March
And so another month and another walk approaches. Winter started in March. Its been snowing quite a bit and my walk will be in a few days time. Hopefully, for the first time there will be a bit of snow. I'm not really expecting full winter conditions, though. The only problem remaining is which walk to do. The options are becoming quite limited, and I'm only half way through. I'm determined, though, to have this walk to myself. No, really.
Anyway, it seems that, reading through previous bits of these scribblings (I start to choke if I try to use the word "work" when referring to this arkkkchhkkkofff.) - er... that it seems to be traditional to have some verbose dribblings before the start of each walk.
I'd just like to say, to bring you up-to-date that I'm still not smoking tobacco. That is to say, that I am not buying any tobacco or taking any active steps to inhale any smoke, other than to sit quite closely to smokers in the pub, or other public place where the evil weed is allowed. Second hand smoke, especially that which has been through a lung or two, smells delicious to me. I strongly suspect that it reminds me somehow of my early childhood which was, just like most post-war kids, outrageously happy and cosy and, generally, not very threatening really. The principal reasons for this was, I believe anyway, that everybody's parents had just finished with a major war (that would be World War II) and, despite their disbelief at Harold Macmillan's statement that they had "never had it so good", in point of fact, historically speaking, they hadn't. We were, perhaps, the first generation ever not to have to scrabble for food. We had good,free education, free milk and Miss Duxbury as class teacher. We had the National Health Service with Hattie Jacques matrons and nurses in capes who lived in their own fun palaces, the trains were still puffing out steam and the telly had the Lone Ranger, Zorro, William Tell, Robin Hood and , AND, mind you, Long John Silver. We had a lamb or beef dinner on Sundays and, if it was raining, we could stay in and listen to the Navy Lark on the radio, or a slightly bizarre radio programme about the cinema, containing sound-track excerpts. At Christmas, you got a sock full of fruit and nuts and you could pinch a slug of Dad's Christmas White Horse. It was fantastic. Part of all this was the all-pervading smell of second-hand cigarette smoke. Everybody smoked all of the time. The family doctor smoked. The bus driver and the policeman smoked, the school nurse smoked. The teachers and the dinner ladies smoked. Father Christmas smoked. Your mum and Dad smoked. And that's why it's so nice.
I wish I smoked. I should say that I wish I smoked a pipe. There's nothing better than sitting on a hilltop or by a beck of sweet red water, listening to a skylark up in the sky threatening a slow and painful death to any other skylarks that come anywhere near, than sucking on a pipeful of Condor Blended. It's great.
But I stopped smoking.
I stopped smoking ...
Pause to gaze into empty black pit ...
[This space is intentionally blank (sob)]
Nostalgia - it's not what it used to be.
And another thing by the way - I thought that since we're halfway through and, as I've mentioned somewhere previously, in the Howgills, we are in Yorkshire. It's now time to introduce the non-tyke readers to the Yorkshire dialect. I should explain that Yorkshire actually has a number of dialects by which the interested listener can determine with some accuracy, the place where the speaker has been brought up.
As it's so complicated, you may well not always understand what's being said. So, by way of being helpful, when I have been spoken to in dialect, I won't just repeat what the old Tyke has said, but will, instead go straight to a literal translation.
For example: as one elderly farmer near Cautley explained to me one afternoon whilst simultaneously stroking my dog and pointing towards the fells, and delivered with a knowing wink "The meerkat has eaten my pants". Dialect, you see. But more of this later. Much, much later.
So, on we go ...
March
Tebay - Blease Fell - Uldale Head - Docker Knott - Uldale
9 Miles - 2000 feet of ascent
Note the extraneous loop or appendix at the top (North) end of the walk. You don't need to do this.
This was the almost correct version of the walk I did with that other bloke in January - you know, the one where he promised to sit in the back and keep his gob shut, but couldn't resist a few tangents, the odd loop and a couple of unplanned summits. You remember, the walk with the pathetic excuse for navigation. Well, this time it was just me and the dog. Nobody to drag me off route. No buggering about.
Anyway - we, that is, me and Bruno, set off in high spirits, with a friendly exchange with a bloke feeding some ponies, an optimistic lark, who obviously thought it was a warm day in June, and a hint, just a hint of bright, blue sky.
As we climbed the now familiar route onto Blease Fell, a vast array of snowy Lake District hills appeared on one side, and another even vaster array of North Pennines hills appeared on the other.
Underfoot, there were large patches of icy snow. Bruno visited as many of these as his retractable lead would allow, biting chunks off here, rolling about there, and digging a hole somewhere else. I noticed a couple of old footprints descending the hill and one set of new prints going up. We were soon at the cairn near the top. The one with the fine view of the M6. Remember?
Anyway, apart from the M6, there is, in fact, a rather fine view of the Borrowdale/Whinfell hills and a substantial chunk of the Lake District from Black Combe in the far South to somewhere else quite a bit further North.
Look, I can't be spending all my time investigating the bloody view can I? I have a walk to walk. I have hills to conquer and a banana to eat. Later on, if there's time, I might weed out the little dandelion growing out of my safety netting. If I've got the time.
Anyway - we, that is, me and Bruno, set off in high spirits, with a friendly exchange with a bloke feeding some ponies, an optimistic lark, who obviously thought it was a warm day in June, and a hint, just a hint of bright, blue sky.
So, onwards and downwards on an ATV track, vague at first, but much better later. This was new ground, since the January walk had gone off on its own at this point, and, as readers will testify, never really came back, although we will cross its path a couple of times again.
In the bealach between Blease Fell and Uldale Head, we stopped for a spot of banana and coffee. The sun was actually quite warm and the view not bad, including another section of the M6. Its actually quite interesting to watch for ten minutes or so.
Uldale Head from here is just a simple slog. And so, we slogged fairly simply to the top, and, crossed it, in view of the perishing wind, without stopping, for a steep descent into Blakethwaite Bottom. (Fine wild camping spot by the way) (Er.. did I mention this before? Am I repeating myself. ? Myself?
Now I have waxed lyrical about the beauties of the Bottom in previous chapters. Today, it was just as much a Shangri-La as I'd thought previously. Out of the cold Easterly blowing off the Pennines, we rested by the little beck running off Docker Knott and scoffed cheese butties in warm sunshine. At least, I scoffed and Bruno dribbled, and when I'd finished and was dozing off, he played in the beck. I love this place. What a fantastic place to have a smoke. I spent half an hour wishing I hadn't stopped smoking and then made my way up the stumbly tussocks and patchy ice to the top of Docker Knott. Ardent readers with good memories will remember the picture of the strange gully which, in a low November slant, looked almost like a really spooky beckoning hand. Well, it was this gully besides which I climbed. It's quite steep. It looks nothing like a hand. Bit of a slog, really. The only other occupants of Docker Knott were three black fell ponies, grazing and sort of watching us. They looked very skinny. Somebody should feed them.
From Docker Knott, I went North - down a bit and then up on to Hand Lake. As I climbed Hand Lake, I pondered on the fact that there was no lake and neither was there a hand. But then I thought, actually, there is a hand. I took a picture of it. It's in the November walk. There's no lake, though. Definitely no lake. Unless lake means something else, other than a er, lake. Laiking is dialect for playing. Playing a hand ...? Card games? Gambling?
Actually, there are dark rumours that Blaithethwaite Bottom has been used fairly recently for cock fighting sessions. A rambler chancing accidentally upon one of these events might well be threatened. It wouldn't be a pleasant experience...Sometimes sinister things can happen in the best of wild camping spots.
Anyway the top of Hand Lake isn't quite where the spot height on the map shows it. Its got an extra bump at the North end of the summit. There's a very small pile of stones to mark the spot.
I headed for a sheepfold deep down in Uldale. This involved a sort of descending traverse on steepish grass. I let Bruno off his lead seeing as there was nothing for him to chase, and he was determined to bite my feet every time I crossed a snowfield, causing me almost to fall over him a couple of times. He bounced down the hill and ran back up again several times just for a laugh. Actually, it was just for a bark. Eventually, we arrived at the sheepfold, me feeling a bit knackered by this time, and Bruno acting as if he'd just drunk twelve pints of super-caffeinated extra-strong coffee of the kind I used to drink when I had a job. He was determined to visit every last patch of snow he could see, to eat a bit, and generally stamp about in it. I let him get on with it, calling him back every now and then just to remind him I was there. Each time he came back with such an outrageous level of enthusiasm it was a sheer joy to have him. Bruno really enjoys life. He likes running about and he likes being called to heel and having his lead put on, which stops him running about. Long may he never make the connection. I was very proud of him just then. As a reward, I let him stay free for as long as there was nothing to chase.
The map shows a path leading from just above the sheepfold along the side of the valley and around the brow of the hill. At the sheepfold, the path can't be seen. However, by following the line where it should be, a thin trod soon appears. This pretty much contours along the valley at about 320 metres, and, as the valley drops slowly away below, it gets clearer the further North you go. The path seems to be used mainly by the local ponies, though by following the route on the map, it goes through Blakethwaite Bottom, (fine wild camping spot) around the head of Black Force and comes out of the hills at Howgill and Castley. It is, the same road that I walked in November. It seems to be a very old trackway. Here in Uldale, it's almost disappeared, but there are hints of engineering here and there and, as it rounds the brow of Uldale End, there is a definite rake. I must work out the logistics of a linear walk using this path. It really wants to be walked. It told me that itself. Has a bit of a lisp, in fact.
I put the dog back on the lead at Uldale End, since I'd seen animal movements, probably ponies, and, somewhere over towards Cotegill, I could hear sheep. Our route took us through deep rushes to the point where back in January we had crossed Eller Gill. I stopped here for the final dregs of cold coffee. In the pasture inside the intakes, were the sheep I'd heard. I suspect that, since they were off the fell, they were in lamb. A sign of spring...
We soon joined the path across Weather Hill. This was the point where the third navigational error had happened back in January. I was determined to get it right this time. I was very careful with the map. I identified exactly where a path to Waskew Head turned off, and then walked past it thinking "This bit seems to be going on longer than it should". A fence that isn't marked on the map was crossed at a gap. And then, shortly after, a path heading in the correct direction appeared. So I followed it. Shortly afterwards, I came upon a wall with no obvious way across, and a barbed wire fence. I could see our January route was only about 200 metres North of where I was. A farm to the South seemed to be Overclugill. I didn't know where I was. The GPS told me I was, in fact North-East of Waskew Head and, that the path junction I should have taken was 400 metres South East.
So I went back up the hill to the path junction. No wonder I missed it. Look, normally, I'm fairly good at the navigation thing. But if the map's wrong... What it was, see, is that on the map the path junction is very close to a wall junction near a place called New Field. Now, where there's two walls meeting on the map, in reality there's only one wall, the other being seen in ruins some distance away, and only if you look very carefully for it. New Field, it would seem, is now just a patch of trees. The path to Waskew Head appears not to be there at all. Anybody would miss this. Anyway, the point is, if you do this walk (which I recommend by the way), you should be even more very careful than I was. I expect that you'll get it wrong anyway. I do hope so, I really do. Sitting there, all smug...
From Waskew Head, which seems to be a graveyard for old vans, the way back to the start is simplicity itself. Just follow the road. This will have you back at the car and on your way home in double-quick time. Unless you let your dog paddle in the beck and spend half an hour talking nonsense baby-talk to a bunch on nervous fell-ponies in a paddock.
Without all the messing about, this is a fine walk. The views all around are first class. On a summer day, with the larks larking about and meadow pipits pippiting, it would be a fine way to spend the day. The environs of Blakethwaite Bottom (wild camping, fine place, good...burble...) are magical, and Uldale is suitably wild. Anybody who thinks these hills dull, is probably quite dull themselves and should be confined to Borrowdale, Glencoe, Langdale or anywhere, in fact, with a hikers' bar.
Just a thought, though - to be fair, this walk is probably not too brilliant when the hill fog is down, unless you want to play at navigating, in which case, it's a good one. You'll probably get lost, though. As I say, I hope so anyway.
