Author: Fhithich
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The Old Hell Way
Danby Rigg, a landscape of human activity since prehistoric times. A promontory of heather moorland separating the valleys of Danby Dale and Little Fryup Dale, cross dykes, field systems, burial mounds, standing stones are strewn about. Two medieval tracks cross the rigg leading from Fairy Cross Plain, the col between the two dales of Friga,…
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First snowdrop of the year
I saw my first Snowdrop today. In the wild that is, I had noticed some in the garden last weekend. This one was under the canopy the shade of an oak tree in what will be in a few months time a bracken-covered glade in Newton Wood at an altitude 200m asl. I suspect it’s…
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Passing of a front
A windy start, up on to Great Ayton Moor beneath a leaden sky. On Roseberry, sunbeams broke through to the south. Down at the folly and the sun was fully out, blue sky and a lovely end to the day. Open Space Web-Map builder Code
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The thaw begins
With the forecast expected to top 11ºc later today the thaw is well and truly underway leaving the tracks of Cliff Rigg Wood a lethal sheet of ice. Apparently, glocken is a Yorkshire term for the thaw, when the snow clears, a word derived from Old Norse. The modern Icelandic word glöggur, to become clear,…
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Round Hill Memorial Shelter
Many of you will know I don’t agree with memorials. Benches, plaques and rock carvings littering the moors. But this one has been tucked away discretely off major paths overlooking Greenhow Botton for 46 years and I didn’t know it existed until very recently. I thought it was a shooting butt at first. A circular,…
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Feeding time at Airy Holme
A busy Sunday morning for the farmer at Aireyholme. Snow makes it difficult for stock to graze and these sheep are likely to be in lamb so it’s doubly important to provide a feed supplement which the farmer is doing by a spreader on the back of his quad choreographing the sheep like the Pied…
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Sunset on Cliff Rigg Quarry
Headed up to Cliff Rigg to view the sunset which sort of fizzled out. The ridge is part of the Cleveland Dyke and is a protrusion of very hard volcanic rock cutting through the surrounding older sedimentary rocks. Formed 58 million years ago from a volcano near the Isle of Mull, it outcrops in many…
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Highcliffe Nab from Percy Rigg
This must be a first. It’s rare that I take a photo from the same spot I’ve used previously but to find myself in exactly the same place on consecutive days is unheard of. So yesterday was a view south-east, today north-east, from Percy Rigg on Great Ayton Moor. Ahead is Highcliffe Nab. The tracks…
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Rivelingdale
240 years ago today, in 1778, Captain James Cook made landfall on the Hawaiian Islands, the first European to do so. Did he pass any thoughts about his younger life in the Cleveland Hills? It’s highly likely that there would have been snow on the moors on that day. England was gripped in the Little…
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Ruined wall, Easby Bank
No snow on the North York Moors, well maybe a just a skith, as some Southerners would say, a light dusting, barely enough to cover the paths. But very cold through with a bitter, lazy wind. Lazy because it goes straight through you without swirling around. The wall divides Little Ayton Moor and Easby Moor…