I have never….

 

It’s dark and a couple of hours before dawn. As I roll over I notice there’s a cold spot where my feet are.. I shuffle wondering if rain has somehow found It’s way into the tent. While I’m considering why there’s a chill down by my feet, a wave of nausea washes over me. I lie still, trying not to move my left knee, close my eye’s again and try to drop off as quickly as possible. This is going to be painful in the morning..

 

This is my most eagerly awaited weekend since Christmas. The first camp of the year. Over the last few years, I’ve been spoilt. Calm, clear, cold and snowy. Every single one a beauty. This year was shaping up to be similar, but at the last minute the weather bods can’t make up their minds. Heavy rain, snow, gale force winds, sun.. All were possibilities get thrown at me the week before I leave. The night before I set off, It starts to Hail just before I go to bed.

My mate Jim turns up in the morning and we caught up in the kitchen, having a brew with my good lady, swapping Xmas gifts because we haven’t seen each other for months, discussing whether the weather is going to turn. Paul texts in saying the snow is still falling in Sheffield centre, but he also thinks we’re good to go. The last chance to ditch heavy packs and switch to a car camp with a big tent passes and Jim fiddles with his straps while I kiss the kids bye for the next 24 hours. We set off towards the bus stop when I realise I’ve forgotten something vital.. My Fags.

As we turn round I have a foreboding this camp just isn’t going to go as smoothly as the ones in the past.

 

When our bus rolls into Sheffield station, We have less than four minutes to get to the right stop to meet Paul. While I visit the smallest room, Jim asks the info desk where the bus leaves from. We dodge out to the other side of the Station and we can see Paul bobbing gently with impatience while he convinces the driver, that yes, we are here and he can see us just over there. Never again will I trust that a route planner from the bus company will allow enough time for transfers.

Castleton, is as it always is. Small, large, pretty, beautified honey pot that draws all kinds. Though on this cold, wet, snowy Saturday lunchtime there are few sight-seers. Just a couple of locals and a couple who asked directions to the YHA (so – people are still using them). As we walk from the station, working out the kinks in our legs and having a pleasant smoke, I notice that although the tops of the peaks themselves are in the cloud bottoms, most of the hill is visible. I managed to think all this, get my Etrex GPS on and the route to follow loaded. It’s time to leave the town behind.

The entrance to cave dale Is a narrow passage between two houses. You’ll walk past it If you're not looking for it. As you walk into it, it suddenly opens into a small valley, with Peveril castle peering over the edge.

 

The valley is much steeper than I expected. I thought it would be a nice gentle way up the hill. It’s not STEEP but it’s enough so that by the time we near the top, we have to stop and strip down a layer. We have a pasty and I take off my fleece, meaning that Paul and I are now just in our Base layers and waterproof jackets. It may not have seemed so bad, were it not for the fact that the mist now thickens, meaning the whole world becomes uniform white. It was like one of these 1950’s visions of heaven. Let me tell you. Heaven it ain’t. (The view never got better than on the video you can see on the post before this one). As we head up towards Mam Tor, I notice my heel is feeling hot. Predictably, no one had any plasters, so I re-lace the boot and carry on. By the time we’re level with Mam Tor car park, my heel is on fire. I pulled out the pole I’d brought in case Grindsbrook was iced up and lean heavily on it. As we work up onto the opposite side of the road from Mam Tor, heading towards Rushup edge I manage to twist my knee on my other leg which means both legs now hurt. We push on along the top and thankfully my heel begins to ease off on the flatter sections.

As we cross a Stile, Jim’s phone chimes. This means we have a phone signal. We stop for a bar of chocolate, a sneaky tot of rum and a quick call home to reassure Shani that we aren’t dead. Paul confides he’s happy we’d stopped because he’s getting shooting pains in his thighs.

That was it. With me hobbling along we might have been ok, but if Pauls leg gets any worse the combination could mean we end up stranded, or worse - have the indignity of having to be brought down off the hill.. That’s not happening if I can help it.

I make the decision that we will come down at Chapel Gate, instead of continuing round over brown knoll and down Grindsbrook. We make great time across the top and we’re heading down the valley sides in no time. As we start down, the snow breaks a little and we see the brown of the peat underneath. It’s weird how much you can miss colour.

Darkness falls just as we reach the valley floor and we pick up the road at Barber Booth.

I’m sad that we have cut it short, but I know it’s the right choice, especially given my knee, which had worsened while going down into the valley, now seems to have a metal bar in the joint. Now all there is to do is to cover the last mile or so, pitch the tent and get to the pub!

 

Arriving at Fieldhead campsite I mention that it is much busier on the hills and on the site than in the last few years. While I wonder why this is, we’re struck with another mini catastrophe. Paul has forgotten his sleep mat..

I give him a pair of waterproof trousers and a sit mat he can put under him with the rest of his stuff he’ s going to use to try and help keep him off the floor. Thus braced, we set off for the pub.

 

Now, I’m sure you’ve noticed, but the result of cutting short the route means that we are in Edale much earlier than we’d expected to be.

The pub was busy, the beer was flowing and the food was hot. Pretty soon we had lost pretty much all judgement, to the point that we started to play drinking games.

I have a video I took of us. I won’t be sharing it, but lets just say, it’s not pretty.

When the Nags throws everyone out we headed back to the tents. in our stupor, it’s decided that a mug of tea is be a capital idea. Finally Jim lets the side down – he hasn’t brought a mug! I brew in the pot and use the lid as a cup, with Jim using the pan side – which isn’t easy to do without burning your lips. this turns out to be just what we wanted, so we make another before we retire for the evening.

 

And this is where we started. I’ve got a damp patch near my feet (which turns out to be condensation), my knee is agony to move and though I’m plastered, I’m starting to sober up. Definitely not the best part of a night.

But the worst part?

 

Paul has to get home to meet his parents, so the slow recovery, followed by a train out of Edale around lunch is replaced with a lurching, headache of a re-pack dashing for a train well before I’m ready too.. Even now, while writing this, the memory is fresh enough to make me feel wretched again.

 

 

And so for the moral of the story?.. Remember to pack your mug…. you might burn your lips otherwise .

Another route, from me to you – free.

This time I thought I’d give you one of the nicest walks I’ve been on. It’s following the route I followed in this post HERE. It was a perfect day out with a cracking pub at the end of it (the route takes you to the edge of the village. the pub is a bit further on).

There’s a bit of scrambling at first to get over a boulder, than the walk is easy, mostly on the flat and gives cracking views all the way round..

Well worth a weekend camp if you haven’t been.

The Route is HERE.

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A nice easy wander.

Hello my friends. I've recently been away to a place called Malham. If you've never heard of it.. Shame on you. It was once the site of a colossal waterfall that dried up a long time ago, leaving a huge cliff facing out over a huge valley. I've wanted to go here for a long time, but something else always presented itself.
I got the call recently from my mate Jim, something along the lines of: I fancy going for a hike.. Any Ideas?
Of course I had Ideas, but this was the favorite from the off...
Camping in Gordale Scar, walking up the 'scar', to Malham Tarn and back down to Malham Cove.. It sounded simple and this time, It was.
In fact, although we covered a good few miles, It was pleasant, and beautiful (and the pub had cracking beer).

The campsite is nestled under the scar itself and the owner has.. Lets say - peculiarities. A brief conversation with him in morning went Me:"You're lucky to live somewhere so beautiful" Site owner: "So people tell me"....
What!!??? It is also not somewhere to go if you like your amenities. The toilets are.. Functional. There is a pot washing room and that's about it.
There is a shower in the pot washing room, but I'm not sure how long I'd have to be camped out before you could convince me to use it..
But! the site itself is in the most stunning location you could ever ask for..

The Scar Itself is caused by a combination or erosion, glaciation and quarrying. 
If you go, the path goes straight through the middle of the campsite, then there's a sharp right turn into the scar itself. Inside it is stunning. A huge open cavern with a magical waterfall at the end. 

After you climb and scramble up the back of the scar, next to the waterfall. You come out onto a multitude of grassy, extinct riverbeds. If you've ever been to the beach (and I'm sure you have) and if that beach had a small stream on it, you'll know what I'm talking about.. When the stream runs over the sand, It cuts lots of channels that criss-cross over each other.. It's like that but the sides of the stream beds were higher than me and wider than a house... These eventually peter out and you find yourself next to a road.

At this point, I must mention that on this trip, I broke a cardinal rule. I took no map. To be honest, I couldn't afford to go away and buy a new map, so I took my GPS so that, if we did get lost I could backtrack back to the site, with nothing more than a bruised ego. I needn't have worried, On a clear day, with a compass and someone who is confident in it's use, you'd probably never need a map. Maybe not even the compass.. I only used it to take a back bearing as a double redundancy for the GPS.. (DISCLAIMER: NEVER GO WITHOUT A MAP - I DID IT BECAUSE I'M STUPID AND BECAUSE I'M BROKE - NEVER TAKE RISKS WITH YOUR SAFETY).
If you find the road (which is on the OS map) it is pretty much impossible to miss the tarn. There are multiple paths and they all seemed to take you to Malham Tarn.. Now please let me inform you, Unless you have a big things for lakes, this one is pretty unremarkable. Its big, wet and somewhere pretty. It kinda reminded me of a large park near Gatwick. It was however, a great place to stop for lunch.
While we ate, facing away from the tarn, using a wall as a windbreak we were pretty much alone. (watch where you sit though - I nearly plonked myself down on a cowpat tucked right under the wall)
We followed the edge of the Tarn down to where the stream came out, and followed this to a place labelled 'Shake Holes'. This is where the stream goes underground. This is also where things get a bit bizarre.. When there was enough water running over the surface to the waterfall, things make sense. But! when the water goes underground, it gets lost and goes somewhere completely different. (the water coming out at Malham Cove, which everyone assumes is from the tarn, comes from somewhere else, quite some way away). At Shake Holes, the water goes underground. It seeps in so gently that it just slowly peters out, until there is a dry river bed. (incidentally, the last time water made it over the cliff was in the 1800's). The we had a nice surprise. While we were walking leisurely down the river bed, we started passing people on their way up. lots seemed tired and hot.. Jim remarked that the whole walk had seemed to be downhill all the way.. Mostly it is. With the exception of the climb and scramble up the scar, everything else was as good as flat. even the fall of the dried up stream beds from there to the tarn was so gentle you didn't notice). we wondered why everyone seemed so, well, hot and bothered.
It soon became apparent. on this side the river had cut a narrow path, that was beautiful , but full of still air. this lead into an almost straight glacial valley. Like nothing I'd seen before, it was as if a Deity had just pressed his finger into the ground and drawn a groove into the dirt..

 We stopped about halfway down here, just meaning to have a smoke, but it was so quiet, pretty, sheltered, warm and comfy. We stayed over half an hour. But there was no rush on this trip. The tent was already up, and it was still early in the day.

When we set off again, we soon covered the ground to the top of the cliff around the cove itself, peering over the edge and taking pictures Enjoying the distant horizon the elevation afforded us.

From there we walked the famous limestone pavement, Its deep cracks and wobbly blocks making for an interesting walk. In snow or even the wet, it'd be easy to snap an ankle up there.

This lead to the stepped path at the far end of the cove. (which is part of the pennine way. It runs right up from malham, up the valley, past the tarn and on from there). Down the steps we went, Jim still amazed we were still headed down hill. We backtracked at the bottom and went to watch the climbers for a while. Sadly the stream in the bottom was quite low (If you are ever here, a good conversational point: this is the source of the river Aire).
 
Feeling good and only slightly footsore (NB. I'm not going to walk in just one pair of socks again. I've tried it a couple of times now, and each time I've come close to getting blisters). We followed the stream and found a cracking pub called 'The Lister Arms'. Try the 'Nutty Black' It's a very easily drunk ale, but it's also a session beer, so several pints won't send you walking into lamposts.

So - a great place and a cracking walk. If  you set off from Gordale Scar it also seems downhill all the way, once you've got up the first bit. Oh, And before I forget, make sure you search out Janet's foss too. It's quite pretty.