Weeks 8a & 9 into the mountains
After walking for a week and then having a weekend off, the walking weeks now seem to coincide with calendar weeks, so this blog covers week 8b and 9, Edale to Malham.
The big news is that when I arrived in Malham I’d reached the approximate half way point between Land’s End and John O’Groats. I say approximate because on a trip of this length, with so many variables it’s hard to say where half way is, however, Malham at about 625 miles from Land’s End, looks right on the map and the numbers work so I’m saying I’m half way.
Lesser news is that two and possibly three more counties have been visited, Derbyshire was followed by West Yorkshire and then North Yorkshire; I may have strayed in to Lancashire at some stage when I was wondering around the moors above Oldham, or it could have been Greater Manchester but certainly two of the three Yorkshires have been visited. I’ve also added another National Park, the Yorkshire Dales follows the Peak District and Exmoor, next on the list is Northumberland.
The Edale weekend was a great festival of friends, hard on the heals of Carne, Angela and Terry on Saturday saw Lee Hill arrive on Sunday evening, stopping over for a chat and bottle of wine on route to Wales, it was another complete surprise to me, although Sandra was in the know.
Arthur, Sandra and Lee on the way up to Grindsbrook
Monday saw Lee, Sandra and Arthur walk me to near the top of Grindsbrook before returning to Edale for tea and chat, I continued over Kinder and on to Crowden. This was the original route of the Pennine Way which I chose for old time’s sake, and I was also back packing the next few days as far as Gargrave, again for old time’s sake.
For those who’ve never had the pleasure of visiting the “Dark Peak”, it’s an area of high moorland plateaus; acid peat bog sit on a bed of very hard rough sandstone which outcrops all along the plateaus edges like long broken walls, up to 50 feet high. The rock’s Millstone Grit, a very rough, tough sandstone, in the past it was quarried for millstones and building material, these days only walkers and climbers visit the tops, walkers to enjoy the miles of soggy bog and the climbers to revel in the steepness and roughness of the outcrops.
The Kinder Scout plateau
“Beware what you wish for” is an old saying and after several weeks of pretty if rather uninspiring walking across the Midlands I’d been looking forward to the Pennines. Real mountains and moors, real walking; I also got real mountain weather in all its windswept rain blasted glory. Fortunately, while the wind continued through most of the week the rain was confined to one spectacularly unpleasant 24 hours while I was walking from Marsden to Hebden Bridge.
The Pennines are a strange set of hills, a long, relatively thin 200 mile long spine of high ground, a huge barrier between east and west, high, cold, wet and windswept you walk for hours across moor and bog with only the curlew and skylark for company then suddenly stumble across a roaring road full of cars and lorries hurtling between the industrial cities on either side. The most famous road is probably the old Snake Pass from Glossop to Sheffield, but the most important is the mighty M62, the motorway that links Manchester and Leeds, Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Crossing the ordinary roads is straightforward, wait for a gap in the traffic then run but you can’t run across a motorway so the Pennine Way has its own bridge, a thin, high walkway at the motorway’s apex, close to Junction 22, the A672. A few hundred yards from the junction is an old lorry container, and in the container is a wonderful café run by a lady called Sue.
Junction 22 on top of the Pennines
The Pennine Way arcing over the M62
Inside Sue’s magnificent cafe.
Hebden Bridge marked the end of both the bad weather and the Dark Peak, after Hebden Bridge the hills continued but each ridge was lower than the last, until by Gargrave, about 70 mile north of Edale the hills are low enough that in the 1770’s a canal was built between Leeds and Liverpool across Pennines. It’s a magnificent, almost a ridiculous, piece of engineering, a canal cutting across the Pennines, its route also marked a change in the geology, from gritstone and sandstone in the south to limestone and the magnificent Yorkshire Dales to the north and I finished the week at Malham, jewel of the Dales famous for its limestone landscapes, especially the magnificent cove.
Most of this walk has taken me through parts of the country I’ve never or only rarely visited but for a few days I’m very close to home, walking through the Yorkshire Dales only a few miles from home, in fact it’s so close we’re able to commute from home to the route! A few days of luxury, no camping, no van, soft bed, hot baths and home cooking.
It had taken me six days to walk from Edale to Malham, quite a hard week’s walking in a variety of weathers but a very productive and enjoyable one.
Here is the week and trip totals.
Week’s Total :- 84 Miles 10,288 Feet of Ascent, 202,054 Paces, 42.75 Hours of Walking.
Walk Total to date:- 647 Miles 70,000 Feet of Ascent, 1,436,660 Paces, 295 Hours of Walking.
Land’s End to John O’Groats walk 50.5% completed.