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!?).

Brimham Rocks from a New Perspective #1.

Brimham Rocks from a New Perspective #2.

Brimham Rocks from a New Perspective #3.

Brimham Rocks from a New Perspective #4.

Clear Friday Evening Skies reveal
Venus's last Hurrah, beyond Winter Hill.

There's a T-Rex at Manchester Museum, and we're here for it!

5.3 miles, from Egerton, via Belmont Brook, Dunscar Golf Club, Holme's Clough, Horrocks Fold, Horrocks Hill, Horrocks Scout, Gale Brook, Dingle Reservoir and Longworth Clough. 

Sunday Morning thus presents us with the only walking opportunity for the weekend, and I'll let My Sister take the lead as the window of passable weather looks pretty tight as we depart away from Egerton via the Blackburn Road at 9.50am, on the familiar trajectory down Longworth Lane to the passage over Delph Brook and on along the track that follows it downstream and Belmoint Brook upstream before taking a definitive shift to pass over and follow the latter downstream again, heading south, which a new trajectory in these parts, along the shaded green passage that could have been the beginnings of our route to the big city on a better sort of weekend. We are lead out to shadow Dunscar Golf Course, with the southern rib of Winter Hill rising beyond, before we settle below trees again, getting run out down the valley towards the A666 before taking a sharp turn south-westerly over the cleft of Holme's Clough and rising sharply uphill to meet one of the mill reservoirs that loiter in this landscape, meeting the path that follows around this site for angling as the northern most suburban edge of Bolton arrives across the fields as we rise on up to meet the A675 Belmont Road on the western side of the valley, meeting the farmstead hamlet of Horrocks Fold beyond, rising among its cottages and active farms to the view towards Manchester, shrouded in haze to the south. My Sister's experience of the many local paths during the 2020 lockdown comes in useful as we shift west, as does the local councils enhancement of many tracks for walking and cycling hereabouts as we rise among the arbour plantations and wild fields that spread over the reach of Horrocks Hill, above its eponymous farm and up the driveway to Scout Road on the edge of the moorlands that reach north across the mass of Winter Hill, from where a view down to the heart of Bolton can be nabbed, with its Town Hall tower standing prominent in amongst it (which was the stylistic template for Morley's, if you're interested).

Longworth Road, Egerton.

The Belmont Brook - Longworth Clough path.

Dunscar Golf Club.

Reservoir above Holme's Clough.

Horrocks Fold.

Among the plantations on Horrocks Hill.

Bolton regarded from Scout Road.

Our route reaches it maximum elevation as we rise northerly to the crest of Scout Road, where cars illuminate the Winter Hill horizon at night when viewed from across the valley as the road arrives among the quarries on the hillside edge at Horrocks scout and dives down sharply, passing the concealed home of the Bolton Gun club and offering us a previously unseen aspect over Egerton, and Delph reservoir across the valley, with Turton Heights and Cheetham Close rising above, framed by the further spread of the West Pennines, and My Sis is still improving the route back as we drop down the rough path that leads us to the Belmont Road again, landing by the parish boundary stone. We'll trot up the A675's pavement to the point where Gale Brook's downfall passes below, and set off along the track that lead to the paper mill in the valley, passing over and below the embankment dam containing Dingle Reservoir before we find that path that drops us into the woodlands of Longworth Clough, descending steeply and sketchily down past the boundary of the industrial site that is still proving resistant to urban redevelopment, wandering on into the sea of greenery overgrowth that does its best to obscure the paths, or at least the apparent viability of thereof as we bottom out by Belmont (or Eagley) Brook and seek the fooot bridge that leads us over to the far bank. That puts us on a familiar track back eastwards towards Egerton, where all paths to the the immediate west seem to have lead in the past, rather than along the main road when heading toward Belmont and Winter Hill. sealing the circle for the day as we emerge from the trees and rise to meet the path division to the south, and pass up below the Lower Critchley Fold farmstead to alight on the Longworth Road again, where steps can be retraced back to our start line, aside from detouring by the perimeter of Egerton Cricket club, where the crowds are out to enjoy their family fun day, with the decent spell of weather still enduring, to the benefit of all who'll be spending their afternoon out of doors, as we seal our circuit at 11.55am, thus not delaying anyone's lunchtime unnecessarily.

Delph Reservoir and Egerton, below Turton Heights and Cheetham Close.

Horrocks Scout Quarries, from below Scout Road.

Dingle Reservoir embankment.

Tracing the Paper Mill enclosure, Longworth Clough.

The Belmont (or Eagley) Brook footbridge.

Tracing the paths of Longworth Clough, again.

Egerton Cricket Club, with Famil Fun Day.

Having showered and gotten fed, with homemade panini (which we have now all learned is actually the Italian plural of panino), we'll wrap my visit early-ish allowing the Lancashire branch of my family to decamp for a full afternoon of fun at the Stockport climbing wall, and for me to seek the train rides homeward from Bolton, lamenting that Northern and TPE aren't really covering themselves in glory with the Sunday service provision on either route through Manchester Piccadilly, but boarding the Huddersfield - Hull train on the last leg does allow me to discover that the new Morley station is indeed long enough to accommodate a six carriage train, and that factoid makes the transport geek in me absurdly happy.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 6070.2 miles
2023 Total: 148 miles
Up Country Total: 5,589.5 miles
Solo Total: 5727.6 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 46670 miles

Next Up: Down Country for a Longer Break, and finding a new trail somewhere therein.