Hebden Bridge to Queensbury 02/10/21

9.9 miles, via Machpelah, Birchcliffe, Chiserley (sorta), Midgley Moor (Collon Flat & 
 Dimmin Dale), Luddenden Dean, Low Bridge, Warley Moor (Height Edge, Sleepy Lowe Flat, 
  & Rocking Stone Flat), Cold Edge, Hunter Hill, Stod Fold, Lower Brockholes, Illingworth,
    Bradshaw, Raggalds, Mountain and Hill Top (abandoned en route to Bradford). 

After ten years of doing this, I really ought to have learned by now to not necessarily trust my weather eye when trying to predict the weather for the Pennines from my regular haunts in greater Leeds, as this past week had me observing all the changeable weather patterns of early Autumn from my vantage point at Seacroft Hospital and figured that a white cloud day projected for Saturday couldn't be more challenging than the passage of sunshine and showers that had covered the five days that preceded it, a display of climate naivete that's completely in keeping with 2021's experience. Our ride out to Hebden Bridge for our fifth and final embarkation of the year has us doubting the weather quality for the day, already grey and drizzly before we're off the train for a start ahead of 9.15am, already happy that we chose to graduate up to a long sleeved jacket before we headed out, and the rain's already coming on as we pass over the Calder and the Rochdale Canal, and make our way across the Burnley Road to the Machpelah terrace and the road towards Keighley, turning northeast as we meet the steep flight of steps that elevates us rapidly up to the raked terraces of Birchcliffe. It'd be a challenging ascent even in warmer temperatures, and as we hit the top, the reach of Marlborough Terrace continues at a similar sort of pitch, as if this town built its urban sprawl without real consideration for how practical it might be as we're elevated high above the combining valleys on the troublingly slick cobbles, passing above the rooftops and looking back to Heptonstall across the way before we join Sandy Gate, shadowing the fall of the Nut Clough as we press on northeasterly, above the tree line and into the rural apron of fields above. It's a slog up this damp tarmac, doing the ascent of the regular 150m of Calderdale ascent and then some as we push away from the clough edge to Lane Ends Lane, getting the fine view of all the amalgamating channels around Hebden Bridge as we press uphill, taking us to the south of Chiserley village, and its nearby companions to the north in Wadsworth and Old Town, almost grazing the settlement as we pass the Hare & Hounds inn by the high lane junction, and join Popples Lane beyond, accessing the farmsteads on the high marginal lands. 

The Birchcliffe Steps, Hebden Bridge.

Sandy Gate terrace.

The Hare & Hounds, Chiserley.

It's a hard surface to follow, with expanding views down into the valleys below, unseen since our sole passage up here on the Calderdale Way in 2012, a route which is to be found once we're off the tarmac, past the corner to Lower Rundell farm (no longer calling itself Dick Ing, sadly), and it's a rough green path to follow up to the moorland edge, as horribly overgrown as you might expect for this time of year, and soaking wet thanks to the conditions, even if the rain does ease back as we rise, though greyness washes over everything when looking back to spy Stoodley Pike and up towards Sheep Stones Edge and Cock Hill. Land on Midgley Moor's edge, and the way across this narrow spur of moor isn't the most obvious, and even through it's only going to be a brief crossing on a relatively low patch across Collon Flat and Dimmin Dale, it's a push to get going over the rise, where we immediately notice red flags indicating that there is grouse shooting going on, to the south of where we're passing, and thus not placing us in their firing line, which doesn't prevent alerts being shouted my way, and a shotgun-armed observer directing me onto the paths that keeps me away from the grouse butts. I'm informed that they've only got three days of permitted shooting up here per year, and that they can't fire any shots while passers-by are on the moor, and it's not my intent to deliberately disrupt their fun, despite my concealed disapproval, as we're sent over towards the path that descends into Luddenden Dean, which has arrived ahead of us as we carry on over the 380m crest, filling the horizon with views up to Warley Moor and Ovenden Moor as we seek the gate to the way down, noting that all the gun-handlers drove up here, judging by the number of 4x4s parked on the high edge of the Castle Carr estate. A sea of late season Bracken covers the path down, obscuring the steep and stepped path that sheds over 100m of altitude down into the valley, mostly shadowing a wall at short remove south of Back Clough, with the waist-high greenery having not died back yet and thus soaking me with all the moisture that's run off it as we come carefully down toward the mostly concealed valley floor, with an open field path concluding the descent as it leads us down to the Castle Carr Low Lodge house, and then bottoming out at the crossing over Luddenden Brook at Low Bridge.

Looking back to Hebden Bridge from the Midgley Moor fringe.

Grouse Shooters on Midgley Moor.

The way off MidgleyMoor, to Luddenden Dean.

The steep descent to Luddenden Dean.

My legs know what's coming after that testing descent, a testing ascent, which immediately gets going as Low Lane leads us up to Low Cottage, and thence over the wall to trace the footpath up the northeastern side of the valley, giving us a warning to avoid the cattle in the high fields before sending us up a rough track initially before switching back and directing us through the open fields on an angled trod towards a blind crest, indeed finding the cows, who are mostly idly sheltering from the drizzle that's coming on from the southwest, sat around the stile over their enclosure wall. One more field passage leads us up to Upper Height farm and castle Carr Road, high on the northern edge of Luddenden Dean, where we find Height Lodge guarding the not officially accessible lane into the estate with another castellated gatehouse, where we take shelter behind a high wall to don the red waterproof before we start our rise onto Warley Moor, the last of the local moors where we haven't travelled to before, with a clear trod angling us again uphill, away from the passage made across the valley and towards the views downstream before Height Clough lands among the moorland grasses and directs us towards our traversal route. It's nice to find some dry going on this south side of the moor, as the turf remains un-waterlogged as we rise up, pacing on boots that again feel like their waterproofing is failing in testing conditions, as we come up over the drain that feeds into Haigh Cote reservoir and are guided by occasional cairns up onto Sleepy Lowe Flat, where the turbines on Ovenden Moor rise on the horizon ahead and we transition onto the heather moor, and the going underfoot immediately worsens, bringing on the wet going that a friend's trip over this way many moons ago warned us about. Despite the route remaining obvious, many pools of uncertain depth have accumulated along its length, especially after we crest onto the the plateau of Rocking Stone flat, where a detour could be made to see the Rocking Stone itself, just off to the north, through the likely gathering of foul weather behind us has us full of intent to press on ahead, stepping around the potential bogginess and splashing around enough to get the boot saturated once again, while we enjoy having a hard edged horizon ahead until the rain comes on behind us.

Ascending the path out of Luddenden Dean

Height Lodge, Castle Carr.

Sleepy Lowe Flat, Warley Moor.

Rocking Stone Flat, Warley Moor.

There's another moorland drain to cross on duckboards before we sneak a path among more bogs concealed by the long grass ahead of the rise off the moor, directing us to the west slide of Slade farm, a real location on the edge of habitability, and surely one of the most elevated inhabited houses in the county, at over 410m up, and existing in a state of perpetual makeover judging by the amount of builders debris that lines its driveway up to Cold Edge Road, a path we can't follow as the right of way cannot pass through its over-sized gate. Thus we are forced onto the path across the moorland fringe to the track that swings around the Withens Head farmstead, at the head of the upper branch valley of Luddenden Dean, where we can look downstream towards the Cold Edge dams and Wainstalls village before we land on the moorland road again, just by the electrical shed that service the turbines of the Ovenden Moor wind farm, as the rain comes on hard at the very summit of our trip, blasting the Cold Edge road with more cold rain than I'd ever dreaded to expect. It's pretty clear that we aren't going to see this route all the way to Bradford, and now we need to seek a route home, despite being far from any of the four plausible bus routes away from around greater Halifax, and thus we stick to the path as plotted for the time being, filling in the missing gap as we head down from the high point on the roads towards the microwave masts and the former Withens Head hotel, to fill in the high portion of the road that we hadn't seen before, before all of the Calderdale horizon to the south greys out completely. There's no way to shelter from the rain as it scythes down over the Luddenden Dean - Hebble Brook watershed ridge, and no matter where we end up the issue is going to be that we are going to be very wet indeed as legs and boots are already saturated, and the lightweight waterproof is soon to be overwhelmed from without, and thus we track south, deciding to aim for the northern fringe of Halifax, one valley passage away, before we think about quitting, feeling that the buses out of Wainstalls or Mount Tabor might not be regular enough to be useful at this point in the trail.

Slade farm, Warley Moor.

Look down the Dean to the Cold Edge Dams.

The Cold Edge masts, and the Withens Head hotel (former)

Heavy Rain on Cold Edge Road.

As we meet the off-road option at Hunters Hill, we actually have the rain ease off, which is a pleasant bonus, as we squelch our way onto the grassy track that leads into the quarried out hillside, wondering if this rain is going to frazzle my camera again as we wander off the route that the Calderdale Way brought us down this hillside, and detour off footpaths that bring us around the below the hill's high nab, instead directing us above the deep cleft of Slaughter Gap as it flows off the ridge and down into the Hebble Valley. It's not a great path choice as every option on the descend is damp or muddy, not that such things really matter as we're already plenty wet enough already as we wander down among the ruins and foundations of a number of lost cottages and farmstead below the quarried out hilltop, landing on the track that once led to Goose Clough farm and taking shelter under the trees as the rain resumes, feeling that my camera is about to give up completely as we meet the field crossing to Stod Fold. Land on the hard surfaces of this farm cluster, and note that it's gained an independent brewery since the Calderdale Way brought us here on a much nicer October day in 2012, and the valley passage bottoms out a short way along the driveway as we pass over Hebble Brook, eschewing the option of bolting to the bus stand in Mixenden as we aim ourselves further across the valley, rising with Lane Head Lane (again!) to the Lane Head farmsteads, where a glance back can illustrate the intensity of the descent that we just did, in weather conditions that really should have proved more slippery. A look downstream as we rise will show up Mixenden reservoir on its perch above the estate of the same name, but that view down the Hebble Valley will be the last we snare for the day as the unrelenting rain finally fries my camera, just as we hit the stretch of lane's rise above Lower Brockholes and up to Field Head Lane at the uppermost edge of Illingworth, tying 2012's long circuit to the urban circular route we did around it's major town last year, and being in the immediate vicinity of Halifax's outermost estates, it would seem to be a really good, and wise, place to quit the day.

Hunters Hill and the Hebble Valley.

Among the lost farmsteads on Hunters Hill.

Hebble Brook at Stod Fold.

Lower Brockholes farm and Mixenden reservoir.

For some reason, catching the bus back to Halifax doesn't appeal, and despite the weather and an inability to continue to record the passage of the day, we are filled with intent to continue, largely because this route was originally plotted in 2013 as Hebden Bridge to Queensbury, and although most of the back half of it has been extensively reworked since then, it seems appropriate to match that intent, and carry on up to the Calder - Aire ridge because continuing for another hour couldn't possibly be a terrible idea. Thus we press on with Pavement Lane, away from Halifax and on towards Bradford district, rising to meet Bradshaw village by St John's church and the war memorial, ahead of the village school and the Golden Fleece inn, while it also offers interesting runs of long terrces which ribbon their way up Bradshaw Lane's side as we rise on below the decline of the southern face of Soil Hill, showing up a stone styling that is much more in keeping with Bradford's urban villages that those in greater Calderdale to its south. It's all something that will need to be revisited in the future, I'm sure, as Green Lane snakes away beyond, rising to offer no views at all across Halifax thanks to the rain, and passing the old White Castle Brewery before we find that the way up to the Queen's Head inn at Raggalds is a much longer walk than was anticipated, and despite landing on the A644, it seems that the Brighouse & Denholme Road cannot offer us a regular bus service to board, and thus we have to conclude the day in Queensbury, in spite of the fact that my walking resolve has now crumbled. It's a trek uphill along the pavement to get to Mountain, and another trek beyond to make our way on past Fox Hill school, where grey haze bleaches out all of the potential views down the valley of Thornton Beck, before we trudge down Albert Road to enter the town and eventually meet the crossroads by the Queensbury Arms and Black Dyke Mills, and rock up to the bus stop by the Victoria Hall at 1.35pm, way later than I'd thought I'd manage in the utterly terrible and confounding conditions, which I might note endure all the way along my rides on the #576 and #427 buses homeward.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5207.1 miles
2021 Total: 465 miles
Up Country Total: 4744.1 miles
Solo Total: 4875.5 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3804.9 miles

Next Up: All the Worth Valley Stations, All of Them...

~~~

Pandemic Thoughts: September 2021

Through this past month, we can really start to get the feeling of what 'living with Covid' might really be like, as the circumstances of the pandemic seem to have settled into being a feature of normal life, especially as the infection rate has settled into a shockingly consistent pattern of around 35,000 infections per day, and the death rate sitting constantly at above 150, as if people are no longer being directly killed by a Covid infection in significant numbers, and are instead having it trigger a different fatal condition when in an immuno-suppressed state. That's certainly what happened in the case of a former minister of My Parent's church, who died recently after being hospitalised with a Covid infection, which brought on a bout of pneumonia which proved unsurvivable, this being despite that fact he'd been vaccinated, though being far beyond 90 years old and suffering from dementia and other old age related conditions meant that he was never going to be in a good place when facing down any kind of illness in his circumstances, and that gives us something personal to reflect on as we face the possibilities of what might happen next. We do get, at the very least, a favourable decision being made by the nation's chief medical officers that opens up vaccinations to all kids in the 12-15 bracket, after someone realised that serious illness is not the only negative outcome for children, as the disruption to the education system for a third year could plausibly be prevented by protecting those who are at the highest risk of spreading infections at present, and it'll be all at the children's discretion too, meaning that My Nieces are sure to be at the head of their queue when the option is available. For the rest of us adults, it looks like we're not going to have to be worrying about the need for vaccine passports in England, as after so many months of dithering on their implementation, HM Government has finally concluded that they're probably not necessary and would be too difficult to enforce, and when we have the Vaccines Minister speculating on the need to plan for the possibility of an October half-term lockdown, we immediately have the Heath Secretary saying that they're not planning on doing such a thing (which sounds like they literally haven't considered that passage of events at all, rather than not openly speculating on restrictions that might not happen).

More significantly, after last month projected the possibility of the initial course of vaccinations losing their effectiveness over a long period of time, we get the rollout of the vaccine booster programme in the UK, giving a third dose to the elderly and those with high-risk medical conditions initially, in the hope of preventing a fourth wave of serious infections and death across the coming Autumn and Winter seasons, and that's already advanced enough that My Mum and many family friends in east Leicester have already been jabbed again as we write here. It's going to open to NHS workers too, though whether that's for front line staff and the over-50s only is not clear, and it looks like I'll be waiting until next months to see if my invitation comes through once the six month period since my second dosing passes, and that'll give another layer of personal security to cloak ourselves with going forwards, though I'd be just as happy to hear news of vaccines being made available across swathes of the developing world, where vaccination rates are still shockingly low after nearly a year of them being available. It's also worrying to hear of the spikes in infection and death rates in the supposedly developed world, as the politicization of the pandemic has resulted in so many resisiting vaccination as a statement of personal freedom, as if they didn't understand how herd immunity needs to work, and the fact of leaving a novel disease to circulate makes it more dangerous over time, which is something to consider when epidemiologists speculate that it's entirely plausible that the SARS-Cov-2 virus could only be a mutation or two away from creating a vaccine resistant variant. That's not a pleasant thought to consider as we pass through the end of summer, also contemplating what we might regard as a flu season for the ages approaching, as we await the news of vaccinations being made available in the coming Autumn, especially as there's no real consensus  about which influenza variants we might need protection against this year, as there hasn't been any significant data coming out of the usual hot-spots in East Asia to work with, and we look at a situation of normal circulation continuing through the Dark Season, with a population having forgotten about the inherent risks of the flu season, which could very plausibly kick this country's ass in the winter.

Elsewhere, we've still got that supply crisis to worry about, a global situation of not being able to transport bulk goods in the massive quantities that the economic sequences needs, which has resulted in apparent food shortages and reduced options in stores around the developed world, which hasn't been aided in this country after the post-Brexit economy has caused issues with imports and the costs thereof, as well as the shortage of HGV drivers as so many foreign workers quit the UK en-mass without any replacements being available. There's also a cost of living crisis developing too, as bulk gas prices have soared, caused in part by a dispute between Russia and the EU, which could see a huge increase in domestic utility bills across the coming season, along with shortages that also affect the food processing industry, which could easily result in a rise in food costs, and an increase in panic buying, as people fear that the supply might be disrupted ahead of Christmas, something that's already been witnessed by My Mum, some three months ahead of the festival itself. We even manage to have ourselves a petrol shortage, after a handful of filling station in southeast England managed to run dry, due to a disruption in deliveries, and a government minister assured that there wasn't a shortage and there was absolutely no reason to panic buy, which immediately resulted in panic buying across the country and creating the shortage that wasn't going to occur, as if nobody had learned anything from the experience of the toilet paper shortage last year, after global concern was sparked due the possibility of disruption of paper processing in Australia. It's all reportage that fills me with a sort of gloom, making me reflect and look forward with little of the good spirits that we had in the middle of September, holidaying away in Hebden Bridge for our first get away since the Pandemic arrived, and being able to do some limited circulation and socializing with family and friends without the grip of anxiety being felt due to the risks of illness which still hang in the air, a moment which now feels more like a brief period of respite, rather than a normalization of circumstances, ahead of six months of colder weather and the challenges that always come with them, something that we're now much more aware of than we used to be, after 18 months of the age of Covid.