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.
Sunday, 30 May 2021
Halifax to Apperley Bridge 29/05/21
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| Out with the old Boots #7, and in with the new Boots #8! |
As my Spring Jollies at Home week ends, but my Ten Day Weekend concludes, there are some feelings of frustration to be had as we shift back into the regular scope of walking from home, firstly, is that fact that the 20+ miles of walking time lost due to horrid weather conditions over two days at the start of the month have resulted in my missing the opportunity to breach my first 5,000 mile target of my walking career this weekend, standing at only 33 miles distant as we open out today, meaning the chance to gather the family, or at least have Mum stick around at mine for another day, to force a celebration of sorts, is gone. Equally annoying is the fact that Pair of Boots #7 have given up the ghost quite spectacularly, with the extensive gluing applied to their uppers in the late portion of last year having failed to prevent their demise in the face of the all the mud and wetness that they have encountered since being revived a month ago, when I'd hoped that they too would see me past 5,000 miles, and thus Boots #8 has to be purchased, going back to the suede and mesh styles of my initial pairs, after encountering the poor wear of the uppers on Mountain Warehouse's all leather styles, as well as being put off by their suddenly increased cost. I've no idea at all if these Storm boots will endure like their 5,000 mile sole guarantee suggests they ought, or whether I'll have bust them up by the end of 2022, but they're £40 less expensive than a like-for-like replacement and are going to need a breaking in walk as my feet have gotten used to rigid uppers and heavier soles over the last few years, and thus we'll have to adapt our walking plans around the risk of blistering or other foot trauma, meaning urban walking is the order of the day, allowing us a more limited route mileage and multiple opportunities to bolt from the trail, if needs be.
Friday, 28 May 2021
Bronte Way #3: Wycoller to Gawthorpe Hall 27/05/21
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #3 at Wycoller Country Park |
Two rest days are taken from the trail in the midweek period of 2021's Spring Jollies at Home, to allow time for other activities like shopping, spring cleaning and generally getting our house in order before The Way is rejoined at its most awkward extremity, but not putting Mum too far out of the way on another day out for her while performing Parental Taxi duties, dropping us off at 9.50am under much brighter conditions than we saw three days back above Wycoller's valley, at the country Park's Haworth Road car park, where we can both regard The Atom in a much more positive light than we did on Monday, as sunshine really elevates the views from the Panopticon. Looking forward to a whole day of walking into the previously unknown in Lancashire, our first in a long while, The Way needs to be returned to by the descending path down to the hamlet, giving us restored views over Pendle Hill and its borough downstream as we return to Wycoller Hall's ruins where we can poke around the remains of this late 16th century hall, dismantled in the early 19th century, meaning we have the same sort of edifice to regard as Charlotte Bronte supposedly did, as we wander among its rooms and around to the aisled barn, and that's going to be about it for the Bronte connections as The Way seems to have fallen like the Hadrian's Wall Path, having crammed most of its points of interest into its middle portion. We'll need to trip around the hamlet before we go, tracing the track to its northwestern end by Lowlands Farm, and the pricey new cottages that have been added in here, then coming back up the main street, crossing over the beck as we go and quietly marveling at how expensive and Cotswolds-ish it all feels, ahead of us meeting the Packhorse and Clapper bridges again and heading on upstream along the metaled path on the southern bank, through some willow tunnels and across a small wetland reserve as the settlement falls away behind us.
Tuesday, 25 May 2021
Bronte Way #2: Thornton to Wycoller 24/05/21
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #2 at Bronte House, Thornton. |
For leg #2 of this trip across a Chunk of West Yorkshire's literary history, I've got my Parental Taxi in attendance, so there's no need to make the frustratingly long bus ride via Bradford Interchange to get out to Thornton, as Mum can drive me out here, getting in behind the rush hour traffic, and not putting her out of her way at all as she can continue on to visit friends of hers in Skipton without having to put much more than a dozen miles on the round trip from Morley along the way of acting as my shuttle, like she would normally have done if we were having normal Spring Jollies. So alight on Thornton Road at 9.45am, and scurry back up Ball Street to mick up the trail once again at the Bronte House, where Rev. Bronte recalled as having spent the happiest years of his life (mainly because all the members of his family were alive whilst residing there), before we set off with the trail up Market Street, taking in more of this pleasingly rural vintage village, as we roll up to the Black Horse inn on the West Lane corner and rise up to meet the suburban spread of the village above, taking us past the Thornton Mill redevelopment and up to the chapel and Sunday school on the James Street Corner. Cross here and rise to the path on Reservoir View, the last terrace in the village at this altitude, and enter the equestrian fields and meadow beyond, perched up the valley side above the tapering west end of the village, affording come fine views up and down the valley, as well as to Thornton viaduct as it descibes it less than straightforwards passage up from the south, before we enter Thornton cemetery and trace its wide promenade path across its width, between the raked terraces of graves up and down the hillside. A rough track and field path guide us on, from Bottom of the Row farm, and up to Close Head farm, as we look down to the passge of Well Heads tunnel, its portal hidden in the wooded pit below, and still no closer to being revived than int was in 2013, and we'll start on that year's route again as we rise up to Well Heads hamlet, with its stone terraces stretching down from the White Horse inn, atop the rather blasted feeling ridge that rises between Thornton's valley and the next one over to the north.