yews Green, Fall Bottom, Clayton (Town End), Deep Lane, 

   Scholemoor, Lidgett Green, Bradford University campus, & Shearbridge.

Having finally done with trips out of the Calder valley last week, the late season centre of gravity seems to have shifted back towards Halifax, just like it did last year, as if it holds an appeal for this point in the annual cycle, and it's also time to approach some mileage that we missed out on a few weeks back and to get onto the untraced trajectory in the county that had meant to be on the slate for the end of 2020, while getting to it finally provides a ride from Bradford on the Grand Central train to London King's Cross too, ticking the Class 180s off the list of unridden traction on West Yorkshire services. We alight in Halifax at 9am, just as the morning sun is rising above the hills to the east, and even though our destination is off to the north-east, our early going will be wholly westwards once we're away from the station and Square Road, picking a route that takes us up the steps that leads to the carpark and main street of the Woolshops centre, then up the old commercial street of the same name to make another encounter with the Duke of Wellington Regiment's memorial, before crossing Market Street to get some wholly variable town centre flavours from our passages up Russell Street and Cheapside. We pass through the banking district again, and taje George Street up to the crossing of the A629 Cow Green, before we join Bull Green taking us out of the town centre and in the direction of the Calderdale roads before we shift onto the rising urban slab by Hopwood Hall, and get a real variation of the urban qualities as we pass under the A58 Burdock Way with Hopwood Lane, passing through the terraces around Royds Mill ahead of the greenery taking over around Peoples Park, the old municipal library and museum and the Crossley Almshouses. Old Halifax sure is a land of contrasts, and unrelenting hills too as we press on west, with the quality of the bands of 19th century development almost seeming to have been plotted randomly, as we pass on over Queen's Road and come up behind the plot of St Paul's station once again, noting its distance from the town but it convenience for the biscuit factories that still operate on both sides of the road, an enduring feature of industry in the landscape of Gibraltar, on these slopes above the Hebble valley, where the King Cross Social Club's sports field needs extensive retaining walls on two sides to keep it level.