Thursday 23 November 2017

Howden Moors - Cut Gate, Margery Hill and Howden Edge

When I did my second walk on Howden Moors a couple of months ago, I was so taken with the area I plotted a third walk there soon after I got home. This took in another clough on the eastern side of the Upper Derwent Valley, followed by Margery Hill and Howden Edge. I'd walked these two summits last year as part of a longer trip but Rich hadn't, and I thought the terrain and views would appeal to him. Taking a punt on the forecast - 20% chance of rain - proved to be a mistake, though, and we spent most of the walk in drizzle and mist. Even during the dry intervals there was little to see or photograph and it became clear that we'd need to return on a better day to do the route justice.

At the summit of Margery Hill in September.

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Friday 10 November 2017

Shropshire Hills: Caer Caradoc

There must be something in the beer in Shropshire. Normally, two walks in the same weekend would be a "hard sell" but by the time we were finishing our shandies, I'd clinched an unprecedented second walk in the same day and achieved it without bringing the next day's hiking plans to the negotiating table.

To be honest, our exploration of the Long Mynd hadn't been particularly strenuous - and we were spurred on partly by the increasingly fine weather and by Caer Caradoc itself. In terms of size it's a fairly modest hill but its prominence and the outcrops of ancient, Precambrian rock along its ridge make it alluring aesthetically. It had caught the attention of both of us as we approached Church Stretton that morning. In addition, the historical interest of the hill is more than geological, as an extensive set of earthworks lie around the summit, the remains of an substantial Iron Age hill fort.

We set off out from the town over the railway line and then across the thunderously busy A49. It was a relief to leave this behind and turn onto a quiet residential road, Watling Street North. This was named after an ancient track that had once passed through the valley, which had subsequently been paved by the Romans when they occupied the region. Eventually we came to a narrow thoroughfare that led to New House Farm and this we took, wondering where we'd squeeze ourselves in its neatly cropped hedges should a tractor come rolling along.
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Thursday 26 October 2017

Shropshire Hills: Long Mynd

I've only been to Shropshire a few times and none of those trips involved any serious walking, having been mostly devoted to sight-seeing in Much Wenlock and Ironbridge. We live not far from Shining Tor, which was one of our regular spots for short evening walks over the summer, and The Wrekin became something to look out for as the sun began to set.

The Wrekin from Shining Tor.
It was usually rather indistinct so far south-west across the Cheshire and North Shropshire Plains but it was still a singular presence on the horizon, enough to pique my interest in exploring the Shropshire Hills.

An unusually cheap hotel deal in Telford allowed us to extend the proposed day trip into an overnight stay and thus one walk became two - which in turn meant two new OS maps to add to the collection and what's not to like about that? After an early and turbulent start (the latter mainly due to me "losing" my phone twice in quick succession as we were about to leave the house), we set off into the weekend. The remnants of Hurricane Ophelia were heading across the Atlantic but we'd been promised a brief oasis of mostly fine conditions in Shropshire before the weather system made landfall.
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Thursday 19 October 2017

Lantern Pike, Harry Hut and Mill Hill

Although I've visited Hayfield many times over the years and enjoyed its charming buildings and fine selection of ale houses, I have to admit that in terms of hill-walking I've always thought of it as a gateway to Kinder Scout and not really considered what else it has to offer. Thankfully, my eyes were opened this summer when I had a spare half-day to go for a hike, slap bang in the middle of what had been excitedly trending on Twitter as #heatwaveuk.

The Sett Valley Trail.
(For anyone reading this from outside the UK, a heatwave in Britain is usually a comically short length of time with fairly regular sunshine and what would be considered mild-to-normal summertime temperatures anywhere else in our planet's temperate zones.)

Wanting to find somewhere new to walk that was close by before the skies clouded over and the drizzle recommenced, I recalled the hills we'd so often seen from the road between Glossop and Hayfield. Opening up OS Maps, I rattled out a circular route up onto them from the Sett Valley Trail, which begins (or ends, depending on your perspective) by Hayfield's bus station, and set off to explore.
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Wednesday 11 October 2017

Burbage Edge and the Upper Goyt Valley

Since we moved to the High Peak area, the hills to the west of Buxton have become a favourite area of mine for walking. Easily accessible from the town centre, the variety of terrain they provide is impressive - farmland, open moors, woodland and reservoir walking are all on offer, and these can be combined to make a full day's outing or simply a ramble of a couple of hours if time is short. The area is rich in history and I have written about some of that in a previous blog post - see here - so I'll try to avoid repeating myself in this trip report.

With all this in mind, these hills were a natural choice when I found myself with a spare afternoon to get outside last week. The forecast wasn't too inspiring but I was motivated to take a punt on the sunny spells it'd half-promised by the dreary weekend of drizzle and grey mist we'd just had.

Dark skies as I left Buxton behind.
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Wednesday 4 October 2017

Howden Moors - Howden Dean, Back Tor and Lost Lad

This walk is something of a follow-up to one I did on Howden Moors around a year ago, which took in Outer Edge and Margery Hill. As I made my return journey to the Upper Derwent Valley reservoirs via Howden Edge (confusingly, several parts of the Derwent watershed seem to bear this name) and Nether Hey, a large clough to the south east caught my eye. From my vantage point, I could see there was a clear path following the course of this great fold in the landscape.

Abbey Brook Clough from my walk last year.

On the map the terrain looked interesting and it was, I decided a couple of weeks ago, high time I found out for myself what lay hidden within this winding valley.
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Friday 15 September 2017

Foel Fadian

Foel Fadian is a hill of relatively small prominence on the fringe of the Cambrian Mountains in mid-Wales. North of its summit, the ground drops away into the fertile farmland of the Dyfi Valley and rises again onto the southern face of Cadair Idris, which stands on the horizon like a fortress guarding the entrance to Snowdonia. To the south, the Cambrian Mountains themselves stretch out before you, vast rolling uplands of moor and heath that have the curious distinction of forming the first proposed National Park to be rejected in England and Wales.
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Tuesday 29 August 2017

Gun - odd name, small hill, big views.

"An undistinguished hill at the southern end of the Peak District" is the rather sad Wikipedia description of Gun, a small, raised patch of heather moorland in north Staffordshire. And I suppose it does pale in comparison to the hills around it - The Cloud stands proud and distinct over the Cheshire plain to the west;  in the north, the rolling heights of Axe Edge Moor and and Shining Tor form a backdrop to Shutingsloe, the ambitiously-nicknamed "Cheshire Matterhorn" that looks every bit as pointy and properly hill-like as Gun signally fails to do; while to the east of our modest and flat-topped mound, Hen Cloud, Ramshaw Rocks and The Roaches provide a dramatic display of jagged rocks and ridges that draw walkers and climbers alike. On a clear day - and even through an evening haze such as on our visit yesterday - The Wrekin can be made out on the horizon, some forty miles away to the south east, its presence in Shropshire a thumbed-nose to Gun from afar, "See, this is what a real hill looks like!"

But it's exactly those vistas that make this quiet, oddly-named hill such a gem. If you live close enough or you're visiting the White Peak area, Gun makes for an ideal short stroll with rewards far in excess of the effort or time you put in to walk it. What's more, there's roadside parking on its south-western aspect and the farmland around it is criss-crossed with public footpaths, meaning you can also easily incorporate it into a longer day walk if you choose.
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Saturday 26 August 2017

Tryfan

I was in two minds for a while about whether or not to write up this walk as I'd never actually intended to climb Tryfan when I arrived in the Ogwen Valley in April of this year. I don't mean I set out to climb a different mountain and inadvertently found myself eye-to-eye with a seagull at "Adam and Eve" - I won't deny there's a reason why I call my blog "Occasionally Lost" but I've never quite gone that far astray. It was my first time at the top of the iconic Welsh mountain, though, and I suppose that should be marked with at least some sort of post, even if the weather didn't make for great pictures and my circuitous journey there isn't one I'd recommend or want to repeat.

Tryfan.
Our overnight trip to Wales had been booked for several months, for non-walking purposes, and I'd optimistically plotted myself a walk in the Carneddau to do before we returned home. In the morning, however, as we left the Llandudno Travelodge it soon became clear that the day had no intention of being... well, clear. I was determined not to leave Wales without some sort of hike but I was forced to write off the one I'd planned when we arrived at Llyn Ogwen and saw the clag that shrouded the mountain tops to the north of us. The Carneddau traverse was a walk I'd wanted to do since last year and I had no intention of squandering all that effort to wander through the sort of mist that I'd grown used to seeing when I open the curtains at home in the Peak District.
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Tuesday 1 August 2017

Sulber, Moughton Scars and Moughton

People who know us - or people who've merely seen us plodding across a hillside in the distance - might be surprised to hear that we've done the Yorkshire Three Peaks. They might be less surprised to learn that we did each of the famous fells on a separate occasion, spread over a period of about five months. That was several years ago now, before I had the blog, but the memory of the breathtaking limestone pavements and escarpments we passed on our way down from Ingleborough was one that lingered in the mind.

We talked about returning to the area to explore several times but it wasn't until last December that we finally got our act together. The walk planned was a relatively short one so we made a leisurely journey up north, stopping off for a cooked breakfast at a picturesque cafe on the way - I won't mention where we ate but the portion-size was in inverse proportion to the eye-watering price. I suppose one consolation was that at least I wasn't left in a digestive stupor afterwards as I had been a week or so before when we walked Moel Eilio - but that only just occurred to me now and did nothing to smooth over my grumbling at the time.
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Tuesday 11 July 2017

Wildflowers 2017

One of the things I've enjoyed most about moving to Derbyshire is that I now have much easier access to the White Peak and the Derbyshire Dales. Living in Manchester and being reliant for the most part on public transport meant that the majority of my solo walking made use of the railway lines that radiate out from the city into the Dark Peak towards Sheffield and Yorkshire. Now a quite different landscape has opened up to me, some of it walkable from my home, and as a result I think I've encountered more wildflowers this past few months than I have in all of my previous hill-walking days.

This whole field (pun intended!) is quite new to me, so - even with the help of the internet generally and Twitter in particular (thank you @wildflowerhour and @BSBIbotany, plus several other individual Twitter users)* - I've still struggled to identify some of the flowers I've come across. Nonetheless, I thought it'd be nice to collect the images here, some of them extracted from trip reports but many just snapped as I've wandered around on an aimless afternoon's ramble. Due to problems taking macro pictures with my camera many of the images below have been taken with my phone but hopefully the quality is good enough to bring a modicum of pleasure or interest to those who are curious about the flora of Britain.

The flowers are roughly listed in date order - i.e. the time of year at which I encountered them.

Wood Anemone:

Monk's Dale, Derbyshire, April 2017.

Monk's Dale, Derbyshire, April 2017.

Miller's Dale, Derbyshire, April 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/wood-anemone

Cowslip:

Deep Dale, Derbyshire, April 2017.

Deep Dale, Derbyshire, April 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/cowslip

Crosswort:

Pennine Bridleway near Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Pennine Bridleway near Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.


Cuckooflower:

Field south-west of Sparrowpit, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Field south-west of Sparrowpit, Derbyshire, May 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/cuckooflower

Early Purple Orchid:

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Peter Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

More info: http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/early-purple-orchid

Marsh Marigold:

Monk's Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Monk's Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Monk's Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.


Bugle:

Peter Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.


Germander Speedwell:

Pennine Bridleway near Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

Pennine Bridleway near Hay Dale, Derbyshire, May 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/germander-speedwell

Ragged Robin:

Buxton Serpentine, June 2017.


Monkey Flower:

Buxton Serpentine, June 2017.


Greater Birdsfoot Trefoil:

This is one I am not entirely sure I have identified correctly, even after comparing my picture with numerous images online.

Pennine Bridleway, north of Birch Vale Reservoir, Derbyshire, June 2017.

More info: http://www.seasonalwildflowers.com/greater-bird-s-foot-trefoil.html

Foxglove:

Sett Valley Trail near Hayfield, Derbyshire, June 2017.

Sett Valley Trail near Hayfield, Derbyshire, June 2017.

Pennine Bridleway, north of Lantern Pike, Derbyshire, June 2017.

Pennine Bridleway, north of Lantern Pike, Derbyshire, June 2017.

More info: http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/discover-wild-plants-nature/plant-fungi-species/foxglove

Tufted Vetch:

Also known as Cow Vetch or Bird Vetch.

Pennine Bridleway, southern ascent of Lantern Pike, Derbyshire, June 2017.

Pennine Bridleway, north of Lantern Pike, June 2017.

Bridle-way across Bee Low, Derbyshire, July 2107.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/tufted-vetch

Meadow Crane's-bill or Field Geranium:

Pennine Bridleway near Deep Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Field on side of Hay Dale (non-access land), Derbyshire, July 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/meadow-cranes-bill

Field Scabious:

Pennine Bridleway near Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Pennine Bridleway near Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.


Bird's-foot Trefoil:

Many of these plants have local alternative names - I particularly like that, among other things, this small flower is sometimes known as "Granny's-Toenails". 

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

By-way across Bee Low, Derbyshire, July 2017.


Meadowsweet:

I'm pretty sure this is meadowsweet but there's a niggling doubt in my mind because the leaves look quite full in all the online pictures I've seen whereas here there are barely any, and those are small and sparsely distributed (as well as blurred!).

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.


Common Spotted-orchid:

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Hay Dale, Derbyshire, July 2017.

More info: http://www.first-nature.com/flowers/dactylorhiza-fuchsii.php

Lady's Bedstraw:

By-way across Bee Low, Derbyshire, July 2017.

By-way across Bee Low, Derbyshire, July 2017.

With Red Clover, Batham Gate, Derbyshire, July 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/ladys-bedstraw

Red Clover:

Batham Gate, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Batham Gate, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Batham Gate, Derbyshire, July 2017.

Batham Gate, Derbyshire, July 2017.

More info: http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/red-clover

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